Sunday, November 13, 2011

civics lesson

Thanks to microdot at the Brain Police. This should be passed on.

How Americans elect their president:



The problems with that system:

11 comments:

  1. Yawn, old news. The system may not be perfect, but changing it would require more disruption than the electoral college causes.

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  2. Wars to institute democracy are great for other nations, but the US doesn't need to practise it at home.

    You sure that you are a libertarian, Greg?

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  3. Yawn old news...anything worth doing is just too much damn effort...now stfu and pass the frikin cheetos...

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  4. Laci the Dog,

    Oh, please, do show me how the electoral college has been a problem here. And if you're thinking of the 2000 election, let me remind you that if Gore had won his home state, he'd have been president.

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  5. Greg Camp, like most gunzloonz is only gonna be concerned about stupid stuff like having individual votes count when it results in the election of a president who sez, "Y'know what, I'm tired of this pussyfootin' around the gunzloonz. As of today, I have issued an executive order that all gunz be registered and that those who fail to register their gunz be imprisoned and have their gunz confiscated!"*.

    Boy, howdy, you will see some serious and sudden interest in how the machinery of elections works.


    * I would be willing to bet that at least one feverdream reichwing novelist has used that scenario in one of his novels.

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  6. Democommie,

    Your scenario wouldn't survive the court challenge that would be filed within minutes. As for letting everyone vote for president, that's effectively what we already have. It's odd, but it works.

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  7. The problem is not the electoral college it is the under representation in the House.

    Go whole hog one rep per 30,000....

    10271 Congressmen,

    And Senators are appointed not elected......

    And none of them get paid....

    Or if they do get paid let the states set the pay-scale.

    Then the Electoral college would be 10321 electors.

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  8. Greg Camp:

    Do you have any idea what an "executive order" does? I do. Bush used a shitload of them to do things that the congress wouldn't let him pull otherwise.

    The thing that always gives me a chuckle is how you gunzloonz are all for ANY law that you see as increasing your delusional sense of primacy in society. As soon as a law you don't like is even contemplated, out comes the whaaaaaaaaaaaaambulance.

    There is not a direct vote for the office of president/vice president. It's the only election in the U.S. that is run that way. Large population states can negate the results of huge swaths of the flyover states. NV, UT, AZ, MT, WY, ND and ID have something like 15M residents compared to CA 37M. If all of the registered voters in the first 7 states mentioned vote 'R' and 49% of the voters in CA join them, the state of CA's electoral votes will negate the wishes of about 2/3 of the residents of those 8 states.

    BTW, aren't you gunzloonz the guyz who piss and moan about federal overreach except on the few occassions they are going to do something you like? Hypocrites.

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  9. Democommie,

    No, I don't piss and moan too much about Federal overreach. I think that we citizens do a good job of keeping things in check, as does the court system. It surprises me that you want to give more power to the flyover states. New York and California are gold star Brady Bunch states. Do you really want us red state gun owners getting more power in presidential elections?

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  10. demo - your arguement is the exact opposite of what the video claims. The video's point is that per resident, the smaller state votes count more because they have more electoral votes per resident than the larger states. The example shown showed winning the presidency with only 22% or so of the popular vote by winning a bunch of small states and not getting a single vote in the large states.

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  11. Good videos. thanks Laci and Microdot.

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