USA Electoral College 2004

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2001
USA Electoral College 2004
59
Wed, 10-13-2004 - 5:30pm
Dear IVillagers,

Nothing would please me more than eliminating the Electoral College system,

and having a "one person equals one vote" system,

to reflect exactly the votes of USA citizens.

Nonetheless, as IVillage cl-Libraone has noted here on IVillage,

that Colorado has the option to vote into law that Colorado's Electoral College votes be 'split' between the candidates- proportioned to be much more a reflection of voter's

actual votes.



Colorado's system shall be better than the present mess,

and would go into effect this election, if passed by Colorado voters-

my hope is that this does indeed happen, Election 2004 !!!

ForeverHugs,

--Genietowner

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Wed, 10-13-2004 - 11:35pm
Which once again raises the question... how is allowing the individuals living in a few select area's of the country to have a disproportionate influence on the outcome of national elections a "more equitable" way of doing things?

And no, telling me in effect to forget about the existance of the states won't make them go away.

~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2004
Wed, 10-13-2004 - 11:45pm
Did you read post #28? The data I cited was from the Federal Election Commission. They say that a vote in the small States cited carries roughly three times as much weight as a vote in Florida. THREE TIMES, that IS controlling the election! The Electoral College does not level the playing field, it distorts it. One person one vote with no Electoral College at all is what levels the playing field. A State does not have the power, the people in the state have the power, and if there were no electoral college then each PERSON would have a vote with the same power.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 8:41am
Yeah, 1988 data, 16 years out of date. Congratulations. The current figures show that the 7 states in question still don't constitute as many electoral votes as Florida, 21 to 25. Above and beyond that you're continuing to miscontrue the import of the data you provided, as well as the consequences of what you're advocating.

Ensuring that small states have a legitimate value in national elections isn't controlling the election, it's insuring that those states actually contribute, actually have an influence on the election which they would not have otherwise.

"The Electoral College does not level the playing field, it distorts it."

Yeah, you keep saying that, and keep right on ignoring the reality of a various few states being able to dictate the results of a national election, to the detriment of the country as a whole. Doing away with the E.C. would result in states like Wyoming and the others being utterly irrelevant to national elections.

If you want to allow a few states to determine who the president and vice president are, at least have the decency to come right out and say it, because that's precisely what we'd get if we abandoned the E.C. They only way your scheme could even approximate "fair" would be if population density was uniform throughout the US, and needless to say it's not. The E.C. compensates for that fact.

~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-06-2004
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 8:46am
Article V, SPlum. You feel that strongly about it, by all means make a difference.

To just say that an existing law for over two hundred years should be ignored because it isn't "fair" is naive at best, immature at worst.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 8:51am
Yep. For myself, I'm still waiting to hear how allowing a handful of states to dictate to the rest of the country who the president and vice president will be is a "fair" manner of deciding such things.

~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2004
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 6:29pm
If you have a direct national popular vote with no electors involved then states are irrelevant to the outcome, it's the total vote that is important. Where the votes come from doesn't matter, the total matters. Dictating to the rest of the country isn't how I look at it, it is the evening out of influence that is important. But if you think that a state like Alaska should have the same effect on an election as California or Texas or Florida then there is no sense in taking this dicussion any further because that is the most illogical thing I've heard of in a long time. The way I see it every state would have an equal influence in the sense that each person in that state would have a vote that counted the same as each person in any other state.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2004
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 6:37pm
<< Yeah, 1988 data, 16 years out of date. Congratulations.>>

That was the Federal Election Commissions own data they used to give an example, the year is really not important, it is the concept. Thank you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 7:18pm

and having a "one person equals one vote" system,

to reflect exactly the votes of USA citizens. >

We live in a democratic republic-individual states are supposed to be represented in the federal government. Would it really be fair that large swaths of the nation would have no say in who is president, and elections would be decided basically by New York City and Los Angeles? I don't think so. In any case, a constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college will never pass, as it must be ratified by 3/4 of the states. I doubt there will ever be enough states willing to voluntarily give up their representation in the executive branch.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 7:20pm
< Now are we once again going to hear more whining from the press because Dubya is reelected?>

You betcha-it's already happening. The Democrats will make sure that if W wins they try to strip the win of any credibility. The heck with bringing our country together, they'd rather divide and conquer.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 10-14-2004 - 7:25pm


If elections were decided solely by major metroplitan areas, don't you think presidential candidates would be pandering solely to big city issues, and ignoring the issues that affect large parts of the country? Does that really sound fair to you?