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Journal by DeathMonkey
In a democracy, all votes should count equally. In our democracy, when voting for the president, they do not.
Because of the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes, if you don’t vote for the candidate who wins your state, your vote counts for nothing. That violates the Constitution’s “one person, one vote” principle.
We plan to challenge this system in the courts. Join this fight for citizen equality.
Lawrence Lessig is taking on the Electoral College!
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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(1)
If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
conclusion.
-- William Baumol
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @10:06PM (6 children)
I don't mind the electoral college, but states messed it up with a winner-takes-all system. The electoral college balances elections similar to how the Senate balances the House - evening out the influence of big states and small states. Proportional voting should be mandatory to avoid the obvious problems with winner-takes-all.
Ranked voting would also be nice, so we are less likely to just end up with the lesser evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:11AM
Ranking ballots generally behave pathologically in a world with strategic voters, and we're unfortunate enough to live in such a world. But if you really do want a ranked-ballot method, please don't use or recommend Borda -- it brings along various bonus pathologies. One of the Condorcet methods would be a better choice.
When a strategic voter looks at the race, they identify the n candidates that are serious contenders, lists their favorite of those first, and lists the remaining n-1 contenders last. With a ranking ballot, the only way to do this is to stuff the gap with the remaining candidates, those that "everyone knows" won't win. So in the 2000 election, you might see votes like:
where the minor parties might be ordered either by preference or randomly. But when enough people vote that way, the combined effect can be that Nader (or maybe even Hitler) wins, not because any significant number of people actually liked them, but because they were considered unattractive enough candidates to be used as filler. (This gets especially bad when there's three or more serious contenders.)
But with a score ballot, on the other hand, you can put one candidate first and another last without affecting where you rank the other candidates; they can be tied for first, tied for last, or anywhere in the middle:
and such.
More specific criticism of Borda here [rangevoting.org], if you want it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:14AM (3 children)
I agree. Just getting rid of the electoral college would not actually fix our disastrous voting system. I wonder why so many people only focus on the electoral college without addressing the more fundamental issues with our system?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:49AM
I agree. Just getting rid of the electoral college would not actually fix our disastrous voting system. I wonder why so many people only focus on the electoral college without addressing the more fundamental issues with our system?
You gotta start somewhere. The proposed fix is to apply proportional votes to the electoral college.
Sounds like you agree that's the fundamental issue so lets fix it!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:44PM (1 child)
Because Team Clinton wants to blame everyone but themselves for their loss. So they've been busy convincing everyone else they lost because of racism, the electoral college, the Russians etc.
But the facts are:
1) A BLACK guy won TWICE with that same electoral college system.
2) Trump was the candidate Team Clinton "elevated": http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/ [salon.com]
http://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/ [observer.com]
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday September 20 2017, @03:00PM
It is like you don't even see the problem with what you said
A black GUY won TWICE
#stillherturn
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:39AM
I don't mind the electoral college, but states messed it up with a winner-takes-all system.
It sounds like you agree with Lessig, then. You should support this effort!
Equal Votes is a crowdfunded legal challenge to the winner-take-all method for allocating Electoral College votes. Based on the principles already articulated by the Supreme Court interpreting the “one person, one vote” principle, we believe the winner-take-all system is unconstitutional—it is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause that ensures all of us, and all of our votes, must be treated equally under the law.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @11:37PM (3 children)
We're better off throwing darts at the phone book.
Seriously... Majority rule is overrated. We need political conscription (a draft). For everybody over 35, their name goes into the hat. When yours is drawn, like it or not, you must serve. Call it community service, part of your social contract. I guarantee you'll get better government than you have now. Crooked voters looking for bigger handouts are reelecting crooked politicians. Let's put a stop to it.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:05AM
Hmm....government by Jury-Duty.
From a historical perspective there's some evidence this is how it was intended to work. Back in the day politicians were expected to have day-jobs... The full-time politician is actually a fairly recent phenomenon in US politics.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday September 18 2017, @05:38PM (1 child)
Wonderful, get drafted to spend a bunch of time in Washington. Lose job and perhaps wife. Get to vote on topics that I'm totally ignorant of. Luckily nice lobbyist offers to help me out by explaining things over hookers and blow, plus offers me an easy job for when my term ends.
Sounds good, especially if sick of my old life and wife.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:37AM
Ohhh, no sir! The Sword of Damocles will be hanging over you by the thinnest of threads. You will be a good boy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:53PM
Or just let me pick. I'm not a US citizen but I'd have done a "write in" for Bernie Sanders. I think he'd be better than the candidates most US voters were voting for.