Cleanup in Aisle Lunatic (h/t romad1)

[mtutiger]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

that would certainly help. it's about the best marginal improvement that can be made without a Const amendment.

Wyoming Rule

This would be the best option IMO.... basically, the size of Congressional districts would be based on the smallest possible population for a district, which is Wyoming.

Would result in 573 seats, but would be more proportional and would reduce the population of the average district, the hope being better representation for people in those districts.

[Motown Bombers]

It would seem like it would be harder to gerrymander smaller districts than larger districts as well. 

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

If you are a Democrat living in Overland Park, Kansas, you know. If you are a Republican living in Bakersfield you know.

Since you brought up Texas, prior to this past election, I knew ahead of time my vote didn't matter.

Its a stupid system for electing Presidents that, in itself, has done a lot of damage and has divided the populace as red states and blue states. If one were starting this experiment from scratch, they'd never consider utilizing it.

They would if we still had profitable regional slavery.

[CMRivdogs]

I'd favor independent redistricting, but considering the fiascos in Virginia and Michigan when they tried this. There is got to be a way to set it up without getting politicians involved.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

I'd argue that a national popular vote would do a lot more to get parties to campaign in front of people they don't normally cater to given that about 90% of the states are flat out ignored during the general election campaign under this current system

This is the thing that gets lost or ignored in the debate when EC proponents say if we had a national popular vote, candidates would campaign only in New York and California.

First of all, not true.

Second of all, we've already reduced presidential campaigning to occurring only in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, right now, so how would that even be different?

[Motown Bombers]

A state like Texas would go from 36 districts to 50 under the Wyoming rule. The problem is, it would be hard to gerrymander all those districts and Democrats would surely make gains in Texas. Republicans would rather spite their state to maintain power. 

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

I'm actually trying to remember when my vote for president actually mattered. Virginia was solid red from 1972-1988. Illinois 1992-2000, it was always given a Democrat would win.

This is why I wrote in Michelle Obama in the last two elections. Even though I bet she's make a fine president, of course she could never win, because the state is already inthe bag for the Democratic candidate anyway, so why does it matter.

Certain people here like to criticize me for doing this and say I should vote D anyway to run up the national score, or whatever. But what good is that when one candidate can win the national vote by millions but still lose the election to the guy who got the second-most votes anyway? It's borderline pointless.

In the end, every vote an Illinoisian casts for president is completely thrown out, then a delegation of 20 people go to Washington and cast 100% of their votes for whoever the D candidate is. How does this qualify as democracy in action?

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

Yeah, I meant they would focus on the coasts (populated portions), not that they would never visit elsewhere.  There would be stops in Texas as they go back and forth.  Iowa, New Hamshire, Vermont, Wyoming, both Dakota's, Rhode Island, Delware, Kansas, Montana, Idaho, Maine, West Virginia, those guys can stfu and just accept the president California, Texas, Florida, and New York elect for them.   

As opposed to the current system in which California, Texas, Florida, and New York can STFU and accept the president Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Wyoming, both Dakotas, Rhode Island, Delaware, Kansas, Montana, Idaho, Maine, and West Virginia elect for them?

[chasfh]

29 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Politicians want everyone to be able to vote, however they really don't want everyone to vote. The fear is the "uninformed" voter casting a ballot.

Hence the quote "I love the uneducated"

"Uninformed voter"is code for "people who vote for the other guy."

[ewsieg]

48 minutes ago, chasfh said:

As opposed to the current system in which California, Texas, Florida, and New York can STFU and accept the president Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Wyoming, both Dakotas, Rhode Island, Delaware, Kansas, Montana, Idaho, Maine, and West Virginia elect for them?

I'd be fine with a change in the EC rules that says instead of just over 270 to win, if you get 51 EC's or more (the total for all those states) and managed to win each of those mentioned, you win automatically.  

[ewsieg]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

For me it's not the level of indirection of the EC that is the problem as much as that the EC votes are not democratically apportioned. The point about putting the campaign before more voters is certainly valid, but the margin magnifying properties of having the election be decided state-wise also has value in a non-parliamentary system where extremely close elections still have to have binary outcomes instead of the possibility of coalition rule, so I will grant that some aspects of the EC system do have value in the particular US setup, but it has gotten to the point where the basic population misrepresentation is a bigger problem than the value of any of its virtues.

Solid points.  You very well may be correct, at best I think we can all agree on that the EC has issues.  If determined that the EC as we know it has to go, I guess I would like to see other solutions offered up rather than just a popular vote election to try and correct some of that misrepresentation without negating some of the virtues of it.

 

[mtutiger]

1 minute ago, ewsieg said:

Solid points.  You very well may be correct, at best I think we can all agree on that the EC has issues.  If determined that the EC as we know it has to go, I guess I would like to see other solutions offered up rather than just a popular vote election to try and correct some of that misrepresentation without negating some of the virtues of it.

 

I would just add that one thing the EC does do is that it badly disincentivizes the development of viable third party options. 

It'd be nice if the system were ever reformed (it won't be) that it would rethink the parts of the system that cause that to happen... for instance, that an election where 270 isn't achieved goes to the House who then selects the President. Instead, how about the top two EC vote getters participate in a runoff election two weeks later in that instance?

[Motown Bombers]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

This is why I wrote in Michelle Obama in the last two elections. Even though I bet she's make a fine president, of course she could never win, because the state is already inthe bag for the Democratic candidate anyway, so why does it matter.

Certain people here like to criticize me for doing this and say I should vote D anyway to run up the national score, or whatever. But what good is that when one candidate can win the national vote by millions but still lose the election to the guy who got the second-most votes anyway? It's borderline pointless.

In the end, every vote an Illinoisian casts for president is completely thrown out, then a delegation of 20 people go to Washington and cast 100% of their votes for whoever the D candidate is. How does this qualify as democracy in action?

What good did your vote for Michelle Obama do? What exactly did you accomplish or prove? 

[romad1]

I have doubts...but still

 

[ewsieg]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

In the end, every vote an Illinoisian casts for president is completely thrown out, then a delegation of 20 people go to Washington and cast 100% of their votes for whoever the D candidate is. How does this qualify as democracy in action?

With this logic, we shouldn't stop at EC.  All votes for all State and Federal elections are cast out and only one person is sent to represent everyone.  

We have the technology, popular vote for everything.  Maybe we elect an Ombudsman that determines the next issue we vote on.  Than there is a 24 hour period when you log into an app and vote.  Even that still doesn't seem to work, let'sdig into that.

Should abortion be legal within the United States?

Let's say we get 190,000,000 votes (better voter turnout due to ease of voting)

112,100,000 - yes

77,900,000 no

The ~78 million that voted no, those votes are just wasted.  Let's look at the yes votes, only the first 95,000,001 votes mattered, so another 17,099,999 for a total of 94,999,999 wasted votes.  49.9% of the population would have a wasted vote in every vote.  

Ok, so this, everyone has to vote.  In the above example, if you voted yes, you can have an abortion, if no, you're not allowed to.  That way everyone is equally represented.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

3 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

I'd favor independent redistricting, but considering the fiascos in Virginia and Michigan when they tried this. There is got to be a way to set it up without getting politicians involved.

I don't think redistricting reform in Michigan has been a fiasco. It took several months and many meetings to get reasonable, equitable maps that balanced partisan, geographic, and racial fairness, but the committee got there. These new maps are likely to hold up in court too.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, ewsieg said:

I'd be fine with a change in the EC rules that says instead of just over 270 to win, if you get 51 EC's or more (the total for all those states) and managed to win each of those mentioned, you win automatically.  

Too convoluted.

I would prefer direct election of presidents.

[chasfh]

38 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

With this logic, we shouldn't stop at EC.  All votes for all State and Federal elections are cast out and only one person is sent to represent everyone.  

lol this is going in the opposite direction of what I was saying so I don't know why you'd think I'd like this.

[1984Echoes]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

lol this is going in the opposite direction of what I was saying so I don't know why you'd think I'd like this.

Or he was just tweaking your nose with that...

There's a lot of tweaking in this place...

[Motown Bombers]

Re-districting has put me in a district that John James is running for and he will most likely win. That's a bummer. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

1 minute ago, Motown Bombers said:

Re-districting has put me in a district that John James is running for and he will most likely win. That's a bummer. 

I think if Judge Carl Marlinga runs for the Dems he will be a great candidate for Congress and can beat James.

[CMRivdogs]

27 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I don't think redistricting reform in Michigan has been a fiasco. It took several months and many meetings to get reasonable, equitable maps that balanced partisan, geographic, and racial fairness, but the committee got there. These new maps are likely to hold up in court too.

Virginia's independent commission ended up going to the courts to draw the line after they were deadlocked. I

It's a decent map, fairly even split with a couple of swing districts. The whole process just seems a bit swarmy

 

[Motown Bombers]

 

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

I would just add that one thing the EC does do is that it badly disincentivizes the development of viable third party options. 

It'd be nice if the system were ever reformed (it won't be) that it would rethink the parts of the system that cause that to happen... for instance, that an election where 270 isn't achieved goes to the House who then selects the President. Instead, how about the top two EC vote getters participate in a runoff election two weeks later in that instance?

right - there are so many options today that weren't on the table given the communication and transportation options in 1790. We are really quite foolish to be so slavishly devoted to such obsolete procedures.

[oblong]

25 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

so that way nobody has to testify?  Because he surely doesn't give a shit about their well being.