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I'm breaking my self-imposed ban on this forum to post this story . Why? It has the greatest group name ever. The group opposing the movement to use proportional electoral votes calls itself Coloradans Against A Really Stupid Idea. Fantastic.

How the hell does the electoral college 'disenfranchise' 'hundreds of thousands of voters'? People vote, don't they? If their candidate doesn't win, you still voted, you just lost.

I think a proportional electoral vote would be better (and more representative of the people's vote than the current winner-take-all system. I don't see their argument that it would make Colorado a voter laughingstock akin to Florida.

Originally Posted by MrBadExample I think a proportional electoral vote would be better (and more representative of the people's vote than the current winner-take-all system. I don't see their argument that it would make Colorado a voter laughingstock akin to Florida.

I took Government class Senior year, it was great fun, anyways we went over the 4 main ways people want to change the system and all of them are worse than what we have.

If all States did this then there would be serious problems every time like in 2000 because no one would get enough votes.

Then third parties would rise up and all they would do is take votes away from the 270 votes to win so the senate would have to choose and it's just a really big mess.

So in the end everyone would go there and go "Recount again!!! I need one more vote!!!!! *cries like a baby* -Al Gore

And thus the jokes would begin.

Well my first choice is just goign with a popular vote. I don't see the fairness in awarding all of a state's electoral votes to someone who could have gotten as little as 51% of the vote.

Electoral voting gives power to individual states, which is sort of a big deal in the US. The country is a republic, after all. You wouldn't want the parts of the country that had large dense populations wielding power over those with less dense populations. That leads to regionalism.

Here's an intersting site that covers pros and cons for various systems:

http://gning.org/electoral.html

Originally Posted by dtcarson How the hell does the electoral college 'disenfranchise' 'hundreds of thousands of voters'? People vote, don't they? If their candidate doesn't win, you still voted, you just lost.

I live in Viginia, most people are Republicans. I vote Democrate but Bush still get 100% of the Virginia electoral vote.

I didn't lose, I just never had the right to make my vote count.

Originally Posted by PsyClerk Electoral voting gives power to individual states, which is sort of a big deal in the US. The country is a republic, after all. You wouldn't want the parts of the country that had large dense populations wielding power over those with less dense populations. That leads to regionalism.

Except regionalism is pretty much where we are now, with he Electoral system. Just look at how the presidential campaigns are going right now: Bush and Kerry are entirely focused on a few 'swing' states, making constant campaign stops and all kind of promises about what they're going to do for that state. The rest of the country, meanwhile, is almost completely ignored by both parties.

I don't think that going entirely to a popular vote system would be the best solution, though: I think the system used in Nebraska and Maine is probably the best. In terms of the possible problem with 3rd party canidates and the 270 vote thing, that would be easily solved by having the presidency go to the person with the highest EC count (instead of requiring 50% or more.) So if the highest rated person gets 48% of the EC, they'd win.

Originally Posted by Drocket Except regionalism is pretty much where we are now, with he Electoral system. Just look at how the presidential campaigns are going right now: Bush and Kerry are entirely focused on a few 'swing' states, making constant campaign stops and all kind of promises about what they're going to do for that state. The rest of the country, meanwhile, is almost completely ignored by both parties.

Exactly. On any given day you can assume Bush will be making campaign stops in the following: Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Mexico, Oregon, Iowa, New Hampshire. And on any given day Kerry will most likely be doing the same.

Originally Posted by Drocket Except regionalism is pretty much where we are now, with he Electoral system. Just look at how the presidential campaigns are going right now: Bush and Kerry are entirely focused on a few 'swing' states, making constant campaign stops and all kind of promises about what they're going to do for that state. The rest of the country, meanwhile, is almost completely ignored by both parties. I don't think that going entirely to a popular vote system would be the best solution, though: I think the system used in Nebraska and Maine is probably the best. In terms of the possible problem with 3rd party canidates and the 270 vote thing, that would be easily solved by having the presidency go to the person with the highest EC count (instead of requiring 50% or more.) So if the highest rated person gets 48% of the EC, they'd win.

Why don't we rewrite the whole Constitution? We don't need that "Freedom of Speech" crap, let's throw that out too.

If you do that system then numberous people will ran, and someday in the not so distance future we would have a president that wins with 11% of the population and he will be a crazy wacko. Because 20% of every country, except France, it's like 80% there, are wackos. The views are so ratical that can't be called anything else. I think I'm one of them through.

Originally Posted by David85 Why don't we rewrite the whole Constitution? We don't need that "Freedom of Speech" crap, let's throw that out too.

So are you saying that the Constitution, as originally written, was absolutely perfect? Perhaps we need to reinstate the section that specifies that a black person only qualifies as 3/5 of a human being?

I'm not really suggesting rewritting anything fundimental to the Constitution: this would more-or-less be a change to a proceedural detail. In the grand scheme of things, its almost irrelivent.

No it's not because in the "grand scheme of things" the whole system would be screwed up because like I said above that one day we would have a president that has 10% of the vote and that would be terrible for the country.