The U.S. being a federation doesn't require smaller populations to get the same decision making power than larger populations.
Something no one has bothered to demonstrate why low population areas actually need.
Indeed the Senate serves the exact purpose of giving each state equal representation in the union regardless of size. I mean, that's the whole fucking point of those useless cunts.
The house, as I remember, also does this to some extent too.
Also, for the record, someone really loving a piece of land doesn't invalidate any other use for that land. It should certainly be considered, and it sucks for that person if the government decides there's a much more valuable use, but that's life.
The United States is a federation, which is why it gives disproportionate representation to smaller states. Same as the EU does for that matter.
Honestly, I see that as a strength and wouldn't want to see the US become a unitary state. If anything, I think more subsidiarity may be good idea. Laboratories of democracy and all that.
Comparing the US to the EU this way is beyond silly goosery. The US was never made up of several previously independent states using several distinct political systems, and it is far more than just an economic union to promote trade.
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Captain Ultralow resolution pictures of birdsRegistered Userregular
As someone who lived in Nebraska for most of his life, bring on the popular vote. Its not like the small states right now are the center of political life. If its a national popular vote, they might actual have to have a nationwide campaign, instead of a Florida-Ohio jamboree. And sure, they might not go to Omaha, but they'll probably at least go to Denver, and maybe Kansas City! I can get to either of those if I really wanted to see politicians talk, and/or talk to politicians and make sure my voice is heard. (Of course, I could always talk to my congressman and/or senator.)
I don't understand the opposition to this. What is wrong with having each person's vote count as much as everyone else's vote in the presidential election?
Rural areas still have their legislative representatives and can therefore make their voices heard, and the risk that presidential elections will ignore rural areas completely is rather unbiased fearmongering.
I don't understand the opposition to this. What is wrong with having each person's vote count as much as everyone else's vote in the presidential election?
Rural areas still have their legislative representatives and can therefore make their voices heard, and the risk that presidential elections will ignore rural areas completely is rather unbiased fearmongering.
It makes it a lot harder to systematically disenfranchise a large enough size of the majority to swing the election through fraud, disinformation and legislative maneuvers.
If one can't remove thousands of people from voting roles in a key state to shift the national election, what will become of our democracy?
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
Except electoral vote HAS carried out the will of the people in all elections but four....four in the entire history of our republic. You're going to need a VASTLY better argument to convince people to toss the whole system.
In the Senate, you can block any movement on a bill with 41 votes- i.e. the 21 least populous states could block any bills of the rest of the US, in theory. So a population of 34 million can veto anything the remaining 277 million can propose.
I think that gives the low-population areas QUITE enough say, thank you.
You know, I think part of the problem here is that we keep using the term "minority." What do we mean by "minority?" Well, we mean small, rural states.
These states are overwhelmingly populated by old, white, Christians. Now, let's take a look at the makeup of Congress:
As peachy keen as this idea is, I'm looking at the map of people trying to pass it from Wikipedia:
(Green is signed into law, yellow is currently being debated and grey is previously failed/not currently seeking it)
If all the states in yellow passed their current process, that's another 163 electoral votes, bringing it up to 278, barely squeaking over the finish line. Someting tells me you won't get all those states to ratify this in time for 2012, which is kind of a shame.
Re-districting doesn't add weight to a given section of the electorate. It moves it to a different election. You were in district 8 voting on this, now you're in district 9 voting on an entirely different Representative and series of bonds and issues. That has nothing to do with 1 person in Wyoming being worth 2 people in Montana.
That's the thing though, redistricting does actually make that group's vote count more in terms of their state's representatives. You're taking a representative from whatever the majority of the area is and giving that rep to the minority in question. That is to say, if my state is overwhelmingly comprised of white, suburban, upper middle class folks and has 6 representatives, but also has a sizable minority of hispanic, inner city folks living near the poverty line a strict popular vote says the hispanic folks don't get a voice in government. They don't get to comment on how schools should be budgeted, they don't get to comment on how government spending should be apportioned, they do not get to participate in government. Redistricting takes one representative from the suburban folks and gives it to the inner city. Along the way, the majority population sees their individual votes diluted (that is, their vote now accounts for a smaller share of a representative) as they replace a previously ignored portion of the population.
Why do this "ensuring of representation" via geographic modificiations to the voting district, rather than more overarching structures where your vote is measured directly based on your minority status, rather than where you live? Seems to me like if I was a member of a minority, where I'd live would still be more important than what I want to vote on, if one were to redistrict based on ethnicity.
Along the same vein, why protect "rural voters" from the terror of majority rule with a system whereby urban voters in a rural state are given more voting power right along with the Real Americans? Why not just have a direct popular vote, but assign the neccesary weights to each vote according to a few well chosen status indicators. The effect would be pretty much the same, but more exact. Surely the Real Americans of Wyoming deserve the same weight as the Real Americans of Montana?
I already live in a state that proportionally hands out electoral votes (Nebraska). It is awesome.
However, switching to pure popular vote solves absolutely nothing if we retain First Past the Post elections in the first place. All you're doing is changing the label on the same pile of shit.
Is it only Maine and Nebraska that can split votes? i thought it was more.
Nebraska gave up one of it's electoral votes to Obama. Something that I thought would get a little bit more press..but apparently not.
Yup, we did, and it should have been more news, but Nebraska took too long to verify the vote (Obama pulled ahead and won the district via the absentee/mail in votes the next day). By that time Obama had already won.
Some dumbass State Senator tried to change our laws to go to winner-take-all shortly afterwards but he was resoundingly defeated. Especially after it was pointed out that Nebraska going to winner-take all would eventually fuck over the Republican party as at a certain point, Omaha will have enough population that Omaha will determine the state's electoral votes, so instead of losing 1 electoral vote or so to the Democrats and keeping the other 3-4 electoral votes, they'd lose all 5 of Nebraska's electoral votes to the Democrats because Omaha votes Democrat.
Here is an ad that ran in support of keeping the proportional electoral vote:
I already live in a state that proportionally hands out electoral votes (Nebraska). It is awesome.
However, switching to pure popular vote solves absolutely nothing if we retain First Past the Post elections in the first place.
It doesn't solve the issue of electing the legislature, and it's easy to argue that's where reform of some sort is needed, but it does make electing the executive more simple.
I already live in a state that proportionally hands out electoral votes (Nebraska). It is awesome.
However, switching to pure popular vote solves absolutely nothing if we retain First Past the Post elections in the first place.
It doesn't solve the issue of electing the legislature, and it's easy to argue that's where reform of some sort is needed, but it does make electing the executive more simple.
Easy. Do what Nebraska did and abolish the two house system and become a Unicameral.
And ban First Past the Post voting, and go to the Alternative Vote at the very minimum.
I already live in a state that proportionally hands out electoral votes (Nebraska). It is awesome.
However, switching to pure popular vote solves absolutely nothing if we retain First Past the Post elections in the first place.
It doesn't solve the issue of electing the legislature, and it's easy to argue that's where reform of some sort is needed, but it does make electing the executive more simple.
Easy. Do what Nebraska did and abolish the two house system and become a Unicameral.
And ban First Past the Post voting, and go to the Alternative Vote at the very minimum.
The elegant part of the NPVIC is that it doesn't require a Constitutional amendment. Switching Congress to a unicameral body will never happen because you'd never get close to ratifying it.
I agree whole-heartedly about replacing FPTP elections, though, and it's another effective reform that could occur at the state level.
I already live in a state that proportionally hands out electoral votes (Nebraska). It is awesome.
However, switching to pure popular vote solves absolutely nothing if we retain First Past the Post elections in the first place. All you're doing is changing the label on the same pile of shit.
Is it only Maine and Nebraska that can split votes? i thought it was more.
Nebraska gave up one of it's electoral votes to Obama. Something that I thought would get a little bit more press..but apparently not.
Yup, we did, and it should have been more news, but Nebraska took too long to verify the vote (Obama pulled ahead and won the district via the absentee/mail in votes the next day). By that time Obama had already won.
Some dumbass State Senator tried to change our laws to go to winner-take-all shortly afterwards but he was resoundingly defeated. Especially after it was pointed out that Nebraska going to winner-take all would eventually fuck over the Republican party as at a certain point, Omaha will have enough population that Omaha will determine the state's electoral votes, so instead of losing 1 electoral vote or so to the Democrats and keeping the other 3-4 electoral votes, they'd lose all 5 of Nebraska's electoral votes to the Democrats because Omaha votes Democrat.
Here is an ad that ran in support of keeping the proportional electoral vote:
I think you're seeing shit that isn't there Than. Nevermind the huge swath of whites behind them, Nah, It's way easier to just selectively pick out the part of the video that allows me to make a silly goose argument.
I think you're seeing shit that isn't there Than. Nevermind the huge swath of whites behind them, Nah, It's way easier to just selectively pick out the part of the video that allows me to make a silly goose argument.
That was a huge reach and you know it
Did you watch the same video I did?
It's literally zooming in on probably the only two Asian people in Nebraska, while saying "Within the next few election cycles, urban, not rural voters will determine the outcome of a winner-take-all election" (emphasis theirs).
I also find it interesting, because it seems to take it for granted that having urban voters decide elections would be fucking terrible, and that our goal should be to have rural voters decide those elections, even if we have to game the system to make it that way. I mean, if I say something like that, I'm being a liberal elitist; but when redneck fucktards say it, they're just being real Americans.
Thanatos on
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
Smells an awful lot like a dog whistle when the only non-white person shown who wasn't a presidential candidate is depicted while the video is discussing the horrors of allowing the urban vote to control the state's electoral vote.
Really, what should be done is make it a national popular vote but give people in rural areas 2 or 3 votes each. So that they aren't treated specially.
Really, what should be done is make it a national popular vote but give people in rural areas 2 or 3 votes each. So that they aren't treated specially.
As the past few weeks have demonstrated, it's already entirely possible for a tiny minority of freshman legislators to bring the wheels of government to a screeching halt in pursuit of their own ends.
So, uh... not really seeing the problem with rural voters being "screwed over" in the one single election that everyone in the country gets to vote on.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
In the Senate, you can block any movement on a bill with 41 votes- i.e. the 21 least populous states could block any bills of the rest of the US, in theory. So a population of 34 million can veto anything the remaining 277 million can propose.
I think that gives the low-population areas QUITE enough say, thank you.
(and no that wasn't in direct response to Quid)
This right here. The minority should never have the power to actually force action, but as a check having the ability to stop or delay action if 100% of the minority fucking HATES something should be fine. However, they already fucking HAVE THAT in the Senate and even to a lesser degree in the House now that the size is fixed.
Why should 'rural interests' continue to get additional power in executive elections? Why rural and not another minority voting block like, say, atheists? Or gays - I hear they have an agenda to push?
The bottom line is you don't have 'no power' as a rural voter in a proportional system - you just have much less than you do now. Which is fine, because you have massively too much power at the moment. And the reason you have it in the first place goes back to preserving the insitution of slavery, which isn't much of a justification for continuing to inflate your vote at this point.
You know, we just had an example of how rural areas get fucked over federally. But please, keep telling me how it won't happen.
What example is this?
The fight over the FAA.
Yeah, you're right. If we had the popular vote for President, rural communities would be getting even more screwed in the FAA debate. They'd be tearing down airports left and right if they weren't within five minutes of a million people.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
You know, we just had an example of how rural areas get fucked over federally. But please, keep telling me how it won't happen.
What example is this?
The fight over the FAA.
That's more a fight over how rural voters get oversized support to maintain their lifestyles. The feds dump shitloads of money into convincing people to service rural areas, because it wouldn't be cost effective otherwise. Isn't the fight over the FAA an example of how Rural Voters get additional advantages over urban voters?
The simple truth is that the U.S. population is moving to urban areas en masse. The nation has gone from 40 percent urban to more than 80 percent urban since the early 20th century. That's a massive swing that's happened in living memory.
What this means is that the rural voter has gone from a representative of America to, let's be frank, what's been left behind by modernization. I'm from a small town that, like much of rural America, was gutted by the last few decades. It's all angry poor and local rich guys living like feudal lords now.
We're no longer a rural nation. We shouldn't want to return to being a rural nation, as rural areas are massively expensive to support, have few jobs and offer little future. If anything, we should be looking for national solutions to get more people out of rural areas.
In this reality, giving disproportionate representation to rural areas gives a larger than deserved voice to the angry, left-behind areas and their conservative, reactionary politicians. Americans are voting against rural areas with their feet, but our system is forcing them to still contend with rural mores.
The current situation is deranging our politics and will continue to do so, as angry, increasingly impoverished rural areas turn toward their God, guns and hatred of gays, minorities and various other "others" who they blame for making their lives worse. But the simple truth is that those people represent less and less of America, but our antiquated system gives them more and more power as their neighbors move to the cities.
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DynagripBreak me a million heartsHoustonRegistered User, ClubPAregular
maybe those rural areas shouldn't have supported government slashing jerks.
As peachy keen as this idea is, I'm looking at the map of people trying to pass it from Wikipedia:
(Green is signed into law, yellow is currently being debated and grey is previously failed/not currently seeking it)
If all the states in yellow passed their current process, that's another 163 electoral votes, bringing it up to 278, barely squeaking over the finish line. Something tells me you won't get all those states to ratify this in time for 2012, which is kind of a shame.
Heh, I always forget how silly it feels thinking about rural votes not being important in popular votes, then I remember stuff like CA gets 55 electoral votes and NY gets 29 and how the fuck do the Democrats not win more often anyway? And meh, while I don't really see the EC fucking up that often (I thought it only happened twice, in 2000 and 1820 something). What are the other two?
I guess I wonder if it will really change the game muc, or just make campaigning in cities that much more important.
You know, we just had an example of how rural areas get fucked over federally. But please, keep telling me how it won't happen.
What example is this?
The fight over the FAA.
That's more a fight over how rural voters get oversized support to maintain their lifestyles. The feds dump shitloads of money into convincing people to service rural areas, because it wouldn't be cost effective otherwise. Isn't the fight over the FAA an example of how Rural Voters get additional advantages over urban voters?
Or an example of how without very strong obligations from all branches of government they risk losing air travel. That is to say, the FAA thing is about not making long distance travel drastically more expensive for rural folks than it is for urban folks.
You know, I think part of the problem here is that we keep using the term "minority." What do we mean by "minority?" Well, we mean small, rural states.
These states are overwhelmingly populated by old, white, Christians. Now, let's take a look at the makeup of Congress:
Assuming that old, white christians have the same concerns in rural areas as in urban areas is pretty much the silliest thing I've seen in this thread. At a minimum you're ignoring a wage disparity. Also, data (legitimately curious as to the breakdown)?
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Indeed the Senate serves the exact purpose of giving each state equal representation in the union regardless of size. I mean, that's the whole fucking point of those useless cunts.
The house, as I remember, also does this to some extent too.
You may think that's a joke, but there's a reason Ted Koppel isn't well liked around here.
That is not a reason to be against equal representation.
Comparing the US to the EU this way is beyond silly goosery. The US was never made up of several previously independent states using several distinct political systems, and it is far more than just an economic union to promote trade.
Oh, and blah blah blah, one person one vote.
Rural areas still have their legislative representatives and can therefore make their voices heard, and the risk that presidential elections will ignore rural areas completely is rather unbiased fearmongering.
It makes it a lot harder to systematically disenfranchise a large enough size of the majority to swing the election through fraud, disinformation and legislative maneuvers.
If one can't remove thousands of people from voting roles in a key state to shift the national election, what will become of our democracy?
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
What if the we went to one person one vote and the majority decided something without the approval of the minority?
What then?
I think that gives the low-population areas QUITE enough say, thank you.
(and no that wasn't in direct response to Quid)
These states are overwhelmingly populated by old, white, Christians. Now, let's take a look at the makeup of Congress:
http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%260BL)PL%3B%3D%0A
Average age of a Senator: 63.1
Average age of a House member: 57.2
Racial makeup:
House:
41 African Americans (2 are non-voting members)
28 Hispanics (2 are non-voting members)
11 Asians/Pacific Islanders (2 are non-voting members)
1 Native American
360 White, non-Hispanic
Senate:
1 African American
1 Hispanic
2 Asians/Pacific Islanders
96 White, non-Hispanic
Religious makeup:
Total Congress:
3 Buddhists
2 Muslims
2 Other Faith
6 Refused/Don't Know
39 Jews
156 Catholics
304 Protestants
23 Other Christian
Yeah, those poor, completely unrepresented people. I mean, they barely control 90% of Congress. It's a complete disaster for them.
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/map/candidate.visits/
A fairly rough guide to how much parts of America were ignored at the last election.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
(Green is signed into law, yellow is currently being debated and grey is previously failed/not currently seeking it)
If all the states in yellow passed their current process, that's another 163 electoral votes, bringing it up to 278, barely squeaking over the finish line. Someting tells me you won't get all those states to ratify this in time for 2012, which is kind of a shame.
Along the same vein, why protect "rural voters" from the terror of majority rule with a system whereby urban voters in a rural state are given more voting power right along with the Real Americans? Why not just have a direct popular vote, but assign the neccesary weights to each vote according to a few well chosen status indicators. The effect would be pretty much the same, but more exact. Surely the Real Americans of Wyoming deserve the same weight as the Real Americans of Montana?
However, switching to pure popular vote solves absolutely nothing if we retain First Past the Post elections in the first place. All you're doing is changing the label on the same pile of shit.
Yup, we did, and it should have been more news, but Nebraska took too long to verify the vote (Obama pulled ahead and won the district via the absentee/mail in votes the next day). By that time Obama had already won.
Some dumbass State Senator tried to change our laws to go to winner-take-all shortly afterwards but he was resoundingly defeated. Especially after it was pointed out that Nebraska going to winner-take all would eventually fuck over the Republican party as at a certain point, Omaha will have enough population that Omaha will determine the state's electoral votes, so instead of losing 1 electoral vote or so to the Democrats and keeping the other 3-4 electoral votes, they'd lose all 5 of Nebraska's electoral votes to the Democrats because Omaha votes Democrat.
Here is an ad that ran in support of keeping the proportional electoral vote:
It doesn't solve the issue of electing the legislature, and it's easy to argue that's where reform of some sort is needed, but it does make electing the executive more simple.
Easy. Do what Nebraska did and abolish the two house system and become a Unicameral.
And ban First Past the Post voting, and go to the Alternative Vote at the very minimum.
The elegant part of the NPVIC is that it doesn't require a Constitutional amendment. Switching Congress to a unicameral body will never happen because you'd never get close to ratifying it.
I agree whole-heartedly about replacing FPTP elections, though, and it's another effective reform that could occur at the state level.
That was a huge reach and you know it
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It's literally zooming in on probably the only two Asian people in Nebraska, while saying "Within the next few election cycles, urban, not rural voters will determine the outcome of a winner-take-all election" (emphasis theirs).
I also find it interesting, because it seems to take it for granted that having urban voters decide elections would be fucking terrible, and that our goal should be to have rural voters decide those elections, even if we have to game the system to make it that way. I mean, if I say something like that, I'm being a liberal elitist; but when redneck fucktards say it, they're just being real Americans.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
That doesn't seem like a good idea.
Maybe instead have them count as 7/5ths a person.
I don't think things have changed tremendously, though. One senator more or less really isn't going to have a significant impact on those numbers.
So, uh... not really seeing the problem with rural voters being "screwed over" in the one single election that everyone in the country gets to vote on.
What example is this?
Why should 'rural interests' continue to get additional power in executive elections? Why rural and not another minority voting block like, say, atheists? Or gays - I hear they have an agenda to push?
The bottom line is you don't have 'no power' as a rural voter in a proportional system - you just have much less than you do now. Which is fine, because you have massively too much power at the moment. And the reason you have it in the first place goes back to preserving the insitution of slavery, which isn't much of a justification for continuing to inflate your vote at this point.
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
That's more a fight over how rural voters get oversized support to maintain their lifestyles. The feds dump shitloads of money into convincing people to service rural areas, because it wouldn't be cost effective otherwise. Isn't the fight over the FAA an example of how Rural Voters get additional advantages over urban voters?
I'm not really sure what your point here is other than the fed doesn't act in the interest of rural communities 100% of the time.
Which is, you know, a good thing.
What this means is that the rural voter has gone from a representative of America to, let's be frank, what's been left behind by modernization. I'm from a small town that, like much of rural America, was gutted by the last few decades. It's all angry poor and local rich guys living like feudal lords now.
We're no longer a rural nation. We shouldn't want to return to being a rural nation, as rural areas are massively expensive to support, have few jobs and offer little future. If anything, we should be looking for national solutions to get more people out of rural areas.
In this reality, giving disproportionate representation to rural areas gives a larger than deserved voice to the angry, left-behind areas and their conservative, reactionary politicians. Americans are voting against rural areas with their feet, but our system is forcing them to still contend with rural mores.
The current situation is deranging our politics and will continue to do so, as angry, increasingly impoverished rural areas turn toward their God, guns and hatred of gays, minorities and various other "others" who they blame for making their lives worse. But the simple truth is that those people represent less and less of America, but our antiquated system gives them more and more power as their neighbors move to the cities.
Heh, I always forget how silly it feels thinking about rural votes not being important in popular votes, then I remember stuff like CA gets 55 electoral votes and NY gets 29 and how the fuck do the Democrats not win more often anyway? And meh, while I don't really see the EC fucking up that often (I thought it only happened twice, in 2000 and 1820 something). What are the other two?
I guess I wonder if it will really change the game muc, or just make campaigning in cities that much more important.
Assuming that old, white christians have the same concerns in rural areas as in urban areas is pretty much the silliest thing I've seen in this thread. At a minimum you're ignoring a wage disparity. Also, data (legitimately curious as to the breakdown)?