Why Right Wing Is Petrified of Letting Voters, Not Electoral College, Pick Presidents

[occupied]

What does "it has half the states it needs" mean? They are willing to approve a Constitutional Amendment? What?

The way I understand it, individual states would vote to change their election laws to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Legal as can be and does not touch The Constitution.

Unless they have actually done that, the claim is bullshit. Any state that does do it is just diluting its influence on the national election. It's not in the best interests of any state to do it. Therefore, it will never happen.

Never say never, in this day of media saturation it no longer makes as much sense to make a candidate campaign in person everywhere. The trade-off will be candidates finally able to run on their own ideas rather than party platforms and rigid ideologies. Fresh ideas anyone?

 

[Trajan]

I am sure our great sioux warrior is on board with the 17th amend. too...

 

[Steelplate]

Apparently, the GOP still considers the population to be too uneducated and stupid to choose a President.... which WAS THE REASON for the Electoral College to begin with. Most people couldn't even read back then.

 

[Stephanie]

and you just have to love a website (alteredworld), that REFERS to Republicans as, right wingers.

they be reputable alright..such crap

 

[BluePhantom]

What does "it has half the states it needs" mean? They are willing to approve a Constitutional Amendment? What?

The way I understand it, individual states would vote to change their election laws to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Legal as can be and does not touch The Constitution.

Unless they have actually done that, the claim is bullshit. Any state that does do it is just diluting its influence on the national election. It's not in the best interests of any state to do it. Therefore, it will never happen.

Well it's perfectly legal and constitutional. Every state has the right to determine for themselves how they designate their delegates. But if you go by popular vote the power will go to major cities and that favors the Democrats...hence the reason why they favor it. If you go proportional by counties or congressional districts the Democrats will never win a presidential election again....hence the reason why they oppose that.

The simple fact though is that what is good for a city is not always good for rural America. What is good for Florida is not always good for Kansas. What is good for California is not always good for Idaho. The system was designed to balance everything and ensure that everyone's interests have influence but don't have dominance. Is it perfect? No. I live in Oregon and can attest to that. The entire state is extremely conservative except for Portland and Eugene which are ridiculously liberal....but those two cities dominate state politics and Oregon's influence in federal government because of their population compared to the rest of the state.

So no it's not perfect but it's better than the alternative of allowing states with major cities to control policy at the expense of rural America

 

[Lakhota]

Gallup: Americans Would Swap Electoral College for Popular Vote

 

[Flopper]

No surprises here. When a liberal administration is in trouble the radical left claims it wants to overhaul the whole electoral system. Nobody but nut cases and the OWS takes the issue seriously.

you got that right..

You would probably be surprised to learn how many voter think they are voting for a presidential candidate. The only reason we have an electoral college is the founding fathers simply were rather afraid of democracy. The electoral college has no place in a democratic government. We should have got rid of it years ago.

 

[BluePhantom]

Apparently, the GOP still considers the population to be too uneducated and stupid to choose a President.... which WAS THE REASON for the Electoral College to begin with. Most people couldn't even read back then.

I consider the average American to be too uneducated and stupid to understand politics and therefore be too ignorant to cast an educated vote and I am a college professor. Most American's don't even understand enough about their own system of government to know what branch of government has what authorities. If you asked 100 random people on the street what Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and Cap and Trade refers to I would bet that 5% could explain all of them, 10% could explain two of them, and 20% could explain one of them.

 

[BluePhantom]

Gallup: Americans Would Swap Electoral College for Popular Vote

Uh huh....see my below post on the stupidity of the average American

 

[bripat9643]

You would probably be surprised to learn how many voter think they are voting for a presidential candidate. The only reason we have an electoral college is the founding fathers simply were rather afraid of democracy. The electoral college has no place in a democratic government. We should have got rid of it years ago.

Why would anyone who isn't brain damaged want unlimited democracy?

 

[occupied]

The way I understand it, individual states would vote to change their election laws to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Legal as can be and does not touch The Constitution.

Unless they have actually done that, the claim is bullshit. Any state that does do it is just diluting its influence on the national election. It's not in the best interests of any state to do it. Therefore, it will never happen.

Well it's perfectly legal and constitutional. Every state has the right to determine for themselves how they designate their delegates. But if you go by popular vote the power will go to major cities and that favors the Democrats...hence the reason why they favor it. If you go proportional by counties or congressional districts the Democrats will never win a presidential election again....hence the reason why they oppose that.

The simple fact though is that what is good for a city is not always good for rural America. What is good for Florida is not always good for Kansas. What is good for California is not always good for Idaho. The system was designed to balance everything and ensure that everyone's interests have influence but don't have dominance. Is it perfect? No. I live in Oregon and can attest to that. The entire state is extremely conservative except for Portland and Eugene which are ridiculously liberal....but those two cities dominate state politics and Oregon's influence in federal government because of their population compared to the rest of the state.

So no it's not perfect but it's better than the alternative of allowing states with major cities to control policy at the expense of rural America

There's a lot of people who live in rural ares who would like their vote for president to count, my district has never went the way I voted, my vote for president has never counted for shit.

 

[Lakhota]

Are we saying only "educated" voters should be allowed to vote?

 

[Steelplate]

You would probably be surprised to learn how many voter think they are voting for a presidential candidate. The only reason we have an electoral college is the founding fathers simply were rather afraid of democracy. The electoral college has no place in a democratic government. We should have got rid of it years ago.

Why would anyone who isn't brain damaged want unlimited democracy?

So.... getting rid of the Electoral College...which is only valid for ONE position(albeit the most powerful) in our government is "unlimited Democracy"?

That means that if the President gets elected by the popular vote... there won't be any checks and balances from the other two branches of government? that there won't be free elections every term that if people are pissed at the way things are going, they can change it?

How dishonest.

 

[BluePhantom]

Are we saying only "educated" voters should be allowed to vote?

I would say so, but I speak for myself. Not my party, nor my race, nor my religion, nor anything...just me. However, remember I am a teacher so before I agree to that I would have to insist that a system of education was created where students are not brainwashed by a liberal agenda. That easy enough...focus on teaching kids HOW to think instead of WHAT to think. I would also raise the voting age to 35

 

[Steelplate]

Are we saying only "educated" voters should be allowed to vote?

I would say so, but I speak for myself. Not my party, nor my race, nor my religion, nor anything...just me. However, remember I am a teacher so before I agree to that I would have to insist that a system of education was created where students are not brainwashed by a liberal agenda. That easy enough...focus on teaching kids HOW to think instead of WHAT to think. I would also raise the voting age to 35

How about the ones that are brainwashed on a CON-servative agenda? Oh... I forgot, the right doesn't brainwash or lie, or behave politically, or do anything wrong.

If you're an educator, you're a bad one if you have that narrow of a world view.

 

[Trajan]

the electoral college has had an effect contrary to the pop vote 4 times in our history.....4.....and 1 since 1888, get a grip people, you still can't be this butt hurt by losing out on a Gore Presidency, I mean seriously.....

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

“The United States is not a democracy and shouldn’t be,” said Michael Munger, Duke University’s Political Science Department chairman and a 2008 Libertarian gubernatorial candidate attacking it at a League of Women Voters forum. “There is NO moral force in the majority. It is just what most people happen to think.”

Correct.

The proposal in the OP is anathema to a republican form of government.

The problem isn’t the EC, it’s the imperial presidency. The Framers never envisioned the CE to have such sweeping and comprehensive powers. Indeed, who was president was to be of little importance since Congress was mandated to take the lead with regard to National issues and an independent judiciary established to check the Legislative and Executive.

The solution to this problem is the same with regard to most issues concerning the Federal government, it can’t be addressed by a top-down approach, it can only be fixed at the very local level by the individual voter.

 

[BluePhantom]

the electoral college has had an effect contrary to the pop vote 4 times in our history.....4.....and 1 since 1888, get a grip people, you still can't be this butt hurt by losing out on a Gore Presidency, I mean seriously.....

I live an hour south of Portland, Oregon where they simply pretend Gore won and the Bush years never happened. I wish they would realize that wearing deodorant and women shaving their armpits doesn't make one less of a bohemian rebel though.

 

[BluePhantom]

Are we saying only "educated" voters should be allowed to vote?

I would say so, but I speak for myself. Not my party, nor my race, nor my religion, nor anything...just me. However, remember I am a teacher so before I agree to that I would have to insist that a system of education was created where students are not brainwashed by a liberal agenda. That easy enough...focus on teaching kids HOW to think instead of WHAT to think. I would also raise the voting age to 35

How about the ones that are brainwashed on a CON-servative agenda? Oh... I forgot, the right doesn't brainwash or lie, or behave politically, or do anything wrong.

If you're an educator, you're a bad one if you have that narrow of a world view.

Yeeeeeahhhhhh...I run into SO many conservative colleagues as I teach at the university. In the entire faculty I am not called one of "the four horsemen of the GOP" for nothing. There's literally four of us that aren't flaming liberals.

 

[del]

Apparently, the GOP still considers the population to be too uneducated and stupid to choose a President.... which WAS THE REASON for the Electoral College to begin with. Most people couldn't even read back then.

i don't know about the gop, but i believe the majority of the population is definitely too uneducated and stupid to choose a president. you can see proof of it all around you, left, right, any color, any gender-plenty of stupid to go around.