Alaska for Obama?

wrote:
On Jul 30, 10:38 am, rw wrote:


Can you explain why a resident of Alaska should have (effectively) three
votes for every one vote of a resident of California or Texas?


Which vote will get more campaign dollars spent trying to sway it?

Jon.

You've touched on another problem with our electoral system. The
state-by-state winner-take-all system concentrates campaign effort and
money into a few "swing" states, while the candidates all but ignore the
voters in solidly red or blue states. This isn't good. It holds our
politics hostage to small, highly motivated constituencies in the swing
states.

A good example is Florida, where the candidates have to kowtow to the
Cuban-American vote. As a result, I believe, our foreign policy with
respect to Cuba has been stagnant and counterproductive for decades.

--
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"rw" wrote in message
m...
..
The only real effect is to magnify the voting power of residents of small
states at the expense of residents of large states,

which was precisely the compromise that enabled the creation of a Republic
of large and small population states. Otherwise, an agreement would have
never been reached, and the USA, as we know it, never would have existed.
Does the system work perfectly? No. Would any system? Just because a system
of simple majority seems simple, doesn't mean that it doesn't present very
real electoral/representational pitfalls. And, yes, you are correct in
citing how the system at the outset was able to work(before any real two
party setup in the current sense). Still, cite an example where the system
failed, beyond the fact that the person YOU supported didn't win. The
debacle of 2000 was NOT the fault of the electoral college system, it was a
corruption of the electoral system in one state. An electoral system
consisting of simple majority can be corrupted and abused every bit as
easily.
Tom

On Jul 30, 1:58 pm, rw wrote:

You've touched on another problem with our electoral system. The
state-by-state winner-take-all system concentrates campaign effort and
money into a few "swing" states, while the candidates all but ignore the
voters in solidly red or blue states. This isn't good. It holds our
politics hostage to small, highly motivated constituencies in the swing
states.

So we should go back to locally elected electoral college members who
will considerately cast their vote for president? ;-)

Jon.

rw wrote:


A good example is Florida, where the candidates have to kowtow to the
Cuban-American vote. As a result, I believe, our foreign policy with
respect to Cuba has been stagnant and counterproductive for decades.


....not to mention the problems in being able to fish in some of the
finest salt water fisheries and freshwater bass lakes in the world.

Tom Littleton wrote:
"rw" wrote in message
m...
..

The only real effect is to magnify the voting power of residents of small
states at the expense of residents of large states,


which was precisely the compromise that enabled the creation of a Republic
of large and small population states. Otherwise, an agreement would have
never been reached, and the USA, as we know it, never would have existed.
Does the system work perfectly? No. Would any system? Just because a system
of simple majority seems simple, doesn't mean that it doesn't present very
real electoral/representational pitfalls. And, yes, you are correct in
citing how the system at the outset was able to work(before any real two
party setup in the current sense). Still, cite an example where the system
failed, beyond the fact that the person YOU supported didn't win.

I'll cite two.

In the Presidential Election of 1876 Samuel Tilden won the popular vote
but was defeated by Rutherford Hayes in electoral votes, 184 to 165
(later by 204 to 165 counting disputed votes, after an extremely bitter
and divisive electoral fight).

In the Presidential Election of 1888 incumbent Grover Cleveland won the
popular vote, but lost the electoral vote to Benjamin Harrison, 233 to 168.

I didn't support any of these candidates. :-)

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

rw wrote in
m:

Tom Littleton wrote:
"rw" wrote in message
m...
..

The only real effect is to magnify the voting power of residents of
small states at the expense of residents of large states,


which was precisely the compromise that enabled the creation of a
Republic of large and small population states. Otherwise, an
agreement would have never been reached, and the USA, as we know it,
never would have existed. Does the system work perfectly? No. Would
any system? Just because a system of simple majority seems simple,
doesn't mean that it doesn't present very real
electoral/representational pitfalls. And, yes, you are correct in
citing how the system at the outset was able to work(before any real
two party setup in the current sense). Still, cite an example where
the system failed, beyond the fact that the person YOU supported
didn't win.

I'll cite two.

In the Presidential Election of 1876 Samuel Tilden won the popular
vote but was defeated by Rutherford Hayes in electoral votes, 184 to
165 (later by 204 to 165 counting disputed votes, after an extremely
bitter and divisive electoral fight).

In the Presidential Election of 1888 incumbent Grover Cleveland won
the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote to Benjamin Harrison,
233 to 168.

I didn't support any of these candidates. :-)


A minority-vote victory is not a failure of the Electoral College.

--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

Scott Seidman wrote:

A minority-vote victory is not a failure of the Electoral College.

That depends on whether you think that thwarting the will of the
majority of voters is a failure.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

rw wrote in news:4891a9ba$0$23425
:

That depends on whether you think that thwarting the will of the
majority of voters is a failure.


I don't, nor did the Framers, or Presidential Elections would be by popular
vote.

--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

rw wrote:
Scott Seidman wrote:
A minority-vote victory is not a failure of the Electoral College.

That depends on whether you think that thwarting the will of the
majority of voters is a failure.

Thwarting the will of the majority is not necessarily a bad thing.
The founding fathers were justifiably terrified of mob rule and
they didn't suffer the democracy fetish with which you appear to
be afflicted.

--
Ken Fortenberry

Ken Fortenberry wrote:
rw wrote:

Scott Seidman wrote:

A minority-vote victory is not a failure of the Electoral College.


That depends on whether you think that thwarting the will of the
majority of voters is a failure.


Thwarting the will of the majority is not necessarily a bad thing.
The founding fathers were justifiably terrified of mob rule and
they didn't suffer the democracy fetish with which you appear to
be afflicted.

I doubt that the founding fathers anticipated that the voters in Alaska
would be three times more competent to chose a president than the voters
in California and Texas.


--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.