Poll: The Electoral College
6Poll: The electoral college:
A - could use some work.
B - is something IDC/K about.
C - is awesome and should be kept.
D - sucks and needs to go.
I ask because I’m listening to and watching the Democratic National Convention, and I’m also trying to decrease my altruism score by posting content.
/giphy online presidential convention
- 52 comments, 181 replies
- Comment
WORKER BEES! HERCULES! TURKEY GREASE! AWESOME!
@mediocrebot get a job
@dvermilion @mediocrebot They have a job, and they’re doing it well.
/giphy gold star
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D.
Congrats, your altruism score is 3.4.
Is that where you wanted it to be?
Nevermind. Saw your other topic.
@RiotDemon No. I want an even 3.0. Only 232 to go
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@eonfifty This might get old quickly…
@Willijs3
A
@tinamarie1974 Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.”
D
@Kyeh Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.”
D, absolutely
@OldCatLady Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.”
D
@Ceige Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.”
D
@seraphimcaduto Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.”
D; electoral college sucks, it’s how we got where we are today, and how W became president in 2000 with the help of the supremes
@robson Diana Ross helped maybe just s little bit.
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Kinda makes a joke out of the one man one vote rhetoric.
@cranky1950 Is that D?
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Are those of you picking D doing so because you believe that, in general, that would yield the election to your preferred candidate/party, or do you all genuinely want all of our presidential elections to be determined exclusively by a handful of cities?
.
This is a sincere question, as I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone would want to disenfranchise themselves, or the vast majority of other Americans, by removing most of the U.S. from relevance in presidential elections.
@shahnm
That’s a helluva lot of assumptions. Do you have similar questions for those voting C? There are better ways to achieve representation than the Electoral College, which itself significantly disenfranchises shitloads of people. That’s all the more of my time that you get.
@shahnm Is that a C?
@joelmw - I missed you so much!
@kdemo Aw, thanks. 🥰 I miss you (and a few other people) too.
@joelmw - Same.
@shahnm It needs to be fixed. If 51% vote for guy A and 49% vote for guy B then why should guy A get all the electorate college votes for that state? That’s ignoring half the population of active voters.
@remo28 @shahnm
@remo28 @shahnm if this were the case, no one would see candidates except west and east coast.
@remo28 - Exactly.
One person, one vote. Majority rule.
@kdemo @remo28 Majority rules? What do you think this is, a democracy? No sir! We are a Republic. A democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Do you guys voting D honestly want California, New York, and Florida deciding who wins? That’s exactly what you would get if the Electoral College were to be eliminated. So much for one man, one vote in all the other 47 states.
Here’s a map of the US, county by county, and how they voted. Almost everywhere you see blue you’ll find a large city. (haters take note that I did say almost) So you want your vote to count only if you live in a big city?
@JanaS
A vote by a city dweller would count equally as a vote from a suburbanite or someone living in the middle of nowhere. Your map is misleading because a blue colored county doesn’t mean all of its votes went to one candidate. California has more registered Republicans than most states have TOTAL registered voters.
@bruhaha @JanaS
Your map is misleading because land does not vote.
It is also misleading because not all voters in those red areas voted Republican.
It makes complete sense that just like county elections are county-wide, state-wide elections are … well, state-wide. Equivalently, it makes no sense that the solitary nation-wide office, POTUS, is not also nation-wide in practice.
@bruhaha How about this one than:
@JanaS I have no idea what that cartoon is trying to say. It’s basically showing how the CURRENT electoral college works - CA, TX, FL, NY have lots of electoral college votes which are all or nothing for one candidate. That’s NOT how popular vote would work.
What @bruhaha & @mike808 said -
@bruhaha @kdemo @mike808 What would be really interesting is seeing the last several elections sliced up in a few pairs:
We’re less federated than we used to be I think… I do like the idea of the states as miniature countries.
@JanaS @kdemo @remo28 Land doesn’t vote.
When ALL of the people in a number of those big red states are still smaller than the suburbs of Indianapolis (let alone larger cities) why should they have more of a say? Is it because of the way they vote?
@JanaS @kdemo @Nitewatch @remo28
And yet, that is exactly what the EC and the Senate do. Give land a vote. Specifically, starting with land owners. Especially those that also owned slaves and weren’t about to share power and give them a say in government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
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D, though I might could live with A. Sometimes I wanna burn the whole damned system to the ground.
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C, as someone who lives in a more rural state
@andrewd1191 C, as someone who lives in a coastal state.
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D, but mostly I’m replying bc wow, accurate giphy is accurate
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/giphy accurate giphy is
Big
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@eonfifty - May I please have your altruism points? I struggle a bit to keep mine at 5.5, and yours would put me comfortably over.
@kdemo Yes! 0.3 of them anyway. If it’s possible?
/giphy zero three possible
@kdemo
D D D D…absolutely bogus
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C:. When I was very young and dumb, I would have said d
@preslab
/giphy okay boomer
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@joelmw Not hardly a Boomer!
@preslab
In my defense, when you say “young and dumb”, that implies copious years and the wisdom they might or might not confer.
Well then, as someone who is a Boomer (though I probably mostly disagree with my chronological peers, especially as concerns stupid shit they say that earns them that rebuke), I might say that when I was your age (“young and dumb”?) I said C.
D
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@eonfifty Duly noted! Best wishes on your mission
@togle Thank you!
@togle
C.
Al Gore won NYC by more votes than the popular vote, Hillary Clinton needed more help, but still - electoral college makes presidential candidates at least pretend to care about somewhere other than New York and California.
If you think you’re disenfranchised now, you ain’t seen nothing yet - and I say that as someone who lives in a state that consistently goes against my preference, so my vote rarely matters.
Worst idea is the compact states are putting together - wonder how that will go the first time it’s triggered and a state has to go against the candidate the local voters wanted. It will be ugly.
@eborah EXACTLY. A popular vote and the candidates will forget the needs of the rest of the country. Again folks, this is not a strict Democracy, it is a representative Republic and that’s so NY, CA, TX, and FL don’t become the only places that see improvement or issues heard. The country has MANY voices and does have to consider the full of it’s territory.
@eborah Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.” Do you mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact when you mentioned the compact? I don’t think that’s even doable because a state can’t force an elector to vote one way or the other. The electors may sign oaths or something to vote a certain way, but if they vote differently, it’s only a $50 or $500 fine according to what I was reading about it.
@eborah @eonfifty
No longer true -
https://coloradosun.com/2020/07/06/colorado-faithless-electors-decision-supreme-court/
@eborah @eonfifty @Kyeh
A state can pass legislation making it a crime to vote any other way than instructed by law.
The states’ rights the Republicans have been hammering away at enshrining above all else (to justify separate but equal, Jim Crow, women’s health restrictions, ignoring the ACA, and all the other racist voter suppression shenanigans) for decades are solidly on the side of the states conducting its elections as they see fit.
Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
@eborah @eonfifty @mike808 Yeah, ironic.
Of course, they’re not in favor of states’ rights when it comes to legal cannabis.
@eborah @Kyeh @mike808 According to that article, the state still cannot force an elector to vote a certain way. The state can punish and remove the elector, but unless I’m missing something, the cast vote stands. In terms of the operation of the electoral college, I think electors being able to vote against the popular vote is a good idea, and I’m also in agreement with the court’s ruling allowing electors to be removed and punished for voting against the popular vote.
/giphy check balance failsafe
@eborah @eonfifty @mike808 It varies by state - in Hawaii, Texas and Washington the votes stood, but not in Maine, Minnesota and Colorado.
D, I’m for the majority vote. When they say “The American people” it should be more then the minority.
@Enigma Actual majority? Because in the last Presidential election, nobody got an actual majority. Clinton got less than 50% of the vote - more people voted against her than for her.
She won a plurality of the national vote, not a majority. It sound pedantic, but if there’s serious discussion of changing things then we need to agree on what we really mean.
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PREPARE FOR WALL OF TEXT
As someone who grew up in a (very) rural red state where my vote didn’t count and moved to the largest urban center in the US where my vote also didn’t count, you’d think I wouldn’t want our electoral college. But I do, because I understand how and why it was designed to work the way it does (i.e., as a mitigating force against sudden demographic/geographic population shifts). It is a failsafe to prevent the “gaming” of our elections. Any way you cut it, a “popular vote” system is significantly easier to manipulate than our electoral college.
In my experience having lived in both of these contexts, people who take the most issue with the electoral college are the ones who couldn’t care less about it until they dislike the results of a given election–this was true when I witnessed it in 2000, and it stayed true in 2016. It seems to be generally underappreciated that if large urban cities become less populated and rural areas become more populated (which wouldn’t increase density much in those areas enough to incentivize increased taxation or bureaucracy like we see in cities) it would suddenly be massive swaths of rural areas influencing policy for urban centers at the federal level (without a clue as to what living in a urban areas is like). The difference is, urban centers in higher-population states generally have more tax money (and therefore more control) over how things are run. Abolish the electoral college and presidential candidates will campaign in a handful of cities (whose policies would no doubt incentivize supporting a specific candidate), and upon being elected would then be beholden to said cities for the remainder of their term.
There have only been five instances in which the popular vote did not align with the electoral college: three occurred before 1900, the other two after 2000. The electoral college is a tiebreaker that errs on the side of the minority–mostly people with less money and lower socioeconomic status–people who have been historically disenfranchised due to a lack of meaningful representation. Not the other way around.
TL;DR - I’d be most inclined to vote for ‘A’ here, because Republicans and Democrats both have control over how they handle delegates. The reason elections turn out the way they do is because of how the DNC and the RNC run their respective organizations. If you’re dissatisfied with the outcome of an election, I would urge you to consider taking a look at how your party’s leadership functions before simply concluding that the system is broken and advocating for it’s complete destruction.
@dvermilion Well said.
@Mehrocco_Mole
@dvermilion
Wrong. Elections will be gamed no matter what system is used.
Certainly there are potential tweaks that might help. The Electoral College is an attempt at that.
“Gaming” of politics is an activity as old as our species. There is no game-proof system.
Utterly unproven.
I’d like to see well-vetted data before I believed that. I rather doubt such data, as interpreted neutrally by qualified academic statisticians, exists.
The Electoral College favors sparsely populated areas. Period.
@dvermilion Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.” And that was more a partition of text as opposed to a wall.
C
@katsuronishi Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.”
Once again, plenty of evidence supporting the old aphorism, You get the government you deserve.
@phendrick Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.” Unfortunately, I’m afraid to guess your response to the poll based on your comment
@eonfifty What, not a secret ballot?
No need to be afraid of my response; it’d be overruled by the electoral college anyway.
@eonfifty
@phendrick
To all of you voting A or D : What is your fix and/or alternative?
@JanaS For A: Retool superdelegates–but make sure everyone who wants a voice has one. There’s a reason why, despite much of the RNC was in an uproar over the prospect of Donald Trump being the nominee, they still didn’t change the rules to ensure that Berni–sorry, Trump–wasn’t ousted in favor of a more palatable candidate. It’s because they don’t have superdelegates. I’m not saying no super delegates the answer, but when your system is so convoluted nobody can understand it, it’s certainly doesn’t help assuage people’s fears about fair elections.
And I don’t believe for a second that Democratic leadership wants anything close to a popular vote system; the DNC has such a tight grip on every election (and which candidates get funding) all the way down to the local level that they’d never actually be in favor of it (even with media support). But it sure makes them look good to their base when they pretend like they do.
@JanaS D. My proposed change would be ranked choice voting. I’m tired of the monopoly of the 2-party system.
https://time.com/5718941/ranked-choice-voting/
@Nitewatch @JanaS I’m going to include them anyway, but your 1.5 (two, actually, but you list the one as a consequence of the the other–and I don’t disagree, but there are other contributing factors and I think they need to be itemized individually and/or perhaps with a slightly different emphasis) suggestions are at the top of my list.
@dvermilion @JanaS Just a note - there’s no such thing as a superdelegate for the Presidential election where the electoral college comes into play - you’re thinking of the primary, which is different and has rules determined by each party.
@JanaS Thanks for your participation! Please accept this reply to your comment in the spirit of a “like.” Should I count your response as C?
@eonfifty Absolutely and thank you!
C- Makes it fair to all Americans not just the ones living in an urban area.
@logandale How is making the votes of those in urban areas count for “less” than those in rural areas. Because that’s exactly what you’re saying. Votes are either equal or they aren’t.
If they’re not equal, that is what is not fair.
@logandale I’m tired of rural voters getting several times the voting power of everybody else. You must like the politicians that this undemocratic process allows.
And this is coming from a rural voter.
@logandale @Nitewatch Not to mention the rural voters freeloading off the taxpayers of the urban centers, and looking to the urban centers to provide all of the high-skill workers and services on demand. Things like medical hospitals with highly trained doctors, cancer centers, drug development and production, engineers designing the high-tech farm equipment they use and the high-yield resistant crops they grow, bankers to deal with the financing and farm
handoutswelfare.The EC is a construct of its times - an end-run around democracy to protect and preserve the power of land/slave-owning white men. Looks like its function hasn’t changed on over 200 years, just like the Senate. That’s why it is a land-based apportionment of power.
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Let’s say we eliminated the Electoral College in favor of a one person, one vote style majority rules kinda thing. What was said earlier by @janas is basically true: The big metro areas of California, New York, and Florida would choose the president every time. I think I would add Chicago and Detroit too but we’ll go with the 3 states for now. So someone who wanted to be the next POTUS would only have to campaign in those three states to win. An incumbent President would lavish all kinds of money on those three states to the detriment of the other 47 states to win re-election. Why not? What could the lesser 47 do? Vote the guy out? Not without the say so of the all powerful big three. And they’re getting all kinds of free (to them) shit so why would they? And guess who is paying for their free shit? The fly-overs whos only option is to move to one of the Big 3 or some other country.
So is the EC perfect? Nope. But than again, perfection hasn’t walked this Earth in about 2020 years.
@Mehrocco_Mole I think what most people tend to misunderstand about the electoral college is that it exists to prevent consolidation of power–specifically with respect to geography.
But I reckon if you’re one of the “consolidated”, it not only seems perfectly reasonable, but irresponsible not to silence the minority.
They make so much gosh darn noise.
@Mehrocco_Mole
Texas …
@Mehrocco_Mole Repeating the same thing as seen on the internet does not make it true.
Our CURRENT system has national elections visiting only a few battleground states at the expense of everybody else.
@Mehrocco_Mole Do you really give a shit if politicians are campaigning in your state? In this day and age of advanced electronics and communication, they are essentially campaigning everywhere at once. Are you going to tell me just because a Presidential candidate doesn’t come to your area, you have no idea what their positions are and what they stand for?
In other words, this is a really poor argument for retaining a system that is outdated.
@Nitewatch And in what way would the removal of the Electoral college change that status quo? You’ll find no argument here that the swing states see more than their fair share of attention. However, as @Mehrocco_Mole rightly pointed out - regardless of your unfounded accusation that they’re just parroting something they found on the internet, good job with the ad hominem attack - at best the change you propose would shift focus to the major population centers alone. The candidates would continue to ignore the areas that are already neglected, stop paying attention to now-unimportant swing states because raw population is all that matters, and shape all of their policies to cater to a handful of major metro areas with no consideration given to other demographic areas.
While the status quo is not ideal, it’s simply inarguable that getting rid of the electoral college would improve the particular situation described.
D D D D D
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@gfreek That’s a pretty damned big bra size.
D all the way.
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D - We’ve done away with slavery, it’s time for the popular vote like every other country on Earth.
https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/its-time-to-abolish-the-electoral-college/
@cinoclav
Except we haven’t done away with slavery.
@joelmw Slavery as we knew it of course. More so, the reason for the EC.
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C.
Wanting to change a system that’s been around for hundreds of years because your guy or gal didn’t win an election smacks of being a sore loser. People (and media figureheads) talking about the popular vote totals is just Election Day whataboutism. All candidates knew the rules going in.
@thekob You mean like we should not have changed the system of slavery, which has been around for thousands of years, or should I use the more modern PC term, “human trafficking” for the snowflake conservatives and racists?
I mean all those colonies knew the rules going in, right?
@mike808 In my response, I’d like to draw on the wisdom of Sesame Street:
One of these things is not like the other;
one if these things just isn’t the same.
Do you need me to compare and contrast how slavery and the electoral college aren’t similar, or do you think you can Google that yourself?
@thekob Similar doesn’t mean related or deeply coupled. You’re confusing the two.
To quote another philosopher, Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. It’s time we learned from our mistakes - our founding fathers (only the land-owning white guys declared as “owners” by European kings, and slaves and women didn’t count) weren’t perfect.
Preserving their imperfections binds us with the chains of their flaws. Just as “no child left behind” perverts itself into “no child shall get ahead”.
@thekob @mike808 We don’t need your sure-to-be fact-free, illogical comparisons, any more than we needed your simplistic, talking-point, question-begging dismissal.
Maybe you should do some googling of your own. I’m sure you’ll dismiss this as liberal-biased history (as if the history you rely on–which, okay, there’s not much evidence that you know any kind of history, so maybe rather, the history most of us are taught–isn’t otherwise biased) and “fake news”, but if you’re at all interested in the relationship between the college and slavery:
https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/electoral-college-slavery.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/electoral-college-racist-origins/601918/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/electoral-college-slavery-constitution
Certainly there’s not univocal consensus on the issue, but there’s enough evidence to suggest that slave-holding states and pro-slavery candidates benefited from it and that it may indeed have been proposed in part to protect the power of the pro-slavery South.
And in case you missed it, @mike808’s point is that things change–and they should. The Framers recognized this. The Electoral College is itself established by amendment. Huh. Crazy.
Notably there’s precedent for undoing an utterly ill-conceived amendment and clarifying an amendment that otherwise misses the mark. Perhaps you’d rather we all continued to live under Prohibition? Perhaps you’d also rather that the descendants of slaves weren’t regarded as full citizens? Neither would surprise me, but I like to think that the average citizen is at least slightly more enlightened than you; in fairness, that question’s still open, but I digress.
This country was founded–and its constitution and governance were codified–by wealthy white landowning men. Again, perhaps you’d prefer that we continued to restrict the franchise to only that class (or some subset thereof)? Wouldn’t be surprised; you’d again be wrong.
Our taking and colonizing a land previously inhabited by indigenous peoples whom we demonized and slaughtered and our amassing wealth on the backs of African slaves are broad and defining actions that our Constitution both tolerated and enabled and that our Founders by-and-large participated in and celebrated. I’m willing to allow that they got many other things wrong too.
But even more importantly in my book, fuck you for your straw man substitute for an argument. It not only reeks of an ignorance of history and a fundamental misunderstanding of the maturation of a liberal democracy (gods, I said it, “liberal”–heavens to Betsy), it ascribes a reductionist motive that–despite your manifest failure–is substantially easier to refute. See I can do that too:
Reactionary defense of an antiquated, antidemocratic, racist, classist system because your guy won an election smacks of authoritarianism and white supremacy. Praising the Electoral College is just Election Day gloating and gleeful disregard for equitable suffrage.
Mind you, I’m not saying that you’re an authoritarian MAGA white supremacist, just that it would be as legitimate as your assertions. You do strike me as a racist with daddy issues and a hardon for idiot reality TV stars, but, again, that’s not my point.
Fuck you a second time for your reduction of the franchise to little more than zero sum gamesmanship. Some of us like to think that the American experiment is (or should be) something a tad more noble than a nominally-regulated gladiatorial contest. The preamble to our Constitution speaks of a more perfect Union, of Justice, domestic Tranquility, a common defense, the general Welfare, and the Blessings of Liberty for all. Admittedly it says “men” and it meant “propertied white men”, but we dare to see the rights articulated as inherent for all of humanity, and the blessings of the republic envisioned as suitable and desirable for all.
Cynical though I may be about the condition of this country and the mixed motives of its founders, leadership and citizenry, when I vote, I don’t mean to simply protect my tribe, but to support leaders and elevate policy that will indeed enable perfection of that Union, pursuit of Justice, facilitation of the general welfare, extension of the Blessings of Liberty to all, etc.
The point that you keep missing–caught up as you are in how established the rules are and preoccupied as you are with who won the game–is that the whole point is maintaining and developing a democratic republic. That includes ensuring proportional representation. That includes critically assessing and thoughtfully improving systems, aged though they be, that disenfranchise and otherwise do disservice to the republic and its citizens. However ancient it may be, the Electoral College wasn’t handed down from the gods, isn’t without flaws and, considered thoughtfully and critically, doesn’t seem to be serving the republic. Notwithstanding your compelling, “Nyah, nyah, nyah! We won! Suck it, losers!” “argument” of course.
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@joelmw
@joelmw If only I could give more stars.
@mike808 They’re not similar nor are they related. They are two things that existed at the time of the founding of this country. That doesn’t make them similar in any way that buttresses your argument. Rather, it points to how you’re desperately grasping at straws.
@joelmw @mike808 Great long, insulting diatribe about a huge number of things that are off-topic.
You seem to be angry at a lot of things and are taking it out on a random stranger on meh.com. Hope you get the help you need bud.
@joelmw I don’t think it’s any secret that my political view on this matter doesn’t align with yours, so I’m not going to get into that. However, I do want to say the following.
You brought up some interesting points that in another context I might like to have a conversation about. Unfortunately, your choice to resort to extensive ad hominem attacks impugning the character, intelligence, and values of your ‘opponent’ in this discussion is a complete and utter turn off. For someone accusing someone of a straw man fallacy (an argument I am not and will not address here, a reply to my post defending that position will be a non-starter) I find it fascinating that you apparently did not feel your position sound enough to stand upon the merits of its own arguments such that you chose to attack your opponent as well as their argument. If you want to change minds, I suspect you’ll find putting your audience on the defensive by overtly attacking them to be a poor choice of tactic.
TLDR: Attack your opponent’s arguments, not your opponent. You’ll find people more receptive.
@jbartus @thekob
Let me break this down for you, since you both apparently lack the critical thinking skills and self awareness to do it on your own.
The primary contention (if we can even call it that) of your original comment is that we should hang on to the Electoral College because it’s been around for a while. As expected, you completely ignored multiple, actually reasoned and evidenced (as opposed to pulled out of the ass, a technique you’re more familiar with) contradictions to this line of “reasoning”. You didn’t bother, in either the comment or your subsequent responses to in any way bolster this reactionary thinking. Let me assure you, as I already fucking explained and you somehow missed, that the EC having been around for “hundreds of years” doesn’t in and of itself testify to its worth, let alone supremacy. I know this is a difficult thing for conservatives to understand, but I hope you could at least accept that not everyone agrees with you on the inherent virtue of longevity, tradition, or the status quo.
Also, “hundreds” is kind of a silly, overly dramatic way to describe what amounts to just over a couple hundred. Sure, technically it’s correct, but it’s not quite standard usage, and it’s sadly consistent with your hyperbolic, melodramatic tone.
This is what we call ascribing a motive. To the extent it might be true for some, it’s still an insulting oversimplification and, yes, it’s a straw man. I realize it’s a lot easier to argue against a line of reasoning you basically make up. That way you can frame it from the start, as you did, as condescendingly as you like.
If you possessed the intellectual capacity or moral character, you’d acknowledge that you’re not really arguing or proposing any kind of conversation with those of us who support improving our electoral process; you are, despite your self-righteous indignation, doing little more than insulting your imagined caricature of us.
Well, goddamn, that looks like ad hominem.
So who’s “talking about popular vote totals here”? Looks like you. Again, it doesn’t really count if you fabricate an opponent, their motives and arguments. Despite what you little you know, there are numerous ways we might improve on presidential selection apart from simply relying on the popular vote.
I won’t rehash what I already said, but how does this in any way speak to the worthiness of the Electoral College?
To sum up: your original comment was little more than a dismissive insult. Maybe that counts for discussion or even “reasoned argument” where you come from. Not with me.
I want to be crystal clear about something: yes, I responded in kind. I countered your insults, dismissals and ad hominem attacks with my own. I have no problem admitting that. It would be both foolish and grossly disingenuous to pretend otherwise. I’m not sure why you’re unable to either recognize or acknowledge the direction and tone of the original comment. It’s not a difficult read. Maybe you’re attempting a gaslight, but, bud, you’re doing a shit job. Sadly, your delusion and/or commitment to dishonesty isn’t atypical.
Let me further clarify that the original comment, as I’ve already alluded to, both by its condescending tone and utter lack of substance, is completely unworthy a dispassionate, let alone civil response. If I’d most directly responded in kind I’d have said, go fuck yourself or, more succinctly,
And, yes, again, I have no problem admitting that my actual response was just a wordier way of expressing the “go fuck yourself” sentiment.
If you want a discussion, if you want a substantive argument, then show yourself intellectually and morally capable, not to mention inclined thereto. The rest of us are under no obligation to flatter you by pretending that your weakly proffered bullshit is anything other than it is.
For all of the legitimate critiques of my response (not that I’ve heard any from either of you) and for all of its failings, it contains a damn sight more reasoning and fact than the original comment. That the two of you are unwilling and/or incapable of grasping them doesn’t mean they’re not there. The fact that you resist or otherwise fail to discern the fairly obvious connections, sadly, speaks primarily to your own deficiencies. I encourage others who possess what you lack to consider what I’ve said. Or not. I’m fine either way.
On that note, @jbartus, I don’t recall previously having any particular beef with you (I may have forgotten), but your patronizing lecture is noted. Again, in simplest terms, you’re welcome to fuck off.
I’ve already given my assessment of my ‘opponent’ and of the shit dribble he excreted. I don’t consider @thekob an opponent so much as an annoying obstacle–and easily enough stepped over. I’m not here to “change” what little “mind” he possesses, nor, however I might flatter myself, do I consider it a task I’m up to–or one with significant odds of success, no matter how skilled and patient the pedagogue. It’s not an investment I’m willing to make, and I’ve never felt a particular calling to remedial education.
I’ve had some splendid, enlightening, productive, provocative, inspiring, encouraging conversations here. I’ve been part of some great arguments. What @thekob said wasn’t the beginning of or any kind of invitation to any of those things. Sure, as mentioned, with a shit-ton of effort one might have tried (and probably failed) to transform it into a teachable moment for little kobby. Fuck that. Too much work, enormous potential for frustration.
As I have probably said on numerous occasions in this forum, when I encounter that degree of inane bullshit, I’m most inclined–if I don’t just move past it–to have fun with it. That’s not for the benefit of the foil. It’s for fun. Some people like what I do. Others don’t. Hell, even some folks I otherwise get along with here might not care for some of my more acidic rants; but we love each other anyway and they know that’s who I am. I’m plenty civil and restrained elsewhere; that’s not why I come here (not that I’m always uncivil, but I do tend to be more-or-less raw).
Let me also add that from day one (I was here from before the kickstarter and read much of the backlog) this place has been a bastion of shit talk–some of it good natured and playful, some of it not. It’s part of the character of the place. I lament that some folks have gotten a little too precious about themselves lately. And, sure, I’ve noticed that a lot of those with the tenderest feelers are defensive MAGAts, and I wouldn’t mind if they fucked off altogether.
But, to be clear, I give zero fucks what turns you off or turns you on. I can certainly live with myself if you and ob reckon me a turn-off. Considering the source, I’d take it as high praise.
@joelmw Hey, if you just want to shit on someone without any attempt at a constructive conversation, don’t let me yuck your yum. I apologize for my mistaken assumption that you were actually trying to go somewhere with this line of conversation rather than soap boxing for the sake of soap boxing. You’re right, I don’t particularly consider us to have had any terribly negative interactions in the past, and really still don’t. Enjoy the shit shoveling.
@jbartus I went back and reviewed this bullshit, just to make sure I didn’t go off on some kind of tangent. In fact, I gave this @thekob asshole far more credit, far more respect and far more serious attention (not to mention time, but as I indicated, that was a choice somewhat indifferent to any perceived worth in the OP), and, frankly, I think I was, if anything a little too self-critical and self-disparaging.
I wasn’t the one who started shoveling shit, stepping up on a soapbox, “shit[ting] on someone without any attempt at a constructive conversation”. I repeat, I’m more than happy to have a mutually respectful conversation with folks who are respectful and who show themselves capable of the intellectual undertaking. thek’s little shot off the bow is none of that. As I said, I feel no obligation to counter bullshit with respect. I’ll clarify further that my experience attempting to engage respectfully with these folks shows minimal positive returns. I’m unwilling to own the burden of their failures. And, yeah, I’m convinced it’s better–it’s certainly more fun–to push right back. Again, there’s plenty more substance in what I said, substance that @thekob is unwilling or unable to so much as address (perhaps even perceive?). Maybe that’s because I hurt their feelings? Fuck it. You don’t want your feelings hurt, don’t be an ass.
I’d like all of you who want it changed to go research and write me a 5000 word essay on why our founding fathers were wrong in designing the electoral college the way it is. My husband is a high school English and government teacher who will be grading your essays on grammar, syntax, ability to reason and formulate a strong argument and thoroughness of your research. Your essay must include why the creators of the electoral college believed that “one person one vote” was bad for rural communities.
@hvail1
How about those that want to keep it do the same.
Without using the benefits from the educational systems or technology developed in the urban areas.
@hvail1 @mike808 I don’t think that’s where anyone was going with this, but good luck finding food in the concrete jungles.
@hvail1 @thekob So you’re espousing an agrarian feudal system as the apex of human societal development? Wow.
@mike808 And you’re suggesting the rural farmers that supply your food should basically be your slaves to do your bidding? To live as you dictate?
Well, the Democrat party is the party of slavery and the KKK so I guess I can follow your logic. Or lack of.
@JanaS @mike808 But the rest of us should allow farmers, rural voters and white Evangelical suburbanites to run the country into the ground and to continue to dictate how the rest of us live?
Jesus Fucking Christ, victim complex much? No one’s suggesting that rural farmers be disenfranchised. But is it too much to ask that others actually enjoy the same rights of representation that they have? Apparently.
Yes, the Democratic Party was the party of the KKK. I’ll give you one more: the Democratic Party gave us the 1994 crime bill. Yep, the Democrats suck, and they have perpetuated and continue to perpetuate systemic racism.
But you’d have to have your head completely up your ass (and, yeah, it seems you do) to actually believe that . . .
@joelmw
@JanaS @joelmw @mike808 I only got 381 words out of this epicness. But I still fucking love you for it.
@cinoclav
@hvail1 @mike808 Uh, agrarian feudal?
Did you just misspell “federal” or are you that clueless?
You sure have a talent for intentionally misinterpreting what one says, I’ll give you that much.
@JanaS @joelmw @mike808 Yes, he’s the one with the victim complex, not the one suggesting that we change a part of the Constitution because you lost an election.
DDD
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We are a federated country. A group of states. The states determine the president of that group. Hence the electoral college. As has been noted, to keep a small number of highly populated states from dominating the rest, a bit of a counter balance was included. What I would do to improve it is to reverse the 17th amendment and let the states pick the senators again.
@Qiset The problem is those small number of states prevent the progress and advances of those more populated states.
Also, the population disparities cited “back in the day” existed only because the southern states didn’t count slaves as enfranchised citizens. Not counting women affected all states equally if we assume a roughly even gender ratio.
Today, the disparities are more real, and so the failure of the EC (and to some extent, the Senate structure) as a government model with winner-take-all voting is more glaring.
@mike808
Earlier someone lumped tech and education together as an urban thing that (apparently) the rural areas lack. Education. Really? Let’s compare the education system of say Chicago to a small city (and mostly rural) in Northern Michigan. Two of the three high schools are rated in the top 100 high schools in the nation, ([TCAPS][1]) I’ll let you do the research for Chicago.
(BTW: My husband graduated from Traverse City Central High so that’s how I knew where to look.)
[1]: https://www.tcaps.net/schools/high-schools/
@Qiset You got that right - the 17th has done tremendous damage to our country. There’s be no such thing as “unfunded mandates” on the states if it weren’t for the 17th - the Senate would shut down that idiocy.
Were there problems with the Senate before the 17th? Yes, and those problems would probably crop up yet again. But that doesn’t mean the solution made things better. Let the House represent the people and the Senate represent the states, as intended.
Well that didn’t work so well.
Here’s the link to TCAPSTCAPS
And the quote without my contribution:
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@mike808 @Qiset Prevent the progress and advancement of large states?
El oh el.
If we really want to elect the best representatives in a federated republic construct, the science shows that Condorcet (ranked) voting consistently avoids the degenerate outcomes of winner-take-all duopolies. Even with a multi-party start, game theory demonstrates a duopoly will always result from winner-take-all voting systems.
That might blunt the friction between popular and geographic voting systems when extremism takes over the self-perpetuation of the duopoly. Maybe even enough for our country to survive another 200 years.
@mike808 seems like the parties should run their primaries like this. With two main political parties though, it wouldn’t make sense for a national election.
@mike808 @thekob The idea is, this system is how you avoid having only two main political parties. If people can indicate they prefer party 3’s person without wasting their vote, guess what, the third party just became viable.
@InnocuousFarmer @thekob That’s exactly what Condorcet (ranked) voting preserves, and winner-take-all prevents as an outcome.
If candidate 3 is everyone’s second choice, then they win. Instead of the popularity contest, beauty pageant, rile up your base with ever-increasing extremism with the side-effect of demoralizing the opposition to suppress their vote.
@mike808 Oddly enough, though you and I disagree on a great many positions, I actually like the idea of using the Condorcet method of voting. The problem I see is that it’s fundamentally different from any system we’re currently using now, and, frankly, as I see it the politicians who we would need to depend upon to enact such a change are going to be inherently disinterested in doing so. Do you have any means in mind for enacting this change within the current political structure?
@jbartus It won’t be from the top down, so that leaves bottom up. Local municipalities, school boards, etc.
It would help if educators got involved and introduced it as a voting method in school elections and team/group/population decision-making. Familiarity and practice will lead to acceptance and further adoption.
Grassroots popularization to the point where the results are observed first-hand. I think people can accept and appreciate a spectrum of choices and their rankings instead of the binary option winner-loser choices they have now.
That’s my hope.
@mike808 my issue with that approach is that, generally speaking, people take very little interest in local politics. There is a demographic who does, of course, but most of those do so due to special interests. Some parent takes interest in the school board elections because they have kids, but loses interest once their kid is off to college because it’s not their problem anymore. Some business owner takes interest because candidate A wants to raise their local taxes or put a one-way street in front of their business, but once candidate B is elected they move on. So on and so forth. I’m not saying it’s not a valid place where such a voting system would make sense to implement, I just don’t see enough people taking enough of an interest to make themselves aware of it and seek its adoption on the state scale, never mind the national scale. I should probably also mention that I’m not sure it’s a replacement for the electoral college so much as it’s a replacement for the popular vote. It’s too bad the data isn’t collected historically so we could see what the vote outcomes would have been.
It’s also worth noting that I’m not sure bottom up suffers any less from the same obstacle top down does. In my experience corruption and self interest are just as bad if not worse on the local level.
@jbartus I think top down will never happen. Bottom up, no matter the method or places where it takes root, is the only viable path to ever get to to state legislature or national level.
I agree, it’s not an ideal fit for the EC, at least as it is now in a duopoly. I think introduction and increasing adoption in schools is a promising path for acceptance when the students become citizens.
C!!! I dislike the idea of a straight popular vote because then my vote only counts if my candidate is popular. Save that sh*t for “American Idolizes Those With Talent & a Voice”!!
@tohar1 I’ll take talent over orange blowhards any day.
@mike808 …and after nearly four years of constant berating, he’s still your President. Not only that but the best alternative you’ve come up with is a guy who doesn’t know his relationship to his spouse. “I’m Joe Biden’s husband.” he says last night!! Good Lord Help Us All!!
@tohar1 We all got tired of the constant, incessant, and daily, completely batshit insane sociopathic racist and illegal things the current dotard-in-chief has said and done, even before he swore to protect and serve all of “We The People”.
/image trump eclipse
For almost four years. Compared to what? a handful of examples for Biden?
Besides, if Joe resigns or is unable to complete his term, Kamala Harris is the exactly right kick-ass get shit done and lock up the real criminals corrupting justice and poisoning our democracy from within.
@mike808 @tohar1 Listen to it again. He said, “I’m Jill Biden’s husband.”
@mike808 Drink that Kool-Aide! (Here’s my script… Hmmm…No original thoughts/speech will be tolerated by “The Party of Tolerance”!!) The difference as a person who’s a true outsider is astonishing. I did not like President Obama’s ideology or his policies (I gave ZERO credence to the “birthers” including DT) and I did not like any part of Hillary Clinton, at all. I voted against both of them based on my principles, just as I voted against Bush Sr. When I read the ridiculous verbiage too many lefties use (such as yours), you have to realize that it’ll never win the hearts & minds of those with any common sense. Lies, deceit, & hard left ideology will not prevail in a civilized society. I guess this is why the actions of the ilk on display in so many of the big cities over the past few months only emboldens both the supporters of the current President but also the “normal” American citizens who’d really like to be left alone & live their lives the way we see fit, not the way the Democratic party believes we should live. Every day this crap ensues only increases the chances of DT being re-elected in my honest opinion.
@cinoclav @mike808 Not really surprised considering this clip is from CNN, but I truly believe it has been doctored. I was watching on NBC last night when it played live. I caught it then, rewound on my DVR & listened a few more times. At best it sounded like “Joel”…Again, I point out that I’m at least trying to give a listen to the D’s out of fairness if nothing else, but they really are not scoring any points with anything I’ve heard so far.
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@tohar1 Seriously? Are you truly that ridiculously biased? You’re not showing any fairness at all when you think a clip is doctored just because it’s posted by CNN. Hate to tell you but just because Trump calls them fake news doesn’t mean they are. Well here you go… the same damn thing brought to you by Fox News. Yup, he still says Jill.
@tohar1 As someone who’s decidedly not a Biden fan, I can assure you that @cinoclav is correct with regard to what Biden said. Joe Biden has plenty of flaws which can be criticized without needing to make nonsense up to discredit him.
I’ll grant you that he started to say “I’m Joe Biden” - either by original intent or habit as he’s done so on countless political appearances and ads - before pivoting to say “Jill Biden’s husband” - again, either because of a spur of the moment decision or, more likely in my opinion, because he slipped and then remembered at the last second that deferring to his wife was ‘on-message’ in this context. This was exacerbated by whatever idiot set up his levels on that lapel mic which did him no favors.
You can clearly hear the “L” at the end of the word, whether you want to believe he said “Jill” from square one or, as I think far more likely, he pivoted mid-word. If you want to pick at something, take the position that he fucked up and can’t even remember the wording of the remarks he’s supposed to be giving, but don’t make shit up in an attempt to discredit him. You just give people ammunition to undermine any argument you might have that actually has merit in exchange for a cheap shot that doesn’t hold credibility.
@cinoclav @jbartus Not going to die on this hill for sure. Perhaps we’ll give him the “Covfefe” moment award.
@cinoclav @jbartus @tohar1
Or the “Don’t look directly at the eclipse” award.
/image trump eclipse
Or the Axios interview award.
Or the … there are just too many to list.
In this order: A, B, C, D.
I only heard that the electoral college was a good system until Trump won. After that, it was the greatest injustice. In a vacuum, I think I prefer erring on the electoral college side, underrepresenting heavily populated areas. The notion of a popular vote, given how things are, makes me real queasy.
I would rather fix… everything else. Ditch first past the post, for a start. Better yet, do the one where… uh, hang on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method - the idea is the candidate that wins the most head-to-head comparisons wins.
Or failing that, some ranked order deal that at least threatens the no-choices-available two-party system we have gotten committed to.
While we’re all having our shared hallucinatory dream, I’d like to replace the media with honest people, and delete Facebook and Twitter. And replace the people with honest people – create a culture so hostile to propaganda that political ads are forced to regress back to like well-intentioned infomercials from the fifties. To have debates, if they’re had at all, in a formal format. Create a new social value for expertise and competence, that is weirdly lacking (along with machines to identify same). And create some kind of apparatus so I know who all these locals even are.
@InnocuousFarmer And eliminate the laws supporting the ideas that corporations are people and that money equals speech (Citizens United).
@mike808 That’s a good one… I expect I’d want some kind of extreme thing, like, once you land 1,000,000 petition signatures, you’re into the primaries and get an equal slice of a country-wide pot for donations.
Then, though, you’d still face the problem of “unaffiliated” people buying up ads on a candidate’s behalf… I bet there’s people who’ve thought about that kind of thing.
@InnocuousFarmer I wish it were possible to mandate that all primaries for presidential elections occur on the same day nationwide. How many people get ready to vote for their preferred candidate only to have them drop out because in the first ‘#’ states that have primaries they didn’t get enough votes.
Don’t care about state specific elections being the same, though it makes sense economically and logisticallt that presidential year primaries include the primaries for all lower level races.
Holding the primaries later in the year (and closer to the general election) would likely help in other ways; money spent, reduced time for indoctrination and hate campaigns (though that might increase their intensity), a chance that social media companies would have less chance to try and influence, etc.
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@InnocuousFarmer @mike808 it’s pretty clear you don’t understand the reasoning behind corporate personhood (which is actually very important since it allows corporations to enter contracts, sue, be sued, etc) and Citizens United (which is about a powerful politican wanting to silence a group because she disagrees them politically). Being on the side of silencing political speech you disagree with seems pretty un-American imo.
@InnocuousFarmer @thekob
When corporations go to jail and pay income taxes just like people do - not at special “not really people rates”, then I’ll give your fiction some credence.
Free speech is about having a voice. Not about guaranteeing the loudest voice must be heard.
Both notions have been cherry-picked and distorted out of context so far from their origins to the point where they no longer have merit.
We are making stone soup, and those two clowns dropped a deuce into the pot and now dinner tastes like shit. And that is why we can’t have nice things.
@InnocuousFarmer It’s been a disaster ever since BOTH parties corrupted it to the point it now promotes precisely what it was supposed to prevent.
c
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D-One (wo)man, one vote.
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E ranked choice.
/giphy bingo
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@j37hr0 That’s a separate issue
@DoctorOW @j37hr0 How? Ranked choice is a way to improve the electoral process and could certainly be part of either an adjustment to or replacement of the Electoral College.
/giphy D
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C - Because no electoral college means 2 counties in California or NY will have more pull than like 20+ states. Not cool.
@mrfsu so your argument is that EVERYONE in those counties thinks and votes the same way? If you were some far right-wing conservative living in that California county, I bet you’d like your individual vote to actually count instead being based on the electoral vote of your state which totally negates your opinion.
Getting rid of the electoral college would shift the power to the individual. Every person’s vote has the same power and influence regardless of where you live. I think this would lead to more people voting and a more accurate outcome of what the majority of citizens actually want. Politicians would be more concerned with what the majority of individuals want rather than only the swing states with the most electoral votes.
@medz then the politicians would only ever campaign and listen to the demands of highly populated areas.
That’s hardly fair to most states in the union.
There will never be skyscrapers and cities with millions of residents in Montana. With a popular vote, their needs would never be met like the needs of a largely populated area would.
The purpose of the electoral college is so all areas of our great land are represented fairly. (Montana still only has a handful of electoral votes compared to the larger more populous states like NY, CA, TX and FL)
LEGOS! EGGOS! STRATEGO! AWESOME!
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@mrfsu so the logic is a single person/vote in a sparsely populated area should have more influence than a single person in a densely populated area? Again, you are assuming the people in a specific area all vote the same way. As a liberal voter in a red state, I can tell you that isn’t what happens. My vote for President will never mean anything in this state. Because I am outnumbered, my vote has zero influence on presidential elections. None.
@mrfsu The idea that there aren’t already defined “Red” or “Blue” states and just a handful of states that actually decides is not based in reality.
@medz @mrfsu
In my county 267 people, including me, voted for one person in a presidential election and the rest voted for the other person. My vote nationally then was worth nothing since it is winner takes all here. I’d sure like my vote to count. If we proportionally split the electoral college to mirror the actual vote that would be fairer.
@mrfsu
A real president governs and works for everyone, regardless of political affiliations. You have members of congress to represent your state individually and your country as a whole.
Got a B in AP gov for a reason!
Dump the electoral college and while we’re at it, take out the Senate as well
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D - dump the electoral college because it just means we’re paying attention to different states than we would otherwise (i.e. we would pay more attention to New York, California, and Texas, but the millions of people in each state who don’t vote with the majority would no longer be disenfranchised)
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A - Elections aren’t perfect but I haven’t been convinced getting rid of the electoral college and not replacing it with something else would help.
@DoctorOW why not make it proportional to how the state votes? In my state winner takes all so my vote doesn’t even count if I voted for the “wrong” side.
@Kidsandliz I’m confused by what you’re proposing. Would it be proportional to the states current electoral votes? Would there be fractions of an electoral vote in case the voting doesn’t align evenly? What’s the difference between your proposed system and just using the popular vote?
@DoctorOW The electoral college in some states is winner takes all even if they win by a hair. In other states it is proportional to the popular vote. The winner takes all system basically makes numerous votes not count for anything. Since the electoral college isn’t 1:1 and gerrymandering of boundaries affects outcomes too, the results won’t be identical to popular vote.
/image Huge letter C
I’m thinking that a lot of people don’t really know how the EC works. Bottom line, you are not voting for Biden, Trump, or whoever else throws their hat into the ring. You are voting for Electors. Each state has a certain number of Electors according to their population plus two. This is the number of Congressmen your state has plus your two Senators. Here in Florida that number is 29. So in essence Florida has 29 presidential votes as compared to California with 55 or Kansas with their 6. So it is NOT the vote of the people it is the vote of the State that elects the president. Now just who are these Electors we the people are voting for? Don’t know cause they are chosen by the political parties. And (in most states) the winning party gets to chose them all. (OK guys, it’s late and I’m tired so I’m going to do some cut & pasting from [HERE][1])
From here on the process gets convoluted and rather confusing so look it up yourselves 'cause I’m going to bed.
TLDR: You DO NOT vote for a presidential ticket. You vote for your states Electors. It is the states voting for POTUS and the VPOTUS. It is NOT we the people.
[1]: https://electoralvotemap.com/which-states-split-their-electoral-votes/#:~:text=While the 538 electors of the Electoral College,total Congressional representation) are assigned to specific candidates.
Almost forgot. In case you’re wondering I’m a solid C.
Also from the same source:
Hmmmm…
A – keep it, but push it to the county level (x# of votes per county proportional to population). Gets rid of those “winner take all,” and helps combat some of these really weird voting district lines.
Or D because information about a candidate is at our fingertips now, and the “benefits” of an indirect democracy that all the history books laud are no longer benefits.
@wtabt Problem is there are tiny counties, and huge ones. Los Angeles County has 10 million people. There are 20 counties with under 1,000. The lowest is 86 people.
If you pick 1,000 as the number of people per vote, Los Angeles County still gets 10,000 electoral votes.
If you make it much bigger, lots of little counties that may only have a handful of voters get disproportionate power.
If you make it 10,000, and that 86 person county gets 1 electoral vote, their votes count over 100 times as much as those in the largest.
Even the 1,000 example their votes count over 10 times as much.
Counties used to get split quite often as they grew, but that dropped off long ago.
@kevinrs yeah I left that bit about proportional compensation out didn’t I… Over here in WNY our voting districts are gerrymandered to hell and back, like almost all 1MM+ MSAs, but pushing it to county based electorate (with a proportional weighting so Erie County and Buffalo =/= Queens for example) would help clean a lot of that up, and keep it out.
Or just get rid of the damn thing. We can learn about a candidate in minutes, we don’t need politicians looking out for each other to decide who does what.
D since it’s been gamed for a while, and now it’s shown to be gamed to the point that it’s of little use. There is little campaigning done in states that are not “battleground” states. And which battleground states to spend money in is mathematics. You look at where the money gets you most electoral votes for the buck, which is likely going to be the small population ones. The Republican party in 2016 knew exactly where they had to spend to get an electoral win, and focused all the money, phone calls, etc there. It’s got to be even worse this year. There will be some token nationwide mailers and TV ads, but the calculate important states are going to be flooded with it.
More people would pay attention and vote overall if they didn’t figure their vote was wasted because they are in a sure blue or red state.
There’s already ludicrous gerrymandering to maximize national and state legislature seats. You do that by arranging the boundaries so you have most districts have a reliable but just reliable majority for your party, and cram the other party into as close as you can get to 100% districts. You could have as little as 25% of the total voters, but arrange to have over 50% of the seats.
@kevinrs Oddly enough, one party has been fixated on gerrymandering, or voter suppression, to perpetuate their majority ad nauseum. That’s not democracy.
That is also why the Republican incumbents, particularly the Senators, are terrified of an accurate census and a working USPS.
Poll’s closed.
/giphy poll has ended
Poll Results:
Thank you to all who participated in the poll, and thank you also to everyone who commented. There were 33 valid responses (if my math is correct) to the poll, but there were a heck of a lot more posts discussing the pros and cons of the electoral college. Of the valid responses, 3 respondents chose A (the EC could use some work), no one responded B (the EC is something IDC/K about), 11 respondents chose C (the EC is awesome and should be kept) and the majority of respondents chose D (the EC sucks and needs to go.)
A : //#
B : no votes
C : //////////#
D : //////////////////#
From the results of this poll, I’d say visitors to this forum are a polarized crowd trending toward intelligence with a dash or two of moderation. When I think of the polarization of ideas, I also think of impulsiveness, and that fits with the purpose of this forum - get people to impulse-buy daily offerings of stuff from the main site.
Based on none of the forum users who responded to the poll answering B, one might say, “Cool! All these people know what the electoral college is. This a pretty smart bunch.” However, this poll also made all respondents’ choices available to the public, and vanity may have been a factor in the absolute lack of choice B. Considering the large number of comments and replies compared to the number of valid poll responses, it’s possible some forum users who would have chosen B didn’t respond to the poll at all.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Choice D is the overwhelming, but not by 2/3, majority of responses, which to me means the electoral college isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but it is at risk of being tweaked, or even done away with altogether.
Thank you.
POKER! JOKER! NOT MEDIOCRE! AWESOME!
Assuming it prints, I plan to wear mine proudly.
https://shirt.woot.com/derby/entry/117173/electoral-college
@ACraigL
I mailed in my vote. Why didn’t it get counted?
@therealjrn
/giphy pitney bowes shipping
@eonfifty :snort:
/giphy pitney bowes shipping
@therealjrn
:gif relevant to slow mail:
/giphy slow mail gif
@mike808
