NationStates Jolt Archive

I want to ask this of non-Americans who live in a democratic nation that doesn't use an election process resembling that of the electoral college in the US...

Have you had problems electing presidents? Do people feel under-represented? IS it common for people to want something like the electoral college?

Until I get my answer, I would ask everyone and especially americans to abstain from debating this issue.

Without the Electoral College, smaller states wouldnt matter at all, the candidates would only concentrate on big cities, The Electoral College keeps things even

We have a parliamentary democracy based on a mixed member proportional electoral system. People used to feel under represented prior to 1993 when we were using a First past the post voting system that commonly delivered governments with less than %50 of the popular vote. Referendum in 1993 lead to the change and from 96 onwards we have had majority governments. I tend to think the system is quite good though obviously not without flaws. We dont have a seperately elected office of president. Sovereignty resides in parliament although technically speaking, Queen Liz II is head of state through her representative the Governor General. In reality the GG is a figurehead only role.

I would never want to move to a electoral college system as from the perspective of a political scientist, it distorts democracy.

I live in Canada and I find our election system very fair and represents the majority of Canadians.

Without the Electoral College, smaller states wouldnt matter at all, the candidates would only concentrate on big cities, The Electoral College keeps things even

Did you even read the first post? The person asked for NON-Americans to talk about THEIR electoral systems, and the person also specifically asked people NOT to debate it.

----"I would never want to move to a electoral college system as from the perspective of a political scientist, it distorts democracy."

Yes, in favor of the individual in place of the masses. I respect your lifestyle from every country, but something we must understand is that it is harder to taste that cherry pie if you have never tasted one before. I promise after tasting it, you will never want to go back (and I hate cherries!).

I love cherries but that does not help me in understanding whatever it is you are trying to say.

I got the answer I was looking for, so I going to open the floor for debate.
I'd like to get the first word in, if I may...

Posted in that other EC thread:
Your still thinking in terms of states!

What makes one state more deserving than another? Nothing! And those who say that a true majority rule has its problems: why would we then take random people and give them more authority? To what end?

We have the constitution to limit what our elected can do--our ONLY defense angainst autocracy. I don't see how distorting elections will change that.

Furthermore, I wouldn't want a first-past-the-post sytem either. My idea is for a "pooling system"; Canidates with similar ideologies (and this is by choice, not defined by the gov't) would 'poll' thier votes. One of them would get elected if the pool got more votes than any other independent canidate or pool.

Sovereignty resides in parliament although technically speaking, Queen Liz II is head of state through her representative the Governor General. In reality the GG is a figurehead only role.

Not entirely, she's still got the right to dismiss goverments- I seem to remember reading about her doing so in Australia some time ago, but I can't recollect the details. Equally as head of the security services and the army we're one of the few countries where it would be possible to have a completely constituional coup- Peter Wright talks about it at some length in Spycatcher.

"I love cherries but that does not help me in understanding whatever it is you are trying to say."

Sorry m8, I was trying to say that here in the US we favor the individual over the masses or majority rule. As the individual has a complete seperate choice of freedoms by choosing which individual state he resides in. Say your an environmentalist or libertarian. You can get pretty much what you believe in through states like Vermont or Alaska and Oregon and Washington. But if your a true blue bible thumper that believes in a stricter adherance to God you could move to North Carolina or Virginia and Texas. Or if you prefer a more liberal aproach you could always move to California or Nevada (inside sin city Las Vegas). See with States having the rights the same as if it were an Individual, they are capable of passing the freedoms and restrictions of that chosen community or State without pressing those views upon anothers State.

"I love cherries but that does not help me in understanding whatever it is you are trying to say."

Sorry m8, I was trying to say that here in the US we favor the individual over the masses or majority rule. As the individual has a complete seperate choice of freedoms by choosing which individual state he resides in. Say your an environmentalist or libertarian. You can get pretty much what you believe in through states like Vermont or Alaska and Oregon and Washington. But if your a true blue bible thumper that believes in a stricter adherance to God you could move to North Carolina or Virginia and Texas. Or if you prefer a more liberal aproach you could always move to California or Nevada (inside sin city Las Vegas). See with States having the rights the same as if it were an Individual, they are capable of passing the freedoms and restrictions of that chosen community or State without pressing those views upon anothers State.

That doesn't mean a state has the right to have influence over the FEDERAL gov't.

"That doesn't mean a state has the right to have influence over the FEDERAL gov't."

Of course not just as our courts have proven in favor of the states not to have to be influenced by our federal government (only in the name of National Security) Rulings based on our own Federalist Papers :"We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority."

It is an even ball game as it should be a truly 'fair and balanced one'. The only time it is 'Just' in our forefathers eyes were when it involves the sensitivity of our National Security.

Not entirely, she's still got the right to dismiss goverments- I seem to remember reading about her doing so in Australia some time ago, but I can't recollect the details. Equally as head of the security services and the army we're one of the few countries where it would be possible to have a completely constituional coup- Peter Wright talks about it at some length in Spycatcher.
The GG does have a formal role but In New Zealand, the right to dismiss parliament has never been exercised. You are right, Australian GG did so once in the seventies and that is still controversial to this day. The GG is nominated by Parliament so it is dificult to claim that there is any real independant authority outside parliament.

----"I would never want to move to a electoral college system as from the perspective of a political scientist, it distorts democracy."

Yes, in favor of the individual in place of the masses. I respect your lifestyle from every country, but something we must understand is that it is harder to taste that cherry pie if you have never tasted one before. I promise after tasting it, you will never want to go back (and I hate cherries!).

Why not do the same, just with changing to the parlementary system?

Oh, and that reminds me, how do your presidential elections work? Do you vote for a congressional candidate, and the party with the most congress members elected gets thier leader put into power?

----"Why not do the same, just with changing to the parlementary system?
Oh, and that reminds me, how do your presidential elections work? Do you vote for a congressional candidate, and the party with the most congress members elected gets thier leader put into power?"

Your system sounds like it works for ya'll very well also!

It works by each populace of the States deciding upon who to place thier votes towards, so the individual actually gets to taste a bit of majority rule through this state status upon electoral means.

Why not do the same, just with changing to the parlementary system?

Oh, and that reminds me, how do your presidential elections work? Do you vote for a congressional candidate, and the party with the most congress members elected gets thier leader put into power?

Congressional and Presidential elections are seperate. What happens with the President is that each person has one vote, and they cast their vote for whichever candidate the want. The states each have a certain number of electoral votes. If the majority of the people in a certain state cast their votes for candidate A, then all the electoral votes for that state are cast for Candidate A. That's how the U.S. system works

Congressional and Presidential elections are seperate. What happens with the President is that each person has one vote, and they cast their vote for whichever candidate the want. The states each have a certain number of electoral votes. If the majority of the people in a certain state cast their votes for candidate A, then all the electoral votes for that state are cast for Candidate A. That's how the U.S. system works

Well, that sounds like it works great, although I'd rather not have that winning a state thing. Here in Canada, sometimes people like the ideals of a party, but don't like the MP representing them. So it's a win-lose situation. Your system clears that up a bit. However, we have a load of parties and independants to choose from, so all the members of a party usually share equal ideas, so that situation I talked about doesn't usually happen.

I live in Ireland, a democratic republic. We have proportional representation for our parliament. It has been several decades since there was a majority government. Political parties make alliances to create a government. For example, the current government is formed by Fianna Fáil, a centre-right, moderately conservative party, with the Progressive Democrats, a liberal right-wing party (like the libertarians in America) as the junior partner. Some independent TDs (members of parliament) are also allied.

Fianna Fáil got around 36% of the vote in the last election, while the Progressive Democrats got just 4%. I don't know how much those independents are worth, but the form the largest group in the parliament.

It is true that this arrangement gives the Progressive Democrats a disproportionate amount of power.

Thanks to our proportional representation system, people don't feel under-represented. There are six parties (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour Party, Progressive Democrats, Green Party, Socialist Party) represented in our parliament and some independents. That gives a wide scope of representation.

Nobody wants an electoral college system.

The presidential elections are entirely separate from the general elections. The president is the head of state, but the most powerful job is that of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister). The Taoiseach is usually the leader of the biggest party in the government. For example, our current Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, is the leader of Fianna Fáil.

Although the president signs laws and has the power to dissolve parliament, she is not a part of party politics in the way the US president is.

Hong Kong is semi-democracy.

Our Chief Executive is elected by an 800-strong electoral council. It's supposed to represent the 7 million people of Hong Kong, but then only the educated and professionals get to elect the 800 people. Then of course all the candidates are either Beijing approved or directly hand-picked. I think it's a completely ridiculous system because a 7-million-people direct election is not hard at all to organise and maintain. Of course, Beijing is completely paranoid about a democracy in her midst and ruled out the possibility of universal suffrage for the 2007 Chief Executive elections.

Our uni-cameral Legislative Council has 60 seats, but only half of them are elected directly. The other 60 seats are either reserved or are voted in by different economic and social sectors of Hong Kong, for example, the religious sector, or the agricultural and fisheries sector, or the banking sector, or the education sector. With the sector system some candidates may be elected automatically due to the lack of opposition. It also results in some people having 2 votes. Again, Beijing has overruled the possibility of a universal elected Legislative Council in 2008.

Then again, with the state of affairs as they are, I'm not so keen for a completely democratic Hong Kong in such a short period of time.

well just for the record, if there's democracy i think the best method is a direct democracy. that's what we have here, though we don't vote for president (only for governor). that way the vote of every single person is taken into account.

I live in Canada, like a few others who have posted here, and although I do prefer our Parliamentary system to the system that exists in the U.S., I feel that our "first-past-the-post" system of electing members to parliament is flawed. Taking a look at this past federal election, the Green Party won almost as many votes nationally as the Bloc Quebecois, yet because the Bloc is concentrated solely in one region (Quebec) they won a large amount of seats (actually they are the third-most represented party in Parliament), while the Green Party, being a national party that ran candidates in all regions, won NO seats at all. Electoral reform is a sticky issue, as I believe it should always be possible for independents to run, and that there IS a need for regional representation, however I think that there needs to be a system that more closely represents what people voted for across the country. The issue has been raised recently, by both the leader of the Green Party and the leader of the New Democratic Party. The NDP won not very many seats this time around, but since the Liberals won a minority and hold beliefs closer to the NDP than to the Conservatives or the Bloc, the NDP may hold a great deal of influence in the coming Parliament, and we may see a referendum on electoral reform. The Greens and NDP have been talking about Proportional Representation, but I think what we really need is a mixed system, with a certain number of seats allocated by Proportional Representation, and the rest allocated regionally through the "first-past-the-post" system. A system like that would still allow people without party affiliations to run, but also force the number of seats each party has in Parliament to more closely reflect the numbers they won in the popular vote. I don't know that we'd see a lot of majority governments anymore, but I think that government is forced to more closely listen to the People when there is NOT a majority anyway.

But this was supposed to be about the Electoral College in the U.S., wasn't it? :) I think the EC is kind of silly, when you have a system of "checks and balances" like you do in the States; the Congress and the Senate represent the countries regions, so why not have the President elected by popular vote? It would certainly avoid situations like the one seen in 2000, where the State Government of Florida ended up having such a strong influence on how many votes got re-counted and how, and between themselves and the U.S. Supreme Court, they ended up essentially hijacking the election. If the election was by popular vote, that one state would not have had the power to decide the election, and its government would not have been able to muscle the results like they did.

But this was supposed to be about the Electoral College in the U.S., wasn't it? :) I think the EC is kind of silly, when you have a system of "checks and balances" like you do in the States; the Congress and the Senate represent the countries regions, so why not have the President elected by popular vote? It would certainly avoid situations like the one seen in 2000, where the State Government of Florida ended up having such a strong influence on how many votes got re-counted and how, and between themselves and the U.S. Supreme Court, they ended up essentially hijacking the election. If the election was by popular vote, that one state would not have had the power to decide the election, and its government would not have been able to muscle the results like they did.

That explains my previous post way better.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zasxistan
But this was supposed to be about the Electoral College in the U.S., wasn't it? I think the EC is kind of silly, when you have a system of "checks and balances" like you do in the States; the Congress and the Senate represent the countries regions, so why not have the President elected by popular vote? It would certainly avoid situations like the one seen in 2000, where the State Government of Florida ended up having such a strong influence on how many votes got re-counted and how, and between themselves and the U.S. Supreme Court, they ended up essentially hijacking the election. If the election was by popular vote, that one state would not have had the power to decide the election, and its government would not have been able to muscle the results like they did.


That explains my previous post way better.

The state government of Florida followed the rules, which they are required to do.

The recount "mess" was perpetrated by lawyers who claimed "irregularities".

The reason for the EC's existence is to specifically give more of a say to "minority" groups, as it "levels" (somewhat) the say of large urban population centers versus the less populous vast areas.

I think that the Finns used to use an electoral college to elect their President of the Republic, but now they use a direct popular vote - I believe... maybe a Finnish person can better explain!

Here in Sweden we are a monarchy. The monarch (www.royalcourt.se) (currently King Carl XVI Gustaf) is just a symbolic post, without any real power these days. He's actually quite popular, and our monarchy tends to be far less remote than the more famous British monarchy. For instance, the King will speak to the press etc (he's given interviews in English in the past also).

The actual power lies in the Riksdag (www.riksdagen.se), our 349-member parliament. This is elected by the people in several electoral constituencies across the country. Within these constituencies, PR is used. The Prime Minister is the head of the government, and generally is the leader of the largest party in the Riksdag. (So, at the moment the Social Democrats chairman Göran Persson is PrimeMinister). Often, the government is a coalition of more than one party.

So, there you go.

I live in Canada and I find our election system very fair and represents the majority of Canadians.
What she said.

----"It would certainly avoid situations like the one seen in 2000, where the State Government of Florida ended up having such a strong influence on how many votes got re-counted"

Your minimizing it all down to one state that just happened to finish thier vote counts last as being more of a contender than any other of the 49 states. It doesnt matter if florida was the first state to have its votes counted, it would still just fall to the last state that happened to turn in its ballots whoever it may be in this logic were using. But in reality the last state's count is no more or less important than any other states count that the canidate recieves. You make it sound like florida was more of a reason to win than West Virginia or Oregon, but without either one of these neither would of won anyways.

Well, that sounds like it works great, although I'd rather not have that winning a state thing. Here in Canada, sometimes people like the ideals of a party, but don't like the MP representing them. So it's a win-lose situation. Your system clears that up a bit. However, we have a load of parties and independants to choose from, so all the members of a party usually share equal ideas, so that situation I talked about doesn't usually happen.

I don't like the electoral college. Sometimes the candidate who wins the most votes doesn't win the electoral college.... and that's kinda messed up. I'd prefer just a popular vote for President. The debate between big and small states isn't really that relevant anymore now that we are more of a unified nation

"I don't like the electoral college. Sometimes the candidate who wins the most votes doesn't win the electoral college.... and that's kinda messed up. I'd prefer just a popular vote for President. The debate between big and small states isn't really that relevant anymore now that we are more of a unified nation"

The canidate who wins the most electoral votes do win. popular vote for president will need the ratification of the states, so get to work! It makes no different how unified our country becomes in the future there will always be an obstacle to creating a strong central government in terms of the states losing thier say, and it takes the 'states' to ratify it, again good luck!

----"It would certainly avoid situations like the one seen in 2000, where the State Government of Florida ended up having such a strong influence on how many votes got re-counted"

Your minimizing it all down to one state that just happened to finish thier vote counts last as being more of a contender than any other of the 49 states. It doesnt matter if florida was the first state to have its votes counted, it would still just fall to the last state that happened to turn in its ballots whoever it may be in this logic were using. But in reality the last state's count is no more or less important than any other states count that the canidate recieves. You make it sound like florida was more of a reason to win than West Virginia or Oregon, but without either one of these neither would of won anyways.

I know that it doesn't matter whether it was Florida, New York, West Virginia, Texas, or whatever state.... what does matter is that the Florida government KNEW how the votes stood everywhere else, and that their state was the last one left, and that it was close enough that their state would decide the election. It could have been any state, but it ended up being that one, and it ended up being the absolute worst-case scenario. Governor Jeb's brother was ahead when counting stopped, so Jeb's government did everything they could to stop votes from being re-counted. Tell me how this isn't a glaring example of how the electoral system needs some fixing. Maybe none of the counts in other states should have been disclosed until all re-counting was finished EVERYWHERE, or maybe there needs to be a governing body of elections that is non-partisan and separate from the government itself, or maybe the electoral college needs to be thrown out, etc, etc.

-----"Tell me how this isn't a glaring example of how the electoral system needs some fixing. Maybe none of the counts in other states should have been disclosed until all re-counting was finished EVERYWHERE, or maybe there needs to be a governing body of elections that is non-partisan and separate from the government itself, or maybe the electoral college needs to be thrown out, etc, etc."

I like your first two suggestions, they are obtainable under the beliefs of Americans. Disclosing all votes after all have been tallied would work and having a non-partisan Apolitical election department would also work. But as we know already the doing away with the electoral college is nothing more than a dream by a very few that has no chance of ever happening. Try to get 2/3 of the states(most are rural type) to want to do away with thier chance at an equal say to the big city states. Simply will never happen.

The state government of Florida followed the rules, which they are required to do.
The recount "mess" was perpetrated by lawyers who claimed "irregularities".
Well, actually, it seemed to me that it was perpetuated because the Florida government kept stopping re-counts that were already underway....it could have been over very quickly if they had simply let them finish their re-counts.
The reason for the EC's existence is to specifically give more of a say to "minority" groups, as it "levels" (somewhat) the say of large urban population centers versus the less populous vast areas.
But does it in fact "level" things? Is the number of electoral votes allocated to a state not based on its population anyway? And let's say I lived in North Dakota, for example....since my state holds very few electoral votes, I would feel that my vote does not matter as much as a vote from California for example. However, without an electoral college, I would feel more like my vote meant as much as anyone else's because every vote would be equal, and if I lived in a region that voted largely in one direction, my vote in the opposite direction would still mean something on the national scale. Like let's say you were a Democrat in a traditional Republican stronghold, would you feel your vote counted under the current system, even though the national popular vote numbers may in fact lean in the direction you want to vote? I would have to say no, because your region elects X many Republicans to the Electoral Colllege, leaving your voice unheard on the national level.

I think it would be a good thing for electing the president of Europe, or other similarly large continent-wide president. The current system is rubbish because people don't get a say at all.

I'd like to hear from a russian though, I don't know how they elect their president. I'd also like to know how the Communist Party of China selects it's leader, they must have some kind of election process within the party.

Personally, I believe in the EC. I would propose a bit of a change, though.

Say your state has 10 electoral votes. Candidate A gets 40% of the vote and B gets 60%. Allocate 4 of the votes to candidate A and 6 to B. It makes it more representative of the will of the individual, without sacrificing the representation of metro versus rural.

But as we know already the doing away with the electoral college is nothing more than a dream by a very few that has no chance of ever happening. Try to get 2/3 of the states(most are rural type) to want to do away with thier chance at an equal say to the big city states. Simply will never happen.

While I agree with you that getting rid of the electoral college will be nearly impossible, I disagree with your implication that the electoral college gives "equal say" to rural states. How is it equal when rural states have a disproportional amount of electoral college votes compared to larger states (the 13 smallest states in terms of population in the union still don't compare in size to California but they have more electoral votes)? Nor does the electoral college really help out the small states. The number of people who vote Republican in California probably doubles the entire population of North Dakota, but their votes are meaningless. Honestly, the system is unfair to both large and small states, democrats and republicans. If everyone realized this maybe something would be done about it.

I live in Canada and I find our election system very fair and represents the majority of Canadians.

You mean Ontario and Quebec.

Personally, I believe in the EC. I would propose a bit of a change, though.

Say your state has 10 electoral votes. Candidate A gets 40% of the vote and B gets 60%. Allocate 4 of the votes to candidate A and 6 to B. It makes it more representative of the will of the individual, without sacrificing the representation of metro versus rural.

Wouldn't it just be simpler to have a popular vote? And what happens if candidate 1 gets 65% and candidate 2 gets 33% (with the other two going to third party candidates)? Do you give candidate 1 seven votes and candidate 2 3 votes? That seems unfair. Or what if the state has 11 electoral votes and the vote is 50-50? You can't give 5.5 because an electoral representative (these guys are real people) can't give half of his vote to one person and half to another. So then you'd have to change the constitution to allow that change.

Although, I will give you that Nebreska and Maine both have simialr systems to the one you want, and it wouldn't take a change in the Constitution to do so, the system is still rather arbitrary and still causes disproportional representation.

Personally, I believe in the EC. I would propose a bit of a change, though.

Say your state has 10 electoral votes. Candidate A gets 40% of the vote and B gets 60%. Allocate 4 of the votes to candidate A and 6 to B. It makes it more representative of the will of the individual, without sacrificing the representation of metro versus rural.

You probably already know a fair bit about the EC, but some folk may be interested in this thread for changes to make:
http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=343987

I origionally started that thread in the hope that some europeans may join, but it looks like only americans ever posted on it. If you're European (and that includes Britain), I'd like to hear your views.

Without the Electoral College, smaller states wouldnt matter at all, the candidates would only concentrate on big cities, The Electoral College keeps things even
you do realise you said small states wouldnt matter because candidates would focus on big cities

besides that not ultimatelym aking sense, you dont follow the campaigns closely do you

small states dont matter: california has what? 10x as many votes as vermont

electoral colelge polarizes the election. when is the last time a campaigner went to a indefinately red or blue state more than once. everyone focuses on the FIVE swing states, the rest are assured victories, just ride through them on a bus and that counts as your campaigning for the state

every idiot trying to use the ORIGINAL reasoning for the electoral college neither follows the campaigns nor looks at history as a whole

Wouldn't it just be simpler to have a popular vote? And what happens if candidate 1 gets 65% and candidate 2 gets 33% (with the other two going to third party candidates)? Do you give candidate 1 seven votes and candidate 2 3 votes? That seems unfair. Or what if the state has 11 electoral votes and the vote is 50-50? You can't give 5.5 because an electoral representative (these guys are real people) can't give half of his vote to one person and half to another. So then you'd have to change the constitution to allow that change.
Not really. This would still deal with the dilemma of urban vs. rural, but would also make the electoral college more representative of the true voting habits of a state.

The provision would obviously have to round to the nearest whole number. Take the hypothetical 10-vote state, for instance. Candidate A gets 54.9%, B gets 45.1%. With 10 votes up for grabs, the count is easy, and then is rounded to the nearest whole number. Candidate A gets 5 electoral votes, B also gets 5. Had Candidate A gotten 55.0%, s/he would round up to 6 votes.

Imagine a system such as this in place in California, which has 55 electoral votes. A poll I just checked shows Kerry with 50%, Bush with 42%. Assuming those were final tallies and were completely even percentages (for simplicity's sake with my math skills)... Kerry earns a mathematical breakdown of 27.5 electoral votes, Bush earns 23.1. With the rounding in effect -- because as you point out these are actual people we're talking about and splitting them in two could be rather... messy (not to mention probably result in some nasty lawsuits) -- Kerry earns 28 electoral votes, Bush earns 23.

It allows the system to remain representative -- in that winning a majority of the state of California doesn't automatically give you more electoral votes than 15 smaller states. The individual vote counts for more, in that electoral votes may split within a single state.

Although, I will give you that Nebreska and Maine both have simialr systems to the one you want, and it wouldn't take a change in the Constitution to do so, the system is still rather arbitrary and still causes disproportional representation.
I can't say I'm familiar with how the Nebraska or Maine systems work. If you have any information on that, I'd be interested in finding out the similarities.

I find the whole EC thing dodgy. Porpotional voting is better. The EC simply compounds the lack of vote equality, rather than fixing it. If in your state the candidate you voted for gets 49.9% percent of the votes, and the other party gets 50.1% your vote is entirely wasted, as is 49.9% of all the voters in that state.
Further as others have pointed out this means that a candidate who received less votes than another, can win the election! Any system in which it is possible for a party/candidate who received less votes than the other,to none the less 'win' the election, is not fair, equitable, or representitive.

proportional representation is also good in that it tends to produce assemblies featuring more women and more ethnic minority representation. Of course if you are a racist/misogynist then this is a bad thing and there are certainly a few of those types out there.

I'm too tired to read all of these so I'll just ask my question (its late)...

Doesn't the electoral college violate the 'one man, one vote' philosophy? I mean, since you are not ensured victory if you get the most votes that must mean that some votes become more and some become less than one vote when they are skewed when then EC is taken in account.

I wouldn't want my vote to be 3/5ths of an actual vote.

That actually sounds quite creepy when you think about it.

I have to admit my knowledge of the EC and, well practically EVERYTHING reguarding elections is lacking. Comments? Clarification?

It doesn't really work like that. The number of EC delegates per state is based upon the state's population, which is why California has 55 and, say, Montana has 3.

All votes within the state are counted as popular vote. The winner of that state's popular vote then receives all of the state's electoral votes -- anyone with fewer receives nothing.

My idea is to individualize the electoral votes to make the votes proportional to the state's results.

You mean Ontario and Quebec.

Heh, can't be helped they have the most people.

But weaker provinces can counteract this (and do) with their regional identity which gives them strength. Maritime provinces stick together as one unit when they vote and usually end up voting the same way. Same goes for prairie provinces. I remember that we maritimers dealt Harper the biggest blow in the last election after he smart-mouthed with that 'defeatiest' remark.

Now who feels defeatest. :D

British Columbia has a good economy and can hold its own. I think they usually see eye-to-eye with Ontario in most matters. As long as they can keep their politicians out of jail. :p

I was about to say that Australia gets along quite nicely without an electoral college, when I realised that no, we do have an equivalent:
The lower house of parliament is elected one (wo)man/one vote [interestingly, women's right to vote is partly protected by the constitution, but men's isn't] using a preferential system (which as the Canadians and Kiwis have been pointing out, is the only way to go).
*However*, our Senate isn't - instead, each state elects an equal number of senators. There are restrictions on what the Senate can do, so it mostly holds a veto ability (although they also act as house of review, knocking shoddy legislation into shape).
This works fairly well. The majority makes the decisions, but the interests of the smaller states are protected. The weakness in the system is the size of Australian states; within each state, most voting power is held in one or more major cities, so those cities get looked after, which encourages people to move there - creating a population glut. Melbourne and Sydney between them hold 1/2 of Australia's population.
This wasn't meant to happen; instead, new states were meant to be created as regions developed. New England and the Riviera have both attempted to become states, but NSW voted all their attempts down (grr) leaving us with the current problem. However, as the US is already divided into conveniently sized states, you wouldn't have that problem: so looking at our system is probably worth your while.

However, as the US is already divided into conveniently sized states, you wouldn't have that problem: so looking at our system is probably worth your while.

Our House of Representatives has numbers based upon state populations (as with the EC). Our Senate has two from each state.

I was about to say that Australia gets along quite nicely without an electoral college, when I realised that no, we do have an equivalent:
The lower house of parliament is elected one (wo)man/one vote [interestingly, women's right to vote is partly protected by the constitution, but men's isn't] using a preferential system (which as the Canadians and Kiwis have been pointing out, is the only way to go).
*However*, our Senate isn't - instead, each state elects an equal number of senators. There are restrictions on what the Senate can do, so it mostly holds a veto ability (although they also act as house of review, knocking shoddy legislation into shape).
This works fairly well. The majority makes the decisions, but the interests of the smaller states are protected. The weakness in the system is the size of Australian states; within each state, most voting power is held in one or more major cities, so those cities get looked after, which encourages people to move there - creating a population glut. Melbourne and Sydney between them hold 1/2 of Australia's population.
This wasn't meant to happen; instead, new states were meant to be created as regions developed. New England and the Riviera have both attempted to become states, but NSW voted all their attempts down (grr) leaving us with the current problem. However, as the US is already divided into conveniently sized states, you wouldn't have that problem: so looking at our system is probably worth your while.

We can create new states? Cool!

incidently territories get less seats than states in the senate (a territory is like a state, except with such a small population that it has trouble governing itself. we have 2 of these - the northern territory (a big freakin dessert) and canberra (where the government lives)). But other than that the senate evenly represents the states.

Personally I like the senate because the smaller parties get a fair percentage of seats, whereas in the lower house (the government) you need to have a majority in an electorate to get a single seat.

We can create new states? Cool!
Yep. Further, the plan to split Queensland in three is already in the constitution, so they can do that whenever they want.
Mind you, NT will make it to statehood before anywhere else does, simply because the parent state which a new state is carved out of has to vote in favour of the change. (grr)
Oh, and New Zealand has the right to become a state anytime they want, although had the republic referrendum succeeded that right would have been stripped. They'll probably include that change in all future referrenda.

"Your minimizing it all down to one state that just happened to finish thier vote counts last as being more of a contender than any other of the 49 states. It doesnt matter if florida was the first state to have its votes counted, it would still just fall to the last state that happened to turn in its ballots whoever it may be in this logic were using. But in reality the last state's count is no more or less important than any other states count that the canidate recieves. You make it sound like florida was more of a reason to win than West Virginia or Oregon, but without either one of these neither would of won anyways. "



Florida's easily was the most closely contested election. Although the Wisconsin, Oregon, and New Mexico elections were close, as well, Florida's came down to just 500+ votes, out of several million cast. Therefore, it can be said that the Florida election determined the outcome of the 2000 Presidential Election (although, obviously, every state's election contributes to the outcome).

Frankly, I like the EC. Many non-Americans might not understand the issue of State's Rights versus the rights of the Federal Government, ie, the distinction between Federal powers and States' powers. The US is, literally, a collection of 50 distinct states/commonwealths. That is an issue that is very touchy for Americans (after all, we fought a very bloody civil war over the extent to which states' rights apply).

Mr. Gore (for whom I voted) carried California by a large margin, which probably was the reason he carried the popular vote. The EC protects against populous states, such as California, New York, and Texas from overwhelming smaller states in US elections for national, federal offices.

Direct democracy is a terrible form of government as it shows no respect to the minority. The EC and popular vote both have their flaws.

Direct democracy is a terrible form of government as it shows no respect to the minority. The EC and popular vote both have their flaws.
and the EC respects the minority?

i do recall the votes of the people who dont vote in accordance with the rest of the state count for some where around ZERO percent

Mexico has a mixed system. We have a president who is elected by direct vote, whoever gets the most votes wins. We also have a senate, 4 senators to each state. We also have the equivalent of the House of Representatives of 500 members, 300 of which are elected directly by their constituents and 200 which are assigned throug proportional representation. That is, if a party obtained only 4% of the votes in the election for representatives, they would still get to send 8 to the House.

I think that in theory this is a good system which gives good enough representation to the people, the states and parties (which is important in Mexico), although in practice it hasn't been that good. I would blame the Mexican political culture, thou, rather than the system itself.

Edit: I forgot that in the Senate, 2 of the senators are elected directly and the other 2 go to the first minority.

and the EC respects the minority?

i do recall the votes of the people who dont vote in accordance with the rest of the state count for some where around ZERO percent

Well, congratulations. You've managed to take what I said and mutilate it. Notice how I mentioned that the EC has flaws and how I never stated anywhere that it represented the minority. Reading comprehension is a great skill.

I just found out that Colorado has a referendum up for vote on November 2nd that, passed, would allow them to split their electoral votes proportionally as I've suggested earlier in the thread.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks it's a good idea. :)

Our House of Representatives has numbers based upon state populations (as with the EC). Our Senate has two from each state.
the EC is the total number of congressmen from each state, congress, HoR and senate

the EC is the total number of congressmen from each state, congress, HoR and senate

My explanation wasn't meant to suggest that the EC equalled the number from the House, just to point out that the House and the EC were both based on population.

Sorry for the confusion.

I'm a New Zealander. We have no need for anything ridiculous like an electoral College because there are no 'States'. We have electorates which are arbitrarily drawn on a map so that they all roughly have the same population living in them. For example I can walk across the Northcote Electorate in less than a hour, whereas some of the South Island back-country electorates I would be driving across in several hours. New Zealanders also place a second 'party vote' which is more important, while your electoral vote is for a candidate to respresent your electorate, the party vote is for which Political Party you prefer. For instance you may vote for the Labour Party Candidate in your electorate because you think the National one is a moron, but you will still vote National as a party vote because you agree with their policies. At the end of elections the party votes are collected and the seats in parliament divided up depending upon what percentage of the total party votes you recieved, however you will always get a seat if you win an electorate (ie if say the United Future Party wins a seat in Wellington, but still only scores 0.1% of the party votes they still get a seat).

Confused yet? But wait there's more! No party that scores under 5% of the party votes is considered when tallying up the seats unless they win an electorate seat.

There is no need for an 'Electoral-College' if you don't have a country which is organised on US lines. Whats more we don't have a President and we don't have a congress. We vote once for a House of representatives who chose a Prime Minister from amongst themselves (usually, although not always, the leader of the largest party, occasionally a small party such as New Zealand First may control the crucial number of Seats to give one of the major parties control over the Government. They will then enter negotiations to see which major party will give them the better deal in return for their support).

I firmly believe that anything simpler is undemocratic.

Democracy when everyone gets to vote for every bill will be great! It might be a pain in the ass but then you won't have people too scared to ban cars in major cities or whatever

Democracy when everyone gets to vote for every bill will be great! It might be a pain in the ass but then you won't have people too scared to ban cars in major cities or whatever

After my recent move, I voted in the first election just the other day. There was an 18% turnout, among all the registered voters.

That's just registered voters. That's not including all the people who choose not to register. In reality, it's probably closer to 5-7% of the eligible population... and that may even be stretching a bit.

I like the idea of everyone having a vote on every issue, but I just don't see the practicality of it. The sheer number of people who don't vote on any issue is staggering in its smallness. The number of people who actually try to educate themselves on issues at all is even smaller. And the number of people who would take the time to fully educate themselves on even one or two of the issues at vote would be virtually nonexistent. So the whole idea, I think, would come down to nothing but a popularity contest, with one side battling the other continuously, instead of just in the election cycle. We'd end up with permanent billboards and tv ads vying for one issue or another and I don't believe the results would be any better when it came to governance.

If people realized they could just vote themselves tax breaks or funds allocated from the government -- which would happen -- the entire governmental system would collapse.

well actually most countries have compulsory voting. In australia the fine is something like $200.

well actually most countries have compulsory voting. In australia the fine is something like $200.

But with the amount of issues that come before federal and state governments per year, we're talking about HUNDREDS or more individual votes, in who knows how many separate elections?

And what happens when people vote not to make voting compulsory anymore?

i love cherries 2 and we dont hav a president whoever started this thread. how do americans vote??? :confused: hang on queensland could be split in three??? i relli need 2 watch the news more.