Clinton Interview on Fox News

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by Barnes

I know you weren't but you did make some false statements in regards to the Canadian system. That is all.

My poor choice of words made the statement false. For that, I apologize.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Then why don't you refute all the points he made? He produced many occasions as to why the electoral college is a flawed system.

I think you refuse to adress his points because you can't. All you can do is say "well, Canada's system is flawed too".

I'll try to type slower. I never argued with his point that the electoral college is flawed, I argued with the point where he said that American's system is undemocratic. Get it yet?
Warts and all, it is much more democratic than Canada's.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald

Wow, looks like people are finally cluing in to White Doors pathetic act. Bravo all!

FACT: I have been on Lanny's ignore list since at least May of this year and yet he still obsesses over me like a spurned, overweight, teenaged girl.

Ergo, there is more evidence of Lanny having homo-erotic fantasies of White Doors - than there is for a missle, and not a jetliner striking the pentagon on 9/11/01.

Good times!

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

I'll try to type slower. I never argued with his point that the electoral college is flawed, I argued with the point where he said that American's system is undemocratic. Get it yet?
Warts and all, it is much more democratic than Canada's.

You have proof of your last statement.
Most people would probably say both are flawed and can improve and it's good to look on both sides of the border for good ideas.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

You have proof of your last statement.
Most people would probably say both are flawed and can improve and it's good to look on both sides of the border for good ideas.

I agree. Proof? Again? Ok, Alot of Americans can vote for their sherrif, Judge, Prosecuters, along with all of the other positions that Canadians do as well. On top of that, there is often public votes on individual legislation. There is right to recall public officials in some states. As well, they vote directly for the leader of their country.

I don't think my point is a contentious one, other than the fact that there are alot of knee-jerk anti-americans on here that just can't fathom that the USA is more democratic than Canada. They are simply wrong as it is a fact.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

I agree. Proof? Again? Ok, Alot of Americans can vote for their sherrif, Judge, Prosecuters, along with all of the other positions that Canadians do as well. On top of that, there is often public votes on individual legislation. There is right to recall public officials in some states. As well, they vote directly for the leader of their country.

I don't think my point is a contentious one, other than the fact that there are alot of knee-jerk anti-americans on here that just can't fathom that the USA is more democratic than Canada. They are simply wrong as it is a fact.

It's probable that the Americans get to vote more and they can get to vote directly for their leader, if you forget about the electoral college, but is their vote more meaningful? They can't even count their ballots properly, never mind introduce legislation for universal health care because their government is too controlled by big business. I'm not trying to argue the merits of health care, I'm just using it as an example.

In BC we can recall our MLA s. You should really know more about Canadian politics before you slag them.

Your knee jerk anti-Canadianism is really frustrating coming from a Canadian.

[White Doors]

Not sure where you are going, but it's nothing to do with my point.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

Not sure where you are going, but it's nothing to do with my point.

Of course it has something to do with your point that the USA is more democratic than Canada. Namely what good is voting if your vote is meaningless. By your criteria the USSR was the most democratic country in the world.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Of course it has something to do with your point that the USA is more democratic than Canada. Namely what good is voting if your vote is meaningless. By your criteria the USSR was the most democratic country in the world.

Not sure where you come to the conclusion that American votes are meaningless?

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

Not sure where you come to the conclusion that American votes are meaningless?

Well when you can't trust your pollsters to give an honest count, disallow some voters and in general make an election result untrustworthy, how can you have faith that your vote has any meaning.
Further, once the election has taken place, the officials have already been bought off by special interest groups.
I'm not saying that this is 100% what happens but it leads to voter apathy and is hardly democratic.

If you can't trust the election process [the basis of democracy] it doesn't matter if you can vote for the dogcatcher.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

If you can't trust the election process [the basis of democracy] it doesn't matter if you can vote for the dogcatcher.

This IS a problem for the American system, though as Dis points out, it's not a flaw in the electoral system, so much as a flaw in the way elections are run and the lack of any meaningful oversight for that process. Nevertheless, it's a major problem, and one thing that Canadians can take to the bank, in terms of our system being "more democratic." Canadian votes don't all have the same weight either--a vote in a rural constituency typically counts for more than a vote in an urban one--but at least the electoral process has good oversight and is run efficiently, which is worth a lot in terms of determining how democratic a process is.

FWIW, true constitutional originalists frequently point out that the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy, and that the framers' intention was never to create the most democratic system, merely the best one. That intention does show a little in antiquated institutions like the electoral college, and also in the complete lack of provision for neutral oversight of congressional redistricting--which is perhaps the biggest problem in American politics.

Why don't people vote in the U.S.? Simple. Most don't live in "competitive" districts, so they rightly judge voting for congressional representatives to be a pointless exercise.

Why are most districts not competitive? Because the district boundaries are grotesquely jerrymandered to protect incumbents and serve the interests of the powerful party in that state.

Why is there no oversight of this process? Because the framers didn't include one--either they didn't think to, or they thought it better for states to operate as miniature oligarchies within a loosely organized republic. The latter is more likely.

So--more democratic? Not so much, really.

[White Doors]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Well when you can't trust your pollsters to give an honest count, disallow some voters and in general make an election result untrustworthy, how can you have faith that your vote has any meaning.
Further, once the election has taken place, the officials have already been bought off by special interest groups.
I'm not saying that this is 100% what happens but it leads to voter apathy and is hardly democratic.

If you can't trust the election process [the basis of democracy] it doesn't matter if you can vote for the dogcatcher.

Hey, I wouldn't let the whole Joe Volpe affair keep you from voting next election.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by White Doors

Hey, I wouldn't let the whole Joe Volpe affair keep you from voting next election.

Wow, weak.
Who said Canadian politics was squeaky clean. He's been fined $20,000 and his political career is probably over. Small potatos when you consider the $20 billion lost to friends of George in Iraqi corruption.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by White Doors

Not sure where you come to the conclusion that American votes are meaningless?

Man you sure can put words in people's mouths.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan
Of course it has something to do with your point that the USA is more democratic than Canada. Namely what good is voting if your vote is meaningless. By your criteria the USSR was the most democratic country in the world.


Quote:
Originally Posted by White Doors
Not sure where you come to the conclusion that American votes are meaningless?


Where the hell do you get this conclusion from that post? Do you even know what a conclusion is?

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

My poor choice of words made the statement false. For that, I apologize.

No worries. You just never addressed it until now.

[Vulcan]

I'm no expert on American government IFF, but wasn't the original purpose of the electoral college to keep the great unwashed and uneducated, one step removed from having any actual power. From what I understand, they have no legal obligation to vote for who they are supposed to. I've wondered why the US hasn't got rid of this old system but as Dis says it does help small populations such as Montana get a stronger voice.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I'm no expert on American government IFF, but wasn't the original purpose of the electoral college to keep the great unwashed and uneducated, one step removed from having any actual power. From what I understand, they have no legal obligation to vote for who they are supposed to. I've wondered why the US hasn't got rid of this old system but as Dis says it does help small populations such as Montana get a stronger voice.

Arguably, Montana already has a stronger voice than California or New York in one very important body: the Senate. Each state gets two senators regardless of population. I'm not completely convinced that the electoral college is that effective in giving more power to smaller states--after all, California and Texas still have more electoral votes, and that is based on population. What the electoral college does is give more political influence to the handful of competitive states, which seems to be getting smaller all the time. Iowa loves the electoral college for this reason.

Your reading of the origins of the electoral college is bang-on. To an extent, I do tend to agree with Dis that it's for all intents and purposes "ancient history" in this case--I'm more interested in the things that have real effects in contemporary politics. In this case, although you're correct that states may choose their electors by any means that they feel like, and also that electors are not legally bound to vote for the candidate that won their state, effectively it's rare for electors to do otherwise. But the state-to-state discrepancy does affect the system in meaninful ways--there are two states (Maine and Utah, IIRC--maybe Dis could help me out on this one) that actually split their electors according to congressional districts.

However, you make a great point that serves to emphasize that the U.S. system was not intended to be a democracy at its inception--which may be why it doesn't work as a democracy particularly well. That's not to say that the framers didn't on some level embrace democratic values, at least by comparison to the constitutional monarchy they were rebelling against. They were enlightenment thinkers, and their ideas do reflect that--but the idea of universal suffrage would have seemed awfully strange to them, and indeed many of the people involved in the whole process were leery of the possible result of "mob rule" if their republic "degenerated" into a democracy. Franklin famously commented that their legacy to their children was "a good republic--if you can keep it." That phrase has kind of a double meaning--losing a good republic could mean either a return to monarchical rule or a descent into the chaos of direct democracy.

There's a lot of nonsense out there about the "founding fathers"--that they, and therefore the principles of the constitution were "Christian" is one that bugs me a lot. But just as bad is the belief that ideologically they were "democrats" in a true sense.

[Displaced Flames fan]

I know Maine is one for sure IFF, not sure of the other or even if there might be more than one other.

Wouldn't it be interesting if they moved to that method in all states? The 2 electors representing the Senate seats would vote for the state popular winner and the electors representing the House seats could vote for the winner of their particular district.

I'll bet that would change results drastically.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

From what I understand, they have no legal obligation to vote for who they are supposed to.

This is true, but not only that, they aren't 'supposed' to follow any guidelines, even the will of the popular vote. They're supposed to vote for whoever they want, regardless of party affiliation, popular vote or any other type of restraint you might be able to think of. That's how Strom Thurmond's ticket garnered 14 electoral votes in the 1960 election, running on a platform of federal segregation.

Mississippi electors declared prior to the campaign that they had no intention of giving their electoral votes to anyone but thurmond's ticket. Alabama also did the same with half of their electoral votes, despite Kennedy receiving over 56 percent of the popular vote in that state.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

I know Maine is one for sure IFF, not sure of the other or even if there might be more than one other.

Wouldn't it be interesting if they moved to that method in all states? The 2 electors representing the Senate seats would vote for the state popular winner and the electors representing the House seats could vote for the winner of their particular district.

I'll bet that would change results drastically.

Yeah, Maine's the one I know too--I think Utah's the other one. It makes more of a difference in Maine because although it's a "blue" state, and the Dems generally get 3 of their 4 votes, the GOP often gets that last vote from one of the rural congressional districts.

I think it would be pretty interesting to go that way in all the states. Though it could tilt things pretty heavily in the GOP's favour unless there's the addition of a bipartisan committee to oversee congressional re-districting. The districts are currently kind of a mess in a lot of areas of the country, and since the states can basically do whatever they want without being stopped by the judiciary (Delay in Texas showed that pretty clearly) there needs to be some way of re-introducing integrity there. But that would achieve both the re-balancing of the popular vs. regional vote and also tie results more closely to nationwide rather than state-by-state results. One effect might be that it would make sense for candidates to campaign in a much larger range of states, since if the Dems could win 8 votes from Texas that would still make a few trips worthwhile--right now it would be a waste of money. On the other hand, the GOP would get votes from rural California (and Orange county) that aren't available to them right now.

My worry would be that the Democrats would be at a huge disadvantage--most of their support comes from urban areas that are less well represented in congress. But overall it seems like at least an idea worth considering.

Flash: I didn't know about that rule. It does seem a bit weird to me to stipulate voting your conscience--how do you know when that rule's being broken? But the Strom Thurmond example of that is pretty interesting--a telling breakdown in the system, IMO. I guess I always thought that he had won those states.

One thought: would it be worthwhile to start another thread to discuss the electoral system issue? It's kind of a pet hobby of mine--I'll follow the discussion either way, but it seems like we've ranged pretty far afield from Clinton's temper-tantrum.