GT40s.com Paddock Politics Thread

[Jack]

Nice one Scott. This thread is getting boring..

 

[Steve]

I can't imagine that the smaller states would like the Electoral College...it is "apportioned" exactly like the House of Representatives, in fact the number of representatives per state plus two (the number of senators per state) is the number of votes each state has. That allows the more populous states to run roughshod over the smaller states and diminishes their "power" in the electoral process.

I could see why they would want it to remain in effect if it were "apportioned" like the Senate, with D.C. having the same "power" as New York and CA. It's not that way.

It needs to go...progress has rendered it unnecessary as well as outdated.

"One man...one vote". I agree with Jeff, that's what we're raised believing in and that's how it should go down.

As for giving him a chance...I agree. We're stuck with him for 4 years and if the nation is not happy with that he'll be out, but not until after he's done his damage (SCOTUS appointments, Presidential orders, etc.,). I must admit he's done some things that have impressed me...just many more that haven't.

He's entitled to a chance to prove himself and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt...he just shouldn't be the one in that office, IMHO...and I blame that on the Electoral College process.

Cheers!

Doug

Doug, the electoral college grants a state votes that include their senate positions as well as their representatives. So, a sparsely populated state like North Dakota has 3 votes (2 senators and 1 representative). The system is beneficial to less populated states, therefore they are unlikely to want to change it. Were you not aware of this fact?

 

[Doug S.]

Yes, that is what I've been saying...the less populous states get as little as 3 votes and the more populous states get waaaay more...how can that possibly benefit the less populous states?

...of course, there may be something I'm missing...if so I'd like to hear it. I mean, the contest is to see who can get the MOST electoral college votes, right?

Seriously...

Doug

 

[John]

Doug how come your upset because the loser won, when the same system I take it has been in use for how long, so all the POTUS before were losers too, is that correct.

kaspa

 

[Jeff Young]

Doug how come your upset because the loser won, when the same system I take it has been in use for how long, so all the POTUS before were losers too, is that correct.

kaspa

No. In only five elections now has the winner of teh popular vote not won the Electoral College -- 1828, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016.

2000 was extremely close with Al Gore winning by 500,000 votes. THis year, Clinton will likely win by over 2 million. Still close but not extraordinarily so.

 

[Steve]

Yes, that is what I've been saying...the less populous states get as little as 3 votes and the more populous states get waaaay more...how can that possibly benefit the less populous states?

...of course, there may be something I'm missing...if so I'd like to hear it. I mean, the contest is to see who can get the MOST electoral college votes, right?

Seriously...

Doug

Doug, I think you're missing the math here. The states representatives are based on population. Therefore North Dakota has one and California has 53. Adding 2 electoral votes for each senator proportionately gives North Dakota greater representation in the electoral college than it's population.

 

[Doug S.]

Doug how come your upset because the loser won, when the same system I take it has been in use for how long, so all the POTUS before were losers too, is that correct.

kaspa

We here in the U.S. have been educated from kindergarten on through school that we function with a "one man, one vote" system. The Electoral college does not seem to follow that premise.

Doug, I think you're missing the math here. The states representatives are based on population. Therefore North Dakota has one and California has 53. Adding 2 electoral votes for each senator proportionately gives North Dakota greater representation in the electoral college than it's population.

Yeah, Steve...I guess I'm missing it.

So, California has 55 Electoral College votes (53 for their population...actually, the number of representatives) and North Dakota has only 3 Electoral College votes, one for the number of Representatives, which is based on population, and two for the number of Senators they have.

So when the Electoral College convenes, California will be able to cast 55 votes and North Dakota only 3.

I guess I'm missing something...how does that NOT give the more populous states a voting advantage, thereby allowing the highly populous states to dictate the winner of the election? It's a simple arithmetic issue, right? Addition. Is there some reason that the numbers should be different because North Dakota is so sparsely populated that it only has one representative?

...and, don't we re-apportion every 10 years when we have a national census, which can impact the number of Representatives and therefore impact the number of Electoral College votes each state is allotted?

What am I missing? You said:

"Adding 2 electoral votes for each senator proportionately gives North Dakota greater representation in the electoral college than it's population." How would the EC need to be changed to avoid that issue...I do understand, ND might have only a VERY small population...for example, I'd suppose that the population of California is WAAY more than 53 times the population of ND, so each of the CA EC votes is proportionally "less powerful" than each of the ND votes...but how can that be rectified?

I'll tell you how...just eliminate the EC and let the popular vote nation-wide determine the winner, that's the promise we were made as kids learning in our civics classes how our voting system works. We don't need it any more, it's an antiquated system that was devised in a time when it was the only way to gather and determine who the winner of a presidential race was. In my lifetime I am now aware of at least two elections in which the winner of the race for POTUS was not the one who garnered the most votes nationwide.

We don't need the EC any more and it just causes problems like the one we're facing...as Jeff said, HC will eventually garner over 2 MILLION more votes than DT; yet, he wins? That's NOT RIGHT!

No wonder these protesters are all chanting "Not my president"!

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Tom Democko]

So your solution is to let 9 or 10 states that have the majority of the population elect the president. That sure would make it easy to buy off these people. You wouldn't have to run around around so much. Wait a minute, isn't that what the progresses have been doing since that patriot Saul penned his rules for anarchy. The old guys who wasted their time in 1787 apparently weren't as stupid as Nancy, Harry and Ruth make them out to be.

 

[Doug S.]

No...I don't care about "States"...although that is EXACTLY the way elections are decided NOW.

My position is that the POTUS should be elected by majority of nationwide popular vote and that there should be NO states involved, because I believe the Electoral College is antiquated, imprecise, and should be abolished. When one candidate gathers 2 MILLION votes more than their oponnent and the EC elects the other candidate, that's a travesty of justice and the entire population of the U.S. should be incensed that it could happen that way...no matter which party is on which end of that "stick".

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Rod]

No...I don't care about "States"...although that is EXACTLY the way elections are decided NOW.

My position is that the POTUS should be elected by majority of nationwide popular vote and that there should be NO states involved, because I believe the Electoral College is antiquated, imprecise, and should be abolished. When one candidate gathers 2 MILLION votes more than their oponnent and the EC elects the other candidate, that's a travesty of justice and the entire population of the U.S. should be incensed that it could happen that way...no matter which party is on which end of that "stick".

Cheers!

Doug

Doug, our President-elect agrees with you.

NYT: Trump would 'rather do the popular vote' - POLITICO

What happened to "one citizen, one vote"? Why does it matter where citizens live in terms of voting for a President? We elect our senators and representatives by popular vote within our states. One county doesn't have a higher proportional representation over another county in CA.

And as for the campaigns running things differently, as I said pages ago, I don't believe Trump would have changed any of his strategies. He still would have spent about the same amount of money (not alot) and still used Twitter (social media, web and other technology) and still held rallies in the same venues (airports mostly). And still campaigned aggressively in FL. He certainly wasn't going to be welcome in Atlanta, San Francisco, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, etc. And if he did, matters may gotten alot worse for him. He tried holding a rally outside of San Francisco near the airport and almost didn't make it to his own rally because of protesters blocking his route. I don't think he ever came back to CA. And his southern strategy, ignoring Texas, Alabama, etc., would not have changed. He had those in the bag whether he was there or not.

 

[Doug S.]

...I don't think he ever came back to CA. And his southern strategy, ignoring Texas, Alabama, etc., would not have changed. He had those in the bag whether he was there or not.

He could have ignored Kansas and won it, too...Kansas always votes conservative and my home county particularly. We (Kansas) only approved liquor by the drink within the past decade, perhaps the last 5 years (I was living in TX until a year ago).

We have a governor we'd sure like to "gift" to another state!!!!!

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Rod]

There are rumblings with the ranks of the electors about not electing our President-elect. I wouldn't count on it, but maybe a few of these potential faithless electors could alter the face of the electoral college in the future:

Democratic presidential electors revolt against Trump - POLITICO

 

[Randy V]

Warning ---
Politico is one of a growing number of web-tabloids that have been caught fabricating news.. It will likely be one of those groups on the hit-list for Facebook filters.
You will note that there are no names given of any of these disenfranchised democratic electors.. Most likely because they simply don't exist..

-- edit --
Actually after rechecking my source, it turns out that Politico.co was called out.. The .co indicates an origin in Columbia and a number of other sites have been mirrored and manipulated to look like legitimate news sources. ABCnews.co was also on the list of having been manipulated...
All this aside - I am more than skeptical when I read stories that have no names (skin in the game) and quote "our source who prefers to remain anonymous " etc....
The story referred to above on Politico is just another example of potentially fictitious news..

 

[Rod]

Warning ---
Politico is one of a growing number of web-tabloids that have been caught fabricating news.. It will likely be one of those groups on the hit-list for Facebook filters.
You will note that there are no names given of any of these disenfranchised democratic electors.. Most likely because they simply don't exist..

-- edit --
Actually after rechecking my source, it turns out that Politico.co was called out.. The .co indicates an origin in Columbia and a number of other sites have been mirrored and manipulated to look like legitimate news sources. ABCnews.co was also on the list of having been manipulated...
All this aside - I am more than skeptical when I read stories that have no names (skin in the game) and quote "our source who prefers to remain anonymous " etc....
The story referred to above on Politico is just another example of potentially fictitious news..

Is this better? Elector names are quoted.

Two Electors Are Trying to Withhold the Presidency from Donald Trump - The Atlantic

And video here:
Faithless Electors Trying to Dump Trump (VIDEO) | RedState

 

[Randy V]

Is this better? Elector names are quoted.

Two Electors Are Trying to Withhold the Presidency from Donald Trump - The Atlantic

And video here:
Faithless Electors Trying to Dump Trump (VIDEO) | RedState

Better... we have a couple of names out of hundreds..

One thing that kind of struck me as odd was the bold text below::

Michael Baca of Colorado and Bret Chiafalo of Washington state call themselves the Hamilton Electors, in a nod to Alexander Hamilton’s explanation of the Electoral College’s necessity. The founding father and first U.S. Treasury secretary once said that the body exists to ensure that “the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” By Baca and Chiafalo’s reckoning, it exists to prevent a Trump presidency.

Yet they apparently thought Barrack Obama was eminently qualified for the post.. There is no doubt in the world that the vast majority of BO's qualifications were severly lacking upon his first being elected. On The Job Training seemed to be just fine for him - why not for Donald Trump?

I have my sincere doubts that they will be successful and suspect that their positions in the Electoral College may well be in jeopardy..

 

[Rod]

Better... we have a couple of names out of hundreds..

One thing that kind of struck me as odd was the bold text below::



Yet they apparently thought Barrack Obama was eminently qualified for the post.. There is no doubt in the world that the vast majority of BO's qualifications were severly lacking upon his first being elected. On The Job Training seemed to be just fine for him - why not for Donald Trump?

I have my sincere doubts that they will be successful and suspect that their positions in the Electoral College may well be in jeopardy..

I also doubt anything will happen too in 2016, but maybe, if enough of these "faithless electors" do come forward, Congress might get motivated enough to change the electoral process.

As for your point about job qualifIcations, I think most Tump detractors don't like his temperament and his record of past statements, whether live, video or social media.

 

[Al Wohlstrom]

I guess the question is, if Trump had lost the electoral and won the popular vote, would we be having this conversation? I doubt it very much.

 

[Doug S.]

Yes, we would have, Al. My opinion regarding the deficiencies of the Electoral College go well beyond party lines. What is right is right for all, what is wrong is wrong for all.

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Randy V]

BO lost a lot of his supporters when he first bowed to Saudi Royalty - not realizing that not only was he representing the American people, but that the POTUS bows to absolutely NO one.. Did he learn from this gaff? No - he had done it numerous times afterward - knowing FULL WELL that it was not proper! I don't think you'll be seeing President Trump doing this - although I am certain he will say or do something else that will embarrass us as a nation...
Hopefully he will learn and not continue to make the same mistake over and over..

 

[Randy V]

Yes, we would have, Al. My opinion regarding the deficiencies of the Electoral College go well beyond party lines. What is right is right for all, what is wrong is wrong for all.

Cheers!

Doug

FWIW Doug -- I feel the same way about the EC. EC supporters keep spouting off that if we did not have the EC, that a select number of highly populated states would elect the POTUS.
I don't see it that way and simply can't. You're electing the President of the country - not a representative for specific states.
With the current system, it makes it quite literally impossible for a third or fourth party to get in.
One US Citizen - One vote. Tally the votes and 30 days later you release the results and not ONE moment sooner.
So what if there are more votes coming out of Los Angeles California than the entire state of Montana.. It would not matter a bit.