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zorroloco 10-Sep-20, 14:09	"Hayseeds and Backwaters urban ghetto trash and liberal snowflakes" Both you guys need to knock that crap off. This isn't the place for it. I know Josh doesn't like and wouldn't tolerate it, but he's busy saving lives in an Emergency Room, and doesn't have time for you guys. Out of respect for Josh and this club, I'm going to ask both of you to lay off the insults and inflammatory language in this club. Please.
zorroloco 10-Sep-20, 14:11	Oh I see Josh already asked you guys to play nice. Grow up
lord_shiva 10-Sep-20, 14:13	Liberal Snowflakes are the people who invented the internet and worked on the Rural Electrification Authority that provided power and information technology to those country bumpkins. It takes more than hillbillies to make a smoothly running community. I completely agree the rubes deserve equal representation. EQUAL being the key word here. We also have a court system to protect the interests of minorities. The EC was an idea whose time should never have been.
lord_shiva 10-Sep-20, 14:16	Tenaday Doesn't claim to be a chawbacon, he is only promoting their interests over the interests of city slickers. I'm saying all should be equal, like it says in one of them documents we all quote from time to time, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Can't recall the name of that off hand, but it sure appears some are far more equal than others, without having done anything to merit that save live in a poorly populated place.
dmaestro 10-Sep-20, 14:16	Agree. Let’s avoid that or Chaz and I have to start deleting posts. I know Josh agreed a proportional EC was a reasonable compromise.
dmaestro 10-Sep-20, 14:22	I’m building an urban orchard and garden; patronize local farms.
lord_shiva 10-Sep-20, 14:28	Urban Farms We've been paving prime farm land for decades. My grandfather's acres are now under asphalt, as are my great grandfather's orchard. Prohibition really demolished the apple industry back in the day. But there is a growing trend towards smaller, local markets, and indoor farming. I'm not sure how profitable that can be, but it will be important as we dry up the Ogallala Aquifer and destroy America's breadbasket. I've long felt we should reserve oil and diesel fuel for agriculture and railroad transport. Many farming communities were served by rail, an ideal way to ship grain, livestock, and other supplies long distances. CXT boasts they can haul a ton of freight over 500 miles on a single gallon of fuel. Instead, we have been ripping out rail systems and burning finite fossil fuel supplies to make electricity like there was no tomorrow. Some day there won't be. At least, not one that was like today, or yesterday.
mo-oneandmore 10-Sep-20, 15:01	Has anybody posted THIS trump story yet? Seems that America's top Military brass are a bit discussed with him, huh? www.theguardian.com
proginoskes 11-Sep-20, 08:01	The EC votes of the bigger states still have more weight regardless. No politicians spends a bunch of time in Wyoming. None. Swing states that can possibly be won get more of the attention. Usually FL and OH, but in the upcoming election probably also WI, MI, and PA
proginoskes 11-Sep-20, 08:07	DM I may have been misunderstood, I don't like a "proportional" EC. A "proportional" EC is just the same as a popular vote. That isn't a compromise. I like the current EC as it allows a place at the table for places that would be lost there in national politics if it was all majority vote. Bigger populations still have MORE say regardless. The ONE compromise I might make would be to slice off (or add?) maybe 10 (?) EC votes that would go to the popular vote winner. I'm too lazy to do some more specific math on this today, but we could someone give EC votes to the "mob" as a way to off set some of the potential difference in popular vote and EC votes that wouldn't decrease the amount of say smaller states should still have at the table as Americans.
lord_shiva 11-Sep-20, 08:29	Wyoming is beet red. There is no point for politicians to spend time there. Same as with the big states--they spend o ly as much time as necessary to retain color. Texas is the only big state in play. It used to be Democratic, back when their last decent governor, Ann Richards, presided. Florida swings back and forth, and has enough votes to make it worthwhile. So it gets far more attention than it deserves, as does Ohio and a handful of others. The legislature is where the real power is, the power of law and purse. Enforcement and international affairs are the province of the executive branch. Eliminating the EC will not alter either of these things, it will only promote fairer representation for all. No longer will a minority be able to seize executive power. Instead of polluting election results in a few critical states, ballots nationwide old have to be orrupted to throw an election. It would be much more difficult for Russia to subvert the will of the people, even with the assistance of Comrade Trump and Moscow Mitch, without the EC. As we have witnessed, faithless EC voters do NOT vote their conscience on any informed basis, and many states are eliminating faithless votes. This was the purpose behind the EC, aside from concession to slave states seeking preservation of their hated institution. It is a relic of a bygone era whose time never was, much less long since passed.
lord_shiva 11-Sep-20, 08:35	Equality In every nation each citizen has an equal vote, except in the US where a system designed to preserve slavery provided greater representation for rural, bucolic slave masters. Why we still cling to this system is also why we still have people wanting the Confederate Flag proudly flying over NASCAR. Really, they SHOULD keep the Confederate Flag at these events. The winner gets to lap the track with the checkered flag, and the loser should get to lap the track flapping the Confederate Flag. LOL.
chaz- 12-Sep-20, 15:45	...I like Prog's EC suggestion (e.g. 10 votes for the popular vote winner). I've not analyzed the math of it, but it does seem a reasonable compromise for such a contentious issue. Or, are the arguers going to take only one side of this issue?
dmaestro 13-Sep-20, 09:37	Prof www.yahoo.com www.google.com Any effort to make the popular vote more relevant would be helpful and avoid the disaster of a virtual tie, but the idea that less popular states need protection by giving them the power to select a President who loses the popular vote by 5% as could easily happen is too imbalanced. The Senate is already so skewed it no longer even remotely serves the majority—how much more protection do they need? Furthermore, proportional representation still skews to small states, just not to a level that would allow someone to lose by over 5% and still win the EC. I think when you get time you ought to look at what really happens under various systems. www.270towin.com Winner take all is not even in the Constitution it’s a artifact of a two party system that reduces third parties to pure spoiler status. And it disenfranchises the minority in a given state whether they lose by one vote or millions. The EC does not encourage visits to small states, only a few “swing states”, in fact why would anyone waste time in small states where the outcome was known. Visiting all states is why historians believe Nixon lost in 1960. Furthermore you are ignoring the impact of an unpopular President exercising the extreme range of powers Trump has as if he won in a landslide. Every President who won only because of the EC has been considered below par. Except for the post 911 narrow Bush 43 win the GOP has not won the popular vote since 1992. Yet the GOP Has held the White House for 12 of those years and employed the full range of executive powers designed for a popular leader seen as representing the country. Centrism is on the wane. The nominees now represent the majority of increasingly polarized 2 parties not the divided cointry. All other votes are least of evils or protest votes. If this trend continues much longer the country is going to end up in conflict. To avid this you need a better method for balancing federal and state powers and more concern for centrists than an EC that cedes up tp 5% to a GOP nominee even now. If Trump hasn’t demonstrated the problems with a winner take all EC and the toothlessness of constitutional constraints and popular opinion nothing will.
proginoskes 14-Sep-20, 15:12	DM I’m not fully convinced by your arguments even if I can acknowledge some room for compromise but the vote for president is important. Small states need to keep their current place at the table. I can’t be convinced otherwise.
brigadecommander 14-Sep-20, 15:35	I don't understand the problem.The candidate with the most votes wins. Is this not a majority rule Country?? Each state elects Congressmen and Senators by who gets the most votes..They represent the States that elected them. For President of the United states the candidate with the most votes from all the states, should be elected. If a state that leans right or left, and their candidate looses that's just too bad...
dmaestro 15-Sep-20, 13:53	Prog I know you are busy and.nothing will change anyway. But I think the corrosive practical effect of what the EC actually does outweighs the theory you presented. The once bipartisan agreement to fix the EC fell apart only because conservatives saw it gave them a significant advantage not because others changed their minds. A majority still want to junk it. It just doesn’t work as intended and at present we might as well end the charade, just count the states electoral votes and call it a day to save money. The framers clearly intended it as a means of wiser folks checking popular excess and resolving many candidates, not a partisan rubber stamp. Why you think the conflict is between states rather than parties and how an unpopular President should be given tut most powerful elected office is beyond me.
chaz- 15-Sep-20, 17:55	Deleted by chaz- on 15-Sep-20, 17:56.
chaz- 15-Sep-20, 17:56	...plus, another unintended consequence will be that elections will be easier to contest if only the popular vote is tallied ...as it seems it's heading right now. As we make it easier to throw monkey wrenches into the tallying process, it creates further divisions that will become harder to correct. The post office is feeling this now. Electronic counting can be manipulated. Foreign influence on political advertising is pandemic. Even our referee (the Supreme Court) is being loaded. If we were to just change the electoral college to straight voting, we would have all sorts of unpredictable challenges, and uncertain outcomes. Then the most loaded money/power broker wins. I don't think we're being careful enough in our thinking through this issue.
dmaestro 16-Sep-20, 11:40	Chaz Since the Electoral College is still based on tabulating popular votes, just bucketimg them by state, I don’t see how the EC helps. Take 2000 and Florida. There was no doubt who won the popular vote but flawed ballots meant a few hundred votes in Florida (and it was later proved Gore won) created a huge mess. In 2016 less than 80,000 votes split among three states cancelled out millions of popular votes. Also you can end up withan EC tie. In short, money, less informed voting etc is actually MORE likely to cause problems with the EC. And why should we worry about Trump having a 5% edge due to EC bias? At what point can we just say a minority should NOT impose a victor in the free world’s most powerful position? Has his unpopularity restrained him from taking powers to an unprecedented extreme? No...
dmaestro 16-Sep-20, 12:25	Frankly we know very well why the GOP changed it’s position and supports the EC now while only segregationists saved it in 1970. I just wish they would be honest about it and adreee what it actually does. WhenThey dumped urban areas to get southern and rural voters it became clear they would lose popular votes. The EC simply rigs the election. Low population states have a veto in the Senate; Gerrymandering means they have biased representation in the House, AND they want at least a 3% EC advantage to start with. They haven’t won the popular vote for a long time but who cares? I can go point by point over all their excuses and mythology but all they do is claim small states are under siege and need more protection—showing the southern roots of their position. And the rank hypocrisy—when they want something liberal states must be punished but when we want our freedom it’s tyranny. It’s only about winning.
dmaestro 16-Sep-20, 12:44	en.m.wikipedia.org news.gallup.com A little history. The support for the EC is not based on long standing support or principles, or how the framers visualized it; it’s simply the GOP base realized they needed its bias to win. At some point when that rigging isn’t enough the truth will be evident. What the right doesn’t realize is that too many rigged elections will simply result in workarounds and conflict. I never signed up for minority rule and Gen Z won’t take it.
lord_shiva 16-Sep-20, 15:49	Minority Rule They will keep winning rigged elections, and it is irrelevant if this situation is ever fixed because they will have wrought damage to last generations--which is their goal. Plus, when it looks like they are likely to lose they'll simply dispense with election nonsense altogether. The bullet box will overturn the ballot box, as Sarah Palin once explained (something to that effect). Who needs fair elections when the results won't be recognized anyway?
dmaestro 18-Sep-20, 16:34	news.yahoo.com It’s been obvious that the GOP sees this as war on its opponents. The Electoral College is just another weapon. We will overcome it in time. The GOP weaponization of government is a breach of a century of tradition we were Americans first. It will come back to haunt them. We just need to play by their rules not what the framers intended.
lord_shiva 18-Sep-20, 19:04	Proginoskes is So Right proginoskes 24-Aug-19, 13:59 <<I’ve changed my mind on the electoral college The more I’ve thought of it, the more I think it needs to go.>>
dmaestro 21-Sep-20, 20:14	fivethirtyeight.com It’s pretty obvious that the system is rigged against the majority. We not only have unpopular President but Senate that totally screws populous states; and such contempt for popular will they intend to ram a justice through even if they lose the Senate and the White House against majority will. This is not protecting rural voters or a seat at a table to compromise it’s aggression. The GOP hasn’t won the popular vote in decades but we are “packing the court” even when we nominate older moderate judges like Garland. Biden thinks he can get back to the era of compromise but the field is games. If I were 25 I would be done with this rigged system, tradition or not, and the GOP has shown how toothless the Constitution. It’s easy to find workarounds for the Constitution and I think Gen Z won’t accept minority rule.
dmaestro 05-Oct-20, 15:02	www.bbc.com Ridiculous undemocratic system.
dmaestro 06-Oct-20, 07:18	www.yahoo.com Another problem with the Electoral College—states can ignore the popular vote.
chaz- 08-Oct-20, 11:58	...so ...should the urban majorities control the rural states' well-being? How would the rural states be protected?
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