Vote

[PXR5]

The Democrat majority supreme court of Pennsylvania extended the voting by 3 days. These states that are milking the system and dragging their feet (PA, WI, MI, NC) are the ones that "paused" counting and then magically brought in big numbers for Sleepy the next day. Hmmm.

And the Republican majority did it in NC

The point is that they need to be post marked by election day.
Here in NC it's mostly the seniors that vote by mail and have for decades.

They are not dragging their feet. Laws vary by state. Most states won't count the mail in till election day.
They must have reasons I guess.

I think I read CO, and UT almost all residents vote by mail.

I like voting in person personally.

 

[modeltrains]

In 2016 my dysfunctional body jumped up on election day and said, "you ain't leaving the house."

This year I decided to gamble it would be different, and so didn't vote by mail.
I was going to get up early and go to poll right at opening at 6am.
My body said "nope."
and I thought, oh dear, here we go again.

But ...
I did get there around 11:15.

And ...
The poll workers said they were packed to the rafters from 6am to a few hours later.

No way I could have stood in line that long.

But ...
At 11:15 I was in, done, and out in 6 minutes!

And as an added bonus at no extra charge, the weather made being out to go vote and to do errands a wonderful day to be outside.

 

[Jeff Lassahn]

How come Florida (lots of people, big urban centers, and many seniors voting absentee) has their **** together and can make a fast, thorough, and accurate count, while PA, MI, and WI halt their counting last night and will continue to fumble along for days?

Um, that's not what's acutally happening. I'm looking at estimates of vote counts by state, Wisconsin and Michegan are both reporting 99%, Florida is reporting 96%. So Florida is actually taking longer to complete its count than either MI or WI, it's just that people aren't freaking out about it because the margins aren't as close in Florida so the forecasters called it sooner.

Likewise, North Carolina is at 95% but still in play, while its neighbors Virginia at 94% and South Carolina at 96% have been called.

The real outlier seems to be Alaska at 47% -- what are they up to?

 

[tim cubbedge]

Lay off the political posts or this thread is going down.

 

[o1d_dude]

Do it, Tim

The vote is all over but the shouting.

 

[Jeff Lassahn]

Noooo! Then we'd have to go to one of the hundreds of other places on the internet to discuss election minutiae. If only we all had some sort of a hobby to distract us while we wait for the results...

 

[modeltrains]

Hmm, I wonder why the forum software here took it upon itself to add all those empty spaces when I pasted that in from Wrong Planet, I wrote it with no spaces over there.

 

[RobertH3]

Best turnout in a century. Now there's an accomplishment the current administration can honestly take credit for!

 

[Antares JS]

My thoughts are more along the lines of keep the EC, but get rid of the winner-take-all policy

This. Maine and Nebraska demonstrate what the rest of the country should be doing: awarding one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and the other two to the overall state winner.

 

[cerving]

The Electoral College was designed so that large states did not have an undue influence on the election... which is what would happen with a strictly popular vote. States like Montana or Alaska would have very little voice with a popular vote system. Giving each state an equal number of electoral votes would be equally bad... win a bunch of small states, which would theoretically be easier to do, and you're in. As much as everybody hates it, the as-constituated Electoral College is a good compromise between either very large states or very small states having a disproportionate influence in the presidential election... as long as the winner-takes-all system applies at the state level.

 

[jderimig]

We are the United States of America not the United Congressional Districts of America or the United Counties of America. The founders were distrustful of a federal government and rightly so. Most power belongs in the states. Federal government exists so that uniform rules exists to facilitate equal treatment for commerce, currency and the common defense. If not that why even have states at all?

 

[boatgeek]

This. Maine and Nebraska demonstrate what the rest of the country should be doing: awarding one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and the other two to the overall state winner.

A big issue with this is that it makes gerrymandering even more desirable, since it impacts both Congressional races and the presidency. I don't think that's a bug that we need to encourage.

 

[James Duffy]

States like Montana or Alaska would have very little voice with a popular vote system.

...and I have no problem with that.

Low population, low influence. High population, high influence. Makes perfect sense!

 

[Antares JS]

...and I have no problem with that.

Low population, low influence. High population, high influence. Makes perfect sense!

While that seems fair on the surface, the problem is that urban and rural people have very different values, issues, and needs, and this would result in rural people being completely shut out from influencing the federal government much at all.

California is worth 55 electoral votes and Wyoming and Montana are only 3 each anyway. The electoral college gives them a chance much more than it tips the balance in their favor.

 

[o1d_dude]

Don’t like California much?

Then eliminating the Electoral College is not for you.

 

[SkyFire]

 

[PXR5]

View attachment 437420

I nominate this for the Funniest Post of the Month Award

 

[jsdemar]

Since when was GOLD discovered in North Carolina?! ;-)

 

[lakeroadster]

View attachment 437419

Don’t like California much?

Then eliminating the Electoral College is not for you.

But sadly... in today's America... logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.

 

[Jeff Lassahn]

View attachment 437419

Don’t like California much?

Then eliminating the Electoral College is not for you.

This seems highly misleading, since its showing what the situation would be if there were no electoral college but states were still winner take all. I think when the average person thinks of eliminating the electoral college they're thinking about direct popular vote, so states don't really act as coherent power blocks anymore.

If direct popular vote was how things were run, no matter who you are and what your opinions are there's going to be a lot of people in California who agree with you and vote like you do.

 

[NateB]

the problem is that urban and rural people have very different values, issues, and needs, and this would result in rural people being completely shut out from influencing the federal government much at all

It is not correct to assume that an urban area is a single voting bloc. Large cities have different needs than rural areas, but the values and politics of the citizens are diverse. According to CNN's map, there were more than 3.9 million votes cast in California for the Republican candidate. None of those which will be counted for the electoral college. That is more meaningless than the entire voting population of many other states. Why shouldn't those voices have a say too? The senate gives equal representation to states, but for the executive positions, every voter in the nation should have equal weight.

 

[lakeroadster]

This seems highly misleading, since its showing what the situation would be if there were no electoral college but states were still winner take all. I think when the average person thinks of eliminating the electoral college they're thinking about direct popular vote, so states don't really act as coherent power blocks anymore.

If direct popular vote was how things were run, no matter who you are and what your opinions are there's going to be a lot of people in California who agree with you and vote like you do.

I find that most of the folks in California that are like minded with me... are leaving California.

 

[o1d_dude]

I personally have always pitched dividing California into a minimum of two states (North and South) but an argument could be and has been made for California to secede from the Union.

 

[lakeroadster]

I personally have always pitched dividing California into a minimum of two states (North and South) but an argument could be and has been made for California to secede from the Union.

San Andreas is slowly working on this process.

 

[boatgeek]

While that seems fair on the surface, the problem is that urban and rural people have very different values, issues, and needs, and this would result in rural people being completely shut out from influencing the federal government much at all.

California is worth 55 electoral votes and Wyoming and Montana are only 3 each anyway. The electoral college gives them a chance much more than it tips the balance in their favor.

I really don't understand the argument that if we eliminated the Electoral College, rural people would become voiceless. They would have one vote for President (and state and local offices), just like everybody else in the country. There would be candidates who would champion their issues and there would be candidates who don't. Just like today.

Look at this another way. CA has 39.7M people and 55 electoral votes, or 722K people per electoral vote.
WY has 572K people and 3 electoral votes, or 191K people per electoral vote.

So a vote in WY has 3.9 times the influence on the presidency that a vote in CA does. And somehow the argument for keeping this system is that it would be unfair to Wyoming to change it.

 

[Jeff Lassahn]

The fundamental problem with politics is:
It feels really unfair for the majority to boss the minority around too much
It feels really unfair for the minority to boss the majority around too much
If nobody bosses anybody else around then nothing gets done

All functioning political systems are creaky dissatisfying compromises between these choices.

 

[stealth6]

Regarding eliminating the Electoral College, and going with a "every person gets one equal vote" system:

If we did this, the results (or more accurately, the "winner") of both the 2000 and 2016 elections would have been different.
Also, in the current election it seems that one of the candidates would already be called the clear winner (and that candidate would also have received more votes than any candidate in history so far).

The question is, especially for those of you that think we should eliminate the Electoral College,...would you be comfortable with that?

For the record, I myself have some pretty deep misgivings about the efficacy and fairness of the EC, but at the same time I'm not all that sure that a straight popular vote would be better.

s6

 

[DankMemes]

 

[KC3KNM]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/?amp=true

...wasn’t the EC pushed by the south so they effectively count the population of slaves in votes of a state without giving them the right to vote? Not sure how one spins that as good or necessary today. Seems silly to give a bunch of EC votes to some empty land in Wyoming. Their votes counted 3.18 times more than the average American’s vote in 2008. Pretty fair, right?

 

[kuririn]

The question is, especially for those of you that think we should eliminate the Electoral College,...would you be comfortable with that?

Absolutely. Why not?
It is an antiquated vestige of a bygone era, borne out of compromise.
Conceived in a time when blacks and women were not allowed to vote.
And no political parties existed in America.
The problem is abolishing it is not an easy proposition.
A constitutional amendment would require passage through both houses of Congress by a 2/3rds majority.
In other words it requires a bipartisan effort. Not happening anytime soon.
And the second, "backdoor" way (the Compact), could easily blow up if a state had the majority of its population choosing one candidate but being required to have the majority of its' delegates choose the other candidate..
That scenario could happen, and the outrage would be intense.

..wasn’t the EC pushed by the south so they effectively count the population of slaves in votes of a state without giving them the right to vote?

Very true.
Ever wonder why Virginia had four of the first five presidents?
Small population but large tobacco plantations and slave population.
Each slave was counted as 3/5ths of a vote, even though they were not allowed to vote.
Thus Virginia, in spite of its meager voting constituency, had 24% of the EC delegates.