FYI Amstel doesn't understand the internet. No one is surprised.

The problem is that appeasing swing voters is NOT the way to get anything worthwhile done. Since when did the average elector (50% at or below average IQ) know their arse from their elbow? Italy is a case in point. In the past 40 years, Italy seems to have had 23 different Prime Ministers with coalitions being the norm and look at the mess they are in. Not once in the past 40 years has a party been able to establish it's manifesto without compromising with other parties. that makes for ineffective government.
 
my little brony said:
as long as we have a FPTP system we will be stuck with two nearly identical parties. gerrymandering is a big part of the problem but fixing that won't make the small states matter.

the EC does absolutely nothing to fix the issue of smaller states getting more attention. it fails miserably to do the one thing you said it was created for while at the same time ensuring that people have unequal amounts of power based purely on where they live. nothing but negatives, not a single positive. the EC is a problem in that it can allow a winner with 22% of the population and allow a situation where some of the electors can ignore the will of their states, further concentrating power for...what purpose exactly? to fail to solve a problem

the electoral college is a relic of the past and needs to be excised like a cancer from our society
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Smaller states get more votes per capita. Period. That gives them more power. Stick specifically to this issue and try to deny that math.

edit: Wait a second. Are you advocating mob rule?
 
DJBrenton said:
We have 3 main parties and the party that won the most seats each elction had the following percentages of the vote.

1974 - 39.25%
1979 - 43.87% Conservative
1983 - 42.44% Conservative
1987 - 42.23% Conservative
1991 - 41.93% Conservative
1997 - 43.21% Labour
2001 - 40.7% Labour
2005 - 35.19% Labour
2010 - 36.05% Conservative, 28,99% Labour, 23.03% Lib/Dem, 11.93% Other

The 'Other' will grow at our next election (UKIP). No-one knows at whose expense so might be closer to a 4 way tie.

Not once has the centre party been anything other than 3rd in the polls.
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Maybe it was you and not @tre that posted about this once. Thanks.
 
fly said:
Smaller states get more votes per capita. Period. That gives them more power. Stick specifically to this issue and try to deny that math.

edit: Wait a second. Are you advocating mob rule?
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Why should an American in Rhode island have more power than one in Texas?

I'm not denying the math, I'm saying it's a stupid reason. Every vote should be equal.
 
my little brony said:
Why should an American in Rhode island have more power than one in Texas?

I'm not denying the math, I'm saying it's a stupid reason. Every vote should be equal.
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The point was to prevent people from LITERALLY just campaigning in the 5-10 largest states. It works very well for that. In a similar vein, notice we have a Senate in addition to the House.
 
I don't think it does that job at all. Now they just campaign in half a dozen swing states which is worse than the ten largest states.

Besides, without the EC they wouldn't be able to campaign states at all, they'd have to campaign people. It's the EC that gives so much weight to 51% of an entire state even though nearly half of them disagree with the other. Why should a few percentage points in Florida completely shift the election results?

Just because they did it a certain way before does not mean that the method is valuable today. Everything can be re-examined, absolutely nothing is worthy of surviving based purely on the reasons for its creation. It has to be worthy today.
 
I don't think I'm confusing the issue at all. The issue is that because of the electoral college voters in rhode island are more powerful than voters in texas. The other issue is that the electoral college has done absolutely NOTHING to force presidential hopefuls to campaign in small states.

Direct election of a single office does not equate to mob rule. :rolleyes:
 
my little brony said:
I don't think I'm confusing the issue at all. The issue is that because of the electoral college voters in rhode island are more powerful than voters in texas. The other issue is that the electoral college has done absolutely NOTHING to force presidential hopefuls to campaign in small states.

Direct election of a single office does not equate to mob rule. :rolleyes:
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Again, you're confusing issues. You're suggesting that because of Rhode Island, Ohio is a swing state? What? Additionally, the EC has been in place for over 200 years. I think you're being completely short sighted to constantly drum on about swing states that have popped up in the last few elections.
 
fly said:
Again, you're confusing issues. You're suggesting that because of Rhode Island, Ohio is a swing state? What? Additionally, the EC has been in place for over 200 years. I think you're being completely short sighted to constantly drum on about swing states that have popped up in the last few elections.
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That isn't what I was saying at all...Wtf dude

Rhode island residents have more voting power than Texas residents.

The point is that the electoral college does NOTHING to prevent politicians from only campaigning in large states but it does cause the problem of making some people more powerful at the ballot box than others. There is no good reason for this problem to continue existing.
 
a voter in rhode island has slightly more power than a texas voter, only because they're guaranteed 2 electorate votes regardless of population.

if you remove 2 votes from each state it should be even.
 
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