The Electoral system

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...
snip

By the way, in one of your replies to Stevie, you mentioned a
situation in which ballot initiatives in your state have gone awry in
that the urban majority who passed them were unaffected while the
rural minority who lost sufferred as a consequence. This is an
interesting problem, but neither the presence nor the abolition of the
Electoral College will have any effect on it.

Wolfgang

Of course the presence or the abolition of the Electoral College would have
no impact on the situation I outlined. I simply brought up that situation
to illustrate why , having had some first hand experience with what can
happen in the absence of curbs on the will of the "tyrannical majority"
(your words), I have some reluctance to remove some of those curbs that may
serve to protect the minority.


--
Bob Weinberger
La, Grande, OR

place a dot between bobs and stuff and remove invalid to send email

the Reds should move to the Reds, and the Blues should move to the Blues.
Then we should form 3 countries federated only for military, inter-country
commerce and a few other things. That's the way it was back in 1776 plus or
minus

--


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"Guyz-N-Flyz" wrote in message
...

"tim_s" wrote in message i always found the all or
nothing concept odd.....a republican voter
in MA knows it is essentially useless to vote repub in a Preidential
election; MA always goes Dem, so a Repub vote is wasted.....here in
Maine they split electorals by congressional district.....i think
tweaking the electoral college so that it represents the voting
climate of the state may make sense; keep the formula for determining
# of electoral votes the same, but split them based on the popular
vote within that state, i.e. if a candidate receives 52% of the
popular vote in a state, they get 52% of that states electoral
votes....

Or we could all just re-align ourselves. All the reds move to red states,
all the blues to the blue states, and let us unaffiliated types decide the
elections for the good of the nation.

Mark -- just a thought :~^ ) --

the Reds should move to the Reds, and the Blues should move to the Blues.
Then we should form 3 countries federated only for military, inter-country
commerce and a few other things. That's the way it was back in 1776 plus or
minus

--


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"Guyz-N-Flyz" wrote in message
...

"tim_s" wrote in message i always found the all or
nothing concept odd.....a republican voter
in MA knows it is essentially useless to vote repub in a Preidential
election; MA always goes Dem, so a Repub vote is wasted.....here in
Maine they split electorals by congressional district.....i think
tweaking the electoral college so that it represents the voting
climate of the state may make sense; keep the formula for determining
# of electoral votes the same, but split them based on the popular
vote within that state, i.e. if a candidate receives 52% of the
popular vote in a state, they get 52% of that states electoral
votes....

Or we could all just re-align ourselves. All the reds move to red states,
all the blues to the blue states, and let us unaffiliated types decide the
elections for the good of the nation.

Mark -- just a thought :~^ ) --

On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:13:14 -0500, "Guyz-N-Flyz"
wrote:


"tim_s" wrote in message i always found the all or
nothing concept odd.....a republican voter
in MA knows it is essentially useless to vote repub in a Preidential
election; MA always goes Dem, so a Repub vote is wasted.....here in
Maine they split electorals by congressional district.....i think
tweaking the electoral college so that it represents the voting
climate of the state may make sense; keep the formula for determining
# of electoral votes the same, but split them based on the popular
vote within that state, i.e. if a candidate receives 52% of the
popular vote in a state, they get 52% of that states electoral
votes....

Or we could all just re-align ourselves. All the reds move to red states,
all the blues to the blue states, and let us unaffiliated types decide the
elections for the good of the nation.

Mark -- just a thought :~^ ) --

Didn't that just happen?

Sierra fisher wrote:
the Reds should move to the Reds, and the Blues should move to the Blues.
Then we should form 3 countries federated only for military, inter-country
commerce and a few other things. That's the way it was back in 1776 plus or
minus


Bring back the Articles of the Confederation! Good plan.

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

Sierra fisher wrote:
the Reds should move to the Reds, and the Blues should move to the Blues.
Then we should form 3 countries federated only for military, inter-country
commerce and a few other things. That's the way it was back in 1776 plus or
minus


Bring back the Articles of the Confederation! Good plan.

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

"daytripper" wrote in message
...

Didn't that just happen?

No! I still got a state full of them red *******s!

Mark --presently makin' up trout leaders, just in case some beautiful Canuckian woman
makes a move on me--

"Jonathan Cook" wrote in message
...
Guyz-N-Flyz wrote:

"tim_s" wrote in message i always found the all or
nothing concept odd.....a republican voter
in MA knows it is essentially useless to vote repub in a Preidential
election; MA always goes Dem, so a Repub vote is wasted.....here in

No vote is wasted. It is counted, tallied, published, and used.
It doesn't matter which way the state electoral votes go. The vote
is published as part of the popular vote count of the candidate,
and as such is used to gauge the support of candidates at the
national, state, and local level irregardless of who won the
district, state, or nation. This idea of "wasted" votes is looney.
Heck, I don't even think non-votes are wasted. It's all data, man!

Jon.

That's great Jon, but what does it have to do with me?

Mark

"Jonathan Cook" wrote in message
...
Guyz-N-Flyz wrote:

"tim_s" wrote in message i always found the all or
nothing concept odd.....a republican voter
in MA knows it is essentially useless to vote repub in a Preidential
election; MA always goes Dem, so a Repub vote is wasted.....here in

No vote is wasted. It is counted, tallied, published, and used.
It doesn't matter which way the state electoral votes go. The vote
is published as part of the popular vote count of the candidate,
and as such is used to gauge the support of candidates at the
national, state, and local level irregardless of who won the
district, state, or nation. This idea of "wasted" votes is looney.
Heck, I don't even think non-votes are wasted. It's all data, man!

Jon.

That's great Jon, but what does it have to do with me?

Mark

"Bob Weinberger" wrote in message
news:kNQjd.2$b92.0@trnddc09...

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...
snip

By the way, in one of your replies to Stevie, you mentioned a
situation in which ballot initiatives in your state have gone awry in
that the urban majority who passed them were unaffected while the
rural minority who lost sufferred as a consequence. This is an
interesting problem, but neither the presence nor the abolition of the
Electoral College will have any effect on it.

Wolfgang

Of course the presence or the abolition of the Electoral College would
have
no impact on the situation I outlined. I simply brought up that situation
to illustrate why , having had some first hand experience with what can
happen in the absence of curbs on the will of the "tyrannical majority"
(your words),

Actually, those are not exactly my words. I borrowed them. As a matter of
fact, the only word that I can truly call my own is "fwapuhuhuh", and I
haven't been able to find a use for it just ye........um.......you know, it
just occurred to me......maybe that's the sound of Janik smacking his
forehead to see whether or not a thought might come out. Hm........

But, we digress.

I have some reluctance to remove some of those curbs that may
serve to protect the minority.

There have been, what, maybe as many as half a dozen instances in which the
electoral college has decided an election in favor of a candidate who lost
the popular vote? I think you'll have a hard time making a substantive case
for any downtrodden minority being saved by any such timely intervention.

But, just for the sake of argument, let us assume (for the moment) that the
electoral college really DOES do what you claim. In that case, and given
that we agree it has no effect on the situation you describe above anent the
undesired effect of ballot initiatives, doesn't it seem to you that rather
than discussing the electoral college (which, I think we can all agree isn't
in any danger of being abolished soon regardless of what anyone thinks of
it), you should be lobbying for an.....um....."electoral high school" to
provide the same sort of protection for voters at a statewide level? I
mean......I forget whether you live in Oregon or Washington (and I apologize
for that )....but in either case, I'm pretty confident that the population
is not evenly distributed across the state, largely as a result of the fact
that you said so.....well, I really already knew that.....but, never mind.
Anyway, if the will of the majority is, in fact, tyrannical, then an
electoral high school might go a long way toward ameliorating the ill
effects of that tyranny. For that matter, it now also occurs to me that
populations are not generally evenly distributed in most individual counties
either. Perhaps an "electoral grade school" would be an appropriate and
effective tool in an effort to minimize the deleterious effects of majority
rule at that level as well? And, I don't know much about demographics in
the pacific northwest, but here the upper Great Lakes region it is not
unheard of for even communities (large as well as small) to have uneven
population distributions. Why, right here in the city of Milwaukee there
are some neighborhoods that have a great many more people living in them
than some others. It can hardly be fair that they should hold dominion over
the poor benighted souls in the wilderness areas of the city simply because
there are more of them, can it? No, I don't think so. I think we should
have an "electoral pre-school" to safeguard the inalienable rights of the
under-represented and oppressed pockets within the city.

Hm.......ya know, an "electoral pre-school" (albeit defined somewhat
differently than is suggested above) is probably not all that bad an idea.

All that said, I still don't think the electoral college does anything worth
the **** it would take to bury it.

The GOOD news is that anyone who feels sparsely populated rural areas and
smaller states are under-represented can actually take pro-active measures
to counter the tyranny of the majority. All you have to do is move to New
York, Chicago or Los Angeles (it really doesn't matter.....whichever is
closest will do) before the next presidential election. Then, on election
day, simply vote AGAINST whoever everyone else is voting FOR! Voila, you
have single-handedly reduced the lopsided effect of the evil majority in
heavily populated areas! Huzzah!

Wolfgang
who clings fiercely to the notion that "one man, one vote" (while
recognizing that historical gender-specific terms are not always to be
understood literally and prescriptively today) still means SOMETHING!