StrangeSox

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Oct 25, 2012 -> 05:39 PM) NBC Nightly News has so far basically devoted all it's daily coverage to the Colin Powell endorsement of Obama. lol. they are so s***ty. is this 2008 again?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 25, 2012 -> 07:55 AM) I'd keep that one on the back-burn and see what you can get for Jennings and Cutler other than Vick. Whoever has RG3 is likely loaded? Would it be reasonable to counter for roethlesburger? That's his other qb. This is for my garbage team but I'm not just going to dump my good players off.

Yeah, he's got 20 more points on the season than Cutler thanks to his 8 picks and 5 lost fumbles.

I got offered Vick and Ben Tate for Cutler and Rashad Jennings. I'm weak at QB (Cutler is my only QB right now) and I've got Gore, DMC, Stewart and Felix Jones at RB in addition to Jennings.

So expensive yet so necessary

hawt

Well, a timely post over on Volokh on the rare-but-potential result of no majority winner for the President or Vice-President in the Electoral College http://www.volokh.com/2012/10/23/and-somet...-framers-erred/

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:49 PM) I have been saying all along that these distortions are built into the system on purpose as a protection of minority rights. The original EC does not really resemble the modern EC at all. Hamilton's arguments in the Federalist Papers (60-something) were basically that the populous was not to be trusted with direct election and that it should instead be in the hands of well-informed electors. It also predates and naively does not address political parties. I don't see how this particular distortion provides any meaningful protection of minority rights. For example, someone living in Wyoming has roughly double the EC vote power of someone living in California. What minority is being protected here? At whose expense does this come? How is that analogous to anti-discrimination laws or other civil rights? Do the collective citizens of Ohio, our country's 9th most populous state, represent some minority whose rights need protection that they wouldn't otherwise receive in a true national vote? To expand on this, Nate Silver has a column up today on Arizona becoming a battleground state in the near future. What minority rights of the citizens of Arizona are currently not protected by the EC (as no one is campaigning their or really paying attention to their specific issues as Arizonans) but will be protected in say 2016, when the population demographics push it into the toss-up column? How are those minority rights not better served by giving them equal voice now?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:41 PM) Anything campaign finance oriented. I'm not following. How does this relate to the EC, anyway? Even if you do point out other instances with similar distortions, that's still not an affirmative argument in favor of the EC.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:38 PM) Anti-Discrimination laws? That doesn't impact the power of your individual vote. Minorities aren't given more votes.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 12:31 PM) I think if you got rid of the electoral college, you would just disenfranchise a different sector of the country. I have said before that we as a country did built in minority (as in not the majority of the votes) protections. I think the electoral college was another method, much like the senate, to try to limit the power of urban areas in a country that has a large agrarian history. btw this was not the original intention nor usage of the EC. What we do now, with political parties and nominees and electors selected by popular vote, is not at all similar to what was first put in place.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:36 PM) Which has been purposefully done all over the US governance system as a protection of minority rights. Examples? Aside from the US Senate, of course.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:31 PM) The election is still a winner take all process. Well, yeah. There can only be one winner of an elected office. Why throw additional and arbitrary "winner-take-all" steps in the process, though? It only distorts the value of each individual vote.

More from the IMF: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/09/berg.htm

Where is the evidence of the EC actually doing that, though? What issues are brought to the table by focusing so much on Ohio and Pennsylvania and Nevada, and what other issues important to the other 90% of America are ignored or overridden because of that? The swing-states in this election are relatively populous states, not rural farming states. And on top of that, states like California and Illinois have an awful lot of farming themselves but are otherwise ignored.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:13 PM) As I have said a million times, there still won't be equal weight to votes for many reasons. Go back and read the thread. I haven't seen you actually make an argument aside from population density ones. Why should where I happen to live dictate the power of my individual vote?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:13 PM) Would a fiscal conservative and social liberal have a voice in the one vote system? No. So what changes for them? In your world view, their vote has no meaning. Yes, they would. They would have exactly the same voice as everyone else. In winner-take-all EC votes, they do not.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:08 PM) In theory, sure. In reality, never. Can you expand on this?

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:10 PM) There is no diverse options right now. Every debate is dominated by coal and manufacturing. Tailoring all our elections to these two industries is ridiculous. If they paid more attention to the problems of companies in San Franciso and New York you'd see a lot better policies. But regardless, the idea that cities are a homogenous voting class is ridiculous. Dallas is not the same as Seattle, Portland is not the same as Washington DC. Yet all are marginalized in the current system. Only because of what states happen to be contested this round, of course.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:10 PM) If your actual vote isn't for a majority population theory, then yes, your impact would be just at muted. Will a Republican living in Illinois have a meaningful vote in this year's Presidential election? Would they in a national election system?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 03:06 PM) It will change from state to region/urban area. It won't be "national" because we do not have a uniform population distribution. It will change to "where actual people actually vote because they're people." Your vote will have the exact same impact regardless of where you live. That more people live in urban areas than rural areas is a tautology and doesn't change the actual impact of your individual vote.

QUOTE (vandy125 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 02:58 PM) So, you can choose where to live, but not where you live?... Swing-states change. Should I move to another state every four years based on what polls shows may be a swing-state? Why shouldn't I have equal say in the Presidency regardless of where I live? But there's nobody doing this "selecting." Everyone gets one vote regardless of where you live and what your concerns are. The voting population is self-selecting what issues are the most important. That is the core of democracy. I don't see how the EC actually advances any new viewpoints and I haven't seen any good arguments in this thread for that case. What viewpoints does focusing so heavily on Ohio bring (11.5M) that having some campaigning in Illinois (12.8M) wouldn't? Why should Romney have to write off every Republican vote in Illinois and ignore the state entirely? What good does this do for anyone besides those who happen to be living in what is a swing-state in this particular election?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 02:56 PM) On one hand you equate the ability to vote how you want, but because most of the state has a specific opinion that doesn't change it somehow negates that voice. That won't change if you get rid of the electoral college. Blocks of people will still hold over-representation based on certain specialized demographics. Just the boundaries of how those inequities get expressed will change. That boundary will change from state to nation. That's an important distinction for a national office. What actual benefit does the EC provide here? Rural states are still mostly ignored because they're solidly Republican. Rural areas in strongly-democratic states are largely ignored because it doesn't matter if you get 49.9% and your opponent gets 50.1%, they win every EC vote. Urban areas in strongly-Republican states are ignored for the same reason. Focus is instead given to states that just happen to have a close split politically in this particular race.

QUOTE (vandy125 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 02:50 PM) And because more Americans live there, they should always have the biggest say, right? I'll take note of this for any arguments that you make in favor of minority rights. Also, let's take a look at a map: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyin...tical_landscape Just Google rural vs metro concerns and you have a whole list. I answered your question already about getting a more diverse representation from the whole nation. It has been ignored. I see an awful lot of solid-red "country" landscape there, meaning it gets ignored because it's solidly for one side and the individual votes don't really matter. Ohio is the 7th-most populous state in the country. Simply by fluke of what the current political makeup of the population is, Ohio may very well decide the election and individual voters in that state have tremendous influence. How does the EC benefit rural states, which are by-and-large solidly red, in this case?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 23, 2012 -> 02:52 PM) How many times in history has this actually happened? It isn't even worth mentioning honestly. A handful, but it shows that the underpinnings of the system are rotten. You aren't voting for Obama or Romney, you're voting for designated electors who may or may not follow your preference. How does that make any sense?