Will you abstain from voting this election?

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » October 11, 2004, 10:20 am

Wondering how many people are going to do this.
If you say yes, please state why.

Deward · Post by **Deward** » October 11, 2004, 10:31 am

I plan to vote Libertarian. It might be construed as refraining from voting but I won't have that sick feeling of knowing I voted for a Horse's ass regardless of who wins.

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » October 11, 2004, 10:34 am

For the record, I was acquitted.

Denadeb · Post by **Denadeb** » October 11, 2004, 10:44 am

I'm hand writting my name on the ballet.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 11, 2004, 10:49 am

at first i was going to say that i dont understand how anybody could abstain from voting. But the electoral college system does make it so that not all votes are equal - which i think is a problem.

i certainly understand a republican in Manhattan not voting, and i understand a democrat in dallas doing the same.

Denadeb · Post by **Denadeb** » October 11, 2004, 10:57 am

Actually my vote would do jack shit where I'm registered anyway. They prob wouldn't take my vote anyway cause I prob have a last name simular to some convict in Alaska.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » October 11, 2004, 10:59 am

My vote in Louisiana will be meaningless...That said I will still cast it...

Denadeb · Post by **Denadeb** » October 11, 2004, 11:01 am

Hey you can hand write me in too man that way I have two votes in La.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » October 11, 2004, 11:24 am

I've got my early voters ballot sitting on my desk at home! My vote is still for sale people, c'mon!

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 11, 2004, 11:24 am

well dont forget to pay attention to the races in your local area too.

Sylvos · Post by **Sylvos** » October 11, 2004, 11:26 am

I despise the Electoral College approach to elections. Where South Dakota or Kansas means nothing compared to California or Florida. It means that the states do not have an equal say in who is President. I would love to see the Electoral College abolished and or changed to reflect the modern occupancy of America or make the "popular" vote be the deciding factor. After all...we are a democracy.

Post by **Sylvus** » October 11, 2004, 11:54 am

States shouldn't have an equal say in who is President. That said, the electoral college is bullshit because we don't need to assign a number of votes to a state based on its population when we could just count their votes. If State A has 1 million voters vote and State B has 5 million, I think that does a pretty good job of making State B's vote worth 5x as much as State A.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 11, 2004, 12:18 pm

Sylvos wrote:I despise the Electoral College approach to elections. Where South Dakota or Kansas means nothing compared to California or Florida. It means that the states do not have an equal say in who is President. I would love to see the Electoral College abolished and or changed to reflect the modern occupancy of America or make the "popular" vote be the deciding factor. After all...we are a democracy.

actually the electoral college makes states like South Dakota much more important proportionately to their population than a state like California.

#1 California has 24,873,000 Voting Age residents
#25 Kentucy has 2,993,000
#51 Wyoming has 358,000

Cal has 55 Electoral Votes
Kent has 8
Wyo has 3

So the number of citizens represented by each electoral vote in the states:
California 1 EV = 452,237 potential voters
Kent 1EV = 374,125
Wyoming 1 EV = 119,333

So basically the vote of a person in Wyoming is worth 3.79 as much as a person in California.

the little states get a tremendously disproportionate amount of electoral power than the people in more populus states.

Edit: going to redo math by Voting Age Population, using Federal Election Commission's 2000 numbers
Edit: Changed math, and the proportional value stayed almost the same (3.73 v. 3.79)

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » October 11, 2004, 12:25 pm

Yeah but do the electors always vote the way the people in their state do?

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 11, 2004, 12:28 pm

Stragi wrote:Yeah but do the electors always vote the way the people in their state do?

that is a good question, i'm not sure they are actually legally required to, but they are chosen by their party specifically to do that.

for instance in Wyoming there are 3 Republican Electors and 3 Democrat Electors.

Whoever wins the state, that parties electors cast the votes to the electoral college.

I'm sure back in the 1800's or something some guy from Vermont or something caused a shitstorm by switching his vote, but i would think the parties keep pretty tight control of the people that have these responsibilities because of how much is at stake.

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » October 11, 2004, 12:37 pm

What determines who wins the state? Popular vote?

masteen · Post by **masteen** » October 11, 2004, 12:42 pm

The electoral college was designed to prevent the small states from being dominated by the larger states populations. People in Nebraska don't want the people of New York and California picking the president for them.

XunilTlatoani · Post by **XunilTlatoani** » October 11, 2004, 12:49 pm

I heard something about Colorado looking into the possibility of splitting up it's electoral votes into regions so that the winner of the state would not necessarily get all the electoral votes. (Actually I think Maine and Nebraska already do this).

To me, that makes sense. The main purpose of electoral votes is so that large metropolitan areas do not completely control the elections. They give rural America a fairly good say in who becomes president. The problem I see is that the level of granularity is still too broad, and I think what Colorado was proposing may be a step in the right direction.

The state that I live in, Illinois, is a good example for my point. All 21 votes last election, and most likely this election, went to the Democratic candidate. A large reason for that is the predominately left-wing city of Chicago. At a population of around 3 million, 25% of the state's population lives in Chicago, but the city is the predominant factor in most elections swaying to the left.

Now, if Chicago had 5 or 6 of Illinois' electoral votes, then the remaining 15 or so can be spread around to the collar counties and the rest of the state. I think if that were the case, a lot of Republican voters downstate who would stay home because their vote wouldn't count, would possibly come out to vote.

The system Maine and Nebraska use (I think) where every congressional district gets an electoral vote and the popular vote winner of the state gets a bonus of two electoral votes (from the senate seat votes) is as close to ideal as we can get without amending the constitution.

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » October 11, 2004, 12:56 pm

masteen wrote:The electoral college was designed to prevent the small states from being dominated by the larger states populations. People in Nebraska don't want the people of New York and California picking the president for them.

I suspect that the original reason for the electoral college was to make all of the original colonies feel like equals in the presidential election. There was some doubt that a single nation was going to be formed in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, so this could have been used to draw the smaller colonies into the new Union. I have been reading a fair few biographies on the Found Fathers of late, but I can't remember if I read this in one of them or dreamt it up just now.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » October 11, 2004, 1:14 pm

Yes, popular vote for that state determines who gets the electorial votes

Marb

masteen · Post by **masteen** » October 11, 2004, 1:31 pm

Arch, that's what the intent was, and it the same thing I said, basically. I do agree that the sweep is too broad, and breaking up the vote into regions, or just doing something easier, like sending a ratio of partisan electors based on the state general election percentages, would be a nice fix.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 11, 2004, 2:09 pm

What's the law on registering to vote? Do you need to be a resident for a certain amount of time?

Politicians state hop all the time to improve their chances of winning elections (Hillary Clinton). Voters should do the same.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » October 11, 2004, 2:35 pm

Marbus wrote:Yes, popular vote for that state determines who gets the electorial votes

Marb

I really don't believe thats what really happens tbh. I know how its suppose to work, thats not what I was really asking (

Thess · Post by **Thess** » October 11, 2004, 2:49 pm

Winnow wrote:What's the law on registering to vote? Do you need to be a resident for a certain amount of time?

Depends on the state.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 11, 2004, 2:56 pm

Thess wrote:
Winnow wrote:What's the law on registering to vote? Do you need to be a resident for a certain amount of time?
Depends on the state.

How about Nevada? Arizona is a lock Bush state. I'd like to hop over to Nevada to make a difference : )

Thess · Post by **Thess** » October 11, 2004, 3:09 pm

Winnow wrote:
Thess wrote:
Winnow wrote:What's the law on registering to vote? Do you need to be a resident for a certain amount of time?
Depends on the state.
How about Nevada? Arizona is a lock Bush state. I'd like to hop over to Nevada to make a difference : )

It's to late =)

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 11, 2004, 3:35 pm

basicallly i think it has to do with you having a residence in the state for 30 days preceeding the election. There are variations on that as you go state-to-state. But that is kind of a central basic point, and of course some states may have much longer periods.

I think there are problems specifically in Florida where people who may have vacation homes there are registered in their home state as well as Florida. And of course since local election boards handle the voter rolls, they have no network to check to see if you are registered in another state.

Consider all the other shenanigans that are underway in Florida, and it is just a complete joke. Of course, the biggest problem is that those that govern us appear to want to keep Florida in a state that is more likely to be manipulated and less likely to honor the votes of its citizens.

one counterarugment to the Colorado splitting of electoral votes is interesting. It would mean that usually the state will split 5/4, meaning it will be only worth +1 net electoral vote. Pretty interesting point, a guy made in a radio interview I heard. Originally, i was certainly in favor of splitting them in all states. But i think a better option is to eliminate them.

Persons in rural areas should not have more representation than persons in urban areas. All votes should have exactly the same value.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » October 11, 2004, 4:26 pm

I'll be voting. I don't give a fuck that my state is a foregone conclusion for the GOP already. Bush terrifies me infinitely more than Gore terrified me in 2000. The USA can't afford another four years of his leadership or lack thereof.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » October 11, 2004, 5:27 pm

I may very well not be casting a vote for president (if so, I will probably still go and vote on other issues). I may vote for Badnarik the Libertarian candidate, I need to go read some more on his site when I get a chance. I have heard a few things that may indicate he isn't the greatest candidate in the world, so not sure if I will actually vote for him yet though. Although to some point it is moot if he isn't a great candidate, since he certainly isn't going to win

. If I don't vote for the libertarian candidate, then I most likely won't be voting for president. I want a "None of the candidates are acceptable to me" line on the possible selections.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » October 11, 2004, 5:49 pm

The electoral college as specified in the constitution only specifies how many electoral votes the states get. One for each representative in the house and one for each senator, so as Voro pointed out smaller states get more compared to their population. Pretty much the same way smaller states get a larger say compared to their population in the senate. It is up to the individual states to decide how those electoral votes will be awarded. Currently, almost all (I think there are one or two exceptions) states give all the electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote. Originally there was more variations between the states in how they selected but it moved to the current setup. I suspect it was largely because of what voro talks about regarding colorado. Say you state A and state B, both with 10 electoral votes. If they awarded them proportionally, then if the candidates are roughly split in the state, campaigning there is only likely to get you a couple electoral vote swing either way. If state A suddenly decides to give all of their electoral votes to the winner, then it suddenly becomes a lot more lucrative for candidates to come campaign there. Then state B doesn't want to be left out, so does the same.

Voronwe:

Persons in rural areas should not have more representation than persons in urban areas. All votes should have exactly the same value.

I disagree with this, I think it is an acceptable compromise in a large regionally diverse nation like the U.S. I'll also ask my standard follow up question of if you think that they shouldn't all count the same, then do you think that we should dissolve the Senate? The difference in representation in the Senate has been far mor influential throughout the history of our country than the occasional cases when electoral votes vary from popular votes, but you never hear people talking about getting rid of it (for the record, I am not in favor of getting rid of the senate either, just curious whey people are against one, but don't seem to be against the other).

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » October 11, 2004, 5:52 pm

I'm not getting your point about the Senate, it is represenative of the population... you can't compare it to the EC.

Marb

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » October 11, 2004, 5:58 pm

My point is that smaller states get a larger representation per person in the senate than larger states do in exactly the same way that they get larger electoral vote representation proportionate to their population (except for in the senate case it is much more pronounced than the electoral vote case).

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 11, 2004, 6:08 pm

so Chmee I"m not sure you offered a reason for why you think it is important for persons in less populated areas to have a proportionately more powerful vote.

As for the Senate, you bring up a very valid point. I'll have to think about why that hasn't bothered me as much as the issue with the electoral college.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » October 11, 2004, 6:17 pm

Just for some numbers on the senate/electoral college vote thing

The following site has population numbers and electoral vote counts, not sure how up to date and accurate it is, but its good enough for example purposes.

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G04/Elect ... ?sort=Popu

So if we compare the most populous to the least populous state, and the differences between electoral vote per population we get ...

Wyoming, 3 electoral votes - population 495,304 - 165,101 people per electoral vote

California, 55 electoral votes - population 33,930,798 - 616,923 people per electoral vote

Note that this is somewhat mitigated currently bt the fact that although in wyoming they may have a larger share of an electoral vote per person, the big electoral prize of 55 electoral votes is far more signficant than the 3 votes from wyoming.

If we look at the same states for senate representation.

Wyoming, 2 senators - population 495,304 - 274,652 people per senator

California, 2 senators - population 33,930,798 - 16,965,399 people per senator

Wyoming gets a far far greater senate representation per person than California does. And keep in mind that the electoral vote win has only diverged from the popular vote twice is it? While the senate case is constant.

Rekaar. · Post by **Rekaar.** » October 11, 2004, 6:31 pm

Marbus wrote:I'm not getting your point about the Senate, it is represenative of the population... you can't compare it to the EC.

Marb

The senate is not representative of population as there are 2 per state.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » October 11, 2004, 6:40 pm

Sorry about that, I don't know what I was thinking. Just found out a co-worker who was getting ready to have back surgery has cancer throughout his body and isn't going to get out of ICU. Hasn't been a very good day...

Marb

Midnyte_Ragebringer · October 11, 2004, 6:45 pm

Answer is no. I wouldn't risk the chances of Kerry getting elected. I'll be voting.

Markulas · Post by **Markulas** » October 11, 2004, 7:00 pm

Recently one of my friends became a Illinois resident to vote for Kerry over there, because his vote is worth more there than it is here.

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » October 11, 2004, 7:47 pm

The Electoral College is an anacronism that should be done away with. Its only purpose at the moment is to cement the two party system in place, which is why we will never see it removed. In some ways, I am glad it is there because of electronic tabulation is going to be used on a broader scale, Diebold will be involved and that would be a bad thing.

Xzion- · Post by **Xzion-** » October 11, 2004, 8:32 pm

Jice Virago wrote:The Electoral College is an anacronism that should be done away with. Its only purpose at the moment is to cement the two party system in place, which is why we will never see it removed. In some ways, I am glad it is there because of electronic tabulation is going to be used on a broader scale, Diebold will be involved and that would be a bad thing.

What there should be is a multi-party primary, where people choose to elect 2 canidates from the however many choices to run for president. Libertarians, democrates, republicans, reformist, greens etc would all face eachother in a primary, we would vote for two partys and then have an election

The electoral college is a corrupt and blatantly hipocritical system

Xzion- · Post by **Xzion-** » October 11, 2004, 8:36 pm

Rekaar. wrote:
Marbus wrote:I'm not getting your point about the Senate, it is represenative of the population... you can't compare it to the EC.

Marb
The senate is not representative of population as there are 2 per state.

But the house is based on population, and it is a much larger house

abortion, taxes, economic policy, war in Iraq, death penaltiy even censorship etc etc are all defendable on both sides...the two issues that have NO JUSTIFICATION, ZERO are gay marriage and the electoral college

there is no logical argument, or atleast i have not heard one that i cant descredit with better logic on these two issues

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » October 11, 2004, 11:37 pm

Deward wrote:I plan to vote Libertarian. It might be construed as refraining from voting but I won't have that sick feeling of knowing I voted for a Horse's ass regardless of who wins.

heh from what I have read about the Libertarian candidate I am not so sure about that one...

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 12, 2004, 12:41 am

Markulas wrote:Recently one of my friends became a Illinois resident to vote for Kerry over there, because his vote is worth more there than it is here.

tell the dumbass to move to Ohio because Illinois was a Democrat lock.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 12, 2004, 1:07 am

Voronwë wrote:
Markulas wrote:Recently one of my friends became a Illinois resident to vote for Kerry over there, because his vote is worth more there than it is here.
tell the dumbass to move to Ohio because Illinois was a Democrat lock.

lol. Shhhhh! Let him go to Illinois if he wants to! I hear Massachusetts needs help as well.

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » October 12, 2004, 1:45 am

Despite how much I want to vote in this election, I'm currently out of state at college, and frankly its a massive pain in the ass for me to get my absentee ballot in and send it back to new jersey.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » October 12, 2004, 9:29 am

Voronwë wrote:so Chmee I"m not sure you offered a reason for why you think it is important for persons in less populated areas to have a proportionately more powerful vote.

For much the same reason I think the Senate is a good idea in balancing regional concerns against pure population numbers. If it was a straight popular vote count, then it would be more effective spending their campaign time in the most populous areas since a small shift there would mean more overall votes. Currently although the more popular states are larger electoral prizes there is usually probably more of a reason to campaign in less popular areas as well to pick up the electoral votes, and the president is supposed to represent the whole nation, not just the big cities.

Not saying its perfect or anything, but I think that it has worked well enough that I don't see a sufficient reason to change it.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » October 12, 2004, 9:32 am

Xzion- wrote: But the house is based on population, and it is a much larger house

Yes the house is based on population, because our government is supposed to balance the interests of population and regions. The fact that the house is larger has no real bearing on the point I was making.

abortion, taxes, economic policy, war in Iraq, death penaltiy even censorship etc etc are all defendable on both sides...the two issues that have NO JUSTIFICATION, ZERO are gay marriage and the electoral college

there is no logical argument, or atleast i have not heard one that i cant descredit with better logic on these two issues

I disagree about the electoral college (obviously) for the reasons I have stated elsewhere in the thread.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 12, 2004, 11:02 am

i think the senate construction is sufficient protection for regions to be "protected" from the interests of large population centers. That being said, large population centers are what drives our economy, what creates the infrastructure to have things like investment banks, stock exchanges, factories, airports, etc.

THe Constitution has been applied to state that a persons genetic makeup should not make ones vote proportionately less than anothers. I think the construction of the electoral college could perhaps be argued along those lines to say that all votes are not equal, which raises an inconsistency in the Constitution that needs to be remedied.

I certainly understand the inherent value of natural resources, and property in general, as well as the agriculture industry. But the agriculture industry does not need help from the electoral college. Small family farms are in danger from factory farm companys like ADM, not because some guy in NYC won't vote in their interest.

I guess what i'm saying is that it does not make sense to have a vote be more valuable depending on arbitrary geographical distribution. It isnt even based on which areas of land have more intrinsic economic value.