RugbyRebels

Sandydragon wrote:

Mikey Brown wrote:And why does the fact the popular vote isn't as close make any difference to the validity of the electoral college? Whether you agree with the logic of it or not, that's kind of the point?

Whats the point of the electoral college? Serious question and does it still serve a purpose today given the population changes from what was originally drawn up?

Given its a straight race to be president without any constituency concerns, why shouldn't it be a straight count of the actual votes cast and bypass the EC all together? There was an American academic on the BBC arguing for this earlier and I absolutely see where he is coming from.

I'm not saying I agree with it or how it's implemented, I just meant that of course the results are going to be different.

I'm not sure what you mean "without any constituency concerns". Isn't that the whole issue? You live your life in a certain way in a particular portion of the country, and the choice of nation-wide leadership is disproportionately weighted towards people in what may as well be an entirely different country. Obviously you can apply that to basically any country in the world, but the US is so massive and has such absurd disparities in standards of living.

Just get rid of the US is essentially what I'm saying.

Digby wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:

Puja wrote:
Agreed - the polling clearly underestimated how many people would turn out and weighed their samples wrongly.

Frankly, everything being this close on a high-turnout election has shaken me a bit. I had been working on the basis that Trump has his ridiculous base of racists, bigots, white supremacists, etc that would turn out fervently for him in any situation and would win him an election in a depressed turnout scenario, but would be overwhelmed by the sane people if there was a large turnout.

As it turns out, we've got 67 million people who have looked at the last four years - the incredible debt the US has built up giving tax cuts to high earners, the expansion in wealth of billionaires, the gutting of healthcare, the gutting of environmental protections, the voter suppression and disdain for electoral processes, the constant stream of lies and disinformation - and decided that that's the country they believe in.

Even if Biden wins, I'm as saddened by that as I would've been by a low turnout and a Trump victory. At least that way I could've continued believing that 48% of America didn't actively buy into fascism.

Puja


ETA. Although would sane Americans want to come here given our shift Trumpwards? It's like a refugee in the 1930s leaving Germany to settle down in Spain.

You're not the only one.

I didn't see there being this many people happy to be so morally bankrupt and/or thick as mince either. Still, democracy for the win, maybe.

Can't get my head around it.. Nearly half of them want 4 more years of this.

But then Hitler was democratically elected. Colossal shits can be popular.

Mikey Brown wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:

Mikey Brown wrote:And why does the fact the popular vote isn't as close make any difference to the validity of the electoral college? Whether you agree with the logic of it or not, that's kind of the point?

Whats the point of the electoral college? Serious question and does it still serve a purpose today given the population changes from what was originally drawn up?

Given its a straight race to be president without any constituency concerns, why shouldn't it be a straight count of the actual votes cast and bypass the EC all together? There was an American academic on the BBC arguing for this earlier and I absolutely see where he is coming from.

I'm not saying I agree with it or how it's implemented, I just meant that of course the results are going to be different.

I'm not sure what you mean "without any constituency concerns". Isn't that the whole issue? You live your life in a certain way in a particular portion of the country, and the choice of nation-wide leadership is disproportionately weighted towards people in what may as well be an entirely different country. Obviously you can apply that to basically any country in the world, but the US is so massive and has such absurd disparities in standards of living.

Just get rid of the US is essentially what I'm saying.

I was referring to our system where we of course vote for a local MP and the government is the. Decided on the Humber of MPs each party has. For this election, it’s a straight fight for a small number of people to one office. Whilst each state needs to run its own system, it should be possible for them to return the number of votes in each state and for that to be tallied. We need our MPs for the system to function but that isn’t true of the EC.

Put another way, why should a voter in one state have proportionately more power than in another! Why do Texas and California have such different EC numbers when population wise it’s not that much difference?

Sandydragon wrote:

Mikey Brown wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:
Whats the point of the electoral college? Serious question and does it still serve a purpose today given the population changes from what was originally drawn up?

Given its a straight race to be president without any constituency concerns, why shouldn't it be a straight count of the actual votes cast and bypass the EC all together? There was an American academic on the BBC arguing for this earlier and I absolutely see where he is coming from.

I'm not saying I agree with it or how it's implemented, I just meant that of course the results are going to be different.

I'm not sure what you mean "without any constituency concerns". Isn't that the whole issue? You live your life in a certain way in a particular portion of the country, and the choice of nation-wide leadership is disproportionately weighted towards people in what may as well be an entirely different country. Obviously you can apply that to basically any country in the world, but the US is so massive and has such absurd disparities in standards of living.

Just get rid of the US is essentially what I'm saying.

I was referring to our system where we of course vote for a local MP and the government is the. Decided on the Humber of MPs each party has. For this election, it’s a straight fight for a small number of people to one office. Whilst each state needs to run its own system, it should be possible for them to return the number of votes in each state and for that to be tallied. We need our MPs for the system to function but that isn’t true of the EC.

Put another way, why should a voter in one state have proportionately more power than in another! Why do Texas and California have such different EC numbers when population wise it’s not that much difference?

39.5 million people in Cali, 29 mil Texas, 55 votes cali, 38 texas, it's not that far out of whack.

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Digby wrote:

Sandydragon wrote: You're not the only one.

I didn't see there being this many people happy to be so morally bankrupt and/or thick as mince either. Still, democracy for the win, maybe.

Can't get my head around it.. Nearly half of them want 4 more years of this.

But then Hitler was democratically elected. Colossal shits can be popular.

Hitler only ever got 21% of the vote if I remember my history lessons correctly.

Puja

I'm sure it's totally possible to simply tally the votes. I didn't realise that was the question. My point was that seeing wildly different outcomes between the popular vote and EC can't be surprising, as that's essentially why it exists.

I don't think it's correct, though I don't imagine there is any ideal way to do it that's totally fair to everyone. You sort of acknowledge there that population difference would be a reasonable way to decide allocation of EC numbers if the difference was of a certain size.

I really wasn't meaning to argue why I love the EC, but I get why it's a thing to some degree.

Sandydragon wrote:

Mikey Brown wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:
Whats the point of the electoral college? Serious question and does it still serve a purpose today given the population changes from what was originally drawn up?

Given its a straight race to be president without any constituency concerns, why shouldn't it be a straight count of the actual votes cast and bypass the EC all together? There was an American academic on the BBC arguing for this earlier and I absolutely see where he is coming from.

I'm not saying I agree with it or how it's implemented, I just meant that of course the results are going to be different.

I'm not sure what you mean "without any constituency concerns". Isn't that the whole issue? You live your life in a certain way in a particular portion of the country, and the choice of nation-wide leadership is disproportionately weighted towards people in what may as well be an entirely different country. Obviously you can apply that to basically any country in the world, but the US is so massive and has such absurd disparities in standards of living.

Just get rid of the US is essentially what I'm saying.

I was referring to our system where we of course vote for a local MP and the government is the. Decided on the Humber of MPs each party has. For this election, it’s a straight fight for a small number of people to one office. Whilst each state needs to run its own system, it should be possible for them to return the number of votes in each state and for that to be tallied. We need our MPs for the system to function but that isn’t true of the EC.

Put another way, why should a voter in one state have proportionately more power than in another! Why do Texas and California have such different EC numbers when population wise it’s not that much difference?

As with all things in the founding of America, it's about racism and classism. It was set up on the basis that the proletariat was too thick to be allowed to choose a leader all by themselves, so they were allowed to vote for a bunch of people to represent them (their electors) and those electors then chose who the president would be (in the Electoral College). That, shockingly enough, is why the first few presidents were all colleagues from the same circles. This has of course, over time, metamorphosed into electors generally having to accept the popular vote in that state, although they are mostly still at liberty to vote for whomever they like. So, even if Biden wins the Electoral College, the electors could still decide to name Trump the next President, if they wanted to.

The numbers of electors for each state were set initially on population, but with the fun caveat that slaves counted as 5/8ths of a person when it came to the calculations. Not that slaves could vote, but their owners in sparsely-white populated southern states wanted to make sure that their influence as human being owners was properly reflected.

It's been nearly abolished on several occasions over the last 200 years, by both sides, with the last effort being the 1960s where removing it had the support of most politicians and Nixon but, because it's part of the almighty precious perfect constitution, it requires a lot of votes to be removed and it got filibustered down. And now, of course, it'll never go, because it benefits the Republicans too much to ditch it.

Puja

Puja wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Digby wrote: I didn't see there being this many people happy to be so morally bankrupt and/or thick as mince either. Still, democracy for the win, maybe.

Can't get my head around it.. Nearly half of them want 4 more years of this.

But then Hitler was democratically elected. Colossal shits can be popular.

Hitler only ever got 21% of the vote if I remember my history lessons correctly.

Puja

I'm no expert but he got 43.9% according to Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1 ... l_election

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Puja wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote: Can't get my head around it.. Nearly half of them want 4 more years of this.

But then Hitler was democratically elected. Colossal shits can be popular.

Hitler only ever got 21% of the vote if I remember my history lessons correctly.

Puja

I'm no expert but he got 43.9% according to Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1 ... l_election

Mr Matusiak would be disappointed in me. Although that election was after they'd seized control and banned a lot of the opposition parties, as well as having their troops in the streets, so it was an election in the same sense that they have them in Russia. However their high water mark before that was 37%, so I was still wrong.

Puja

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Digby wrote:

Sandydragon wrote: You're not the only one.

I didn't see there being this many people happy to be so morally bankrupt and/or thick as mince either. Still, democracy for the win, maybe.

Can't get my head around it.. Nearly half of them want 4 more years of this.

But then Hitler was democratically elected. Colossal shits can be popular.

Exceptionalism is a powerful drug.

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

J Dory wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:

Mikey Brown wrote:
I'm not saying I agree with it or how it's implemented, I just meant that of course the results are going to be different.

I'm not sure what you mean "without any constituency concerns". Isn't that the whole issue? You live your life in a certain way in a particular portion of the country, and the choice of nation-wide leadership is disproportionately weighted towards people in what may as well be an entirely different country. Obviously you can apply that to basically any country in the world, but the US is so massive and has such absurd disparities in standards of living.

Just get rid of the US is essentially what I'm saying.

I was referring to our system where we of course vote for a local MP and the government is the. Decided on the Humber of MPs each party has. For this election, it’s a straight fight for a small number of people to one office. Whilst each state needs to run its own system, it should be possible for them to return the number of votes in each state and for that to be tallied. We need our MPs for the system to function but that isn’t true of the EC.

Put another way, why should a voter in one state have proportionately more power than in another! Why do Texas and California have such different EC numbers when population wise it’s not that much difference?

39.5 million people in Cali, 29 mil Texas, 55 votes cali, 38 texas, it's not that far out of whack.

1 elector per 700k in California vs 1 for just under 200k in Wyoming? That can’t be right, particularly as the number of senators is fixed per state.

Sandydragon wrote:

J Dory wrote:

Sandydragon wrote: I was referring to our system where we of course vote for a local MP and the government is the. Decided on the Humber of MPs each party has. For this election, it’s a straight fight for a small number of people to one office. Whilst each state needs to run its own system, it should be possible for them to return the number of votes in each state and for that to be tallied. We need our MPs for the system to function but that isn’t true of the EC.

Put another way, why should a voter in one state have proportionately more power than in another! Why do Texas and California have such different EC numbers when population wise it’s not that much difference?

39.5 million people in Cali, 29 mil Texas, 55 votes cali, 38 texas, it's not that far out of whack.

1 elector per 700k in California vs 1 for just under 200k in Wyoming? That can’t be right, particularly as the number of senators is fixed per state.

That's federalism I guess.

The orange one calls for a recount in Wisconsin

Zero chance of overturning 20k but with the lawyer's heading to Pennsylvania they will just drag the arse out of it and issue more lies etc....it'll go nowhere for the fat cunt though

paddy no 11 wrote:The orange one calls for a recount in Wisconsin

Zero chance of overturning 20k but with the lawyer's heading to Pennsylvania they will just drag the arse out of it and issue more lies etc....it'll go nowhere for the fat cunt though

He looks more and more desperate. It will be interesting to see what comes out once he no longer has the protection of the oval office.

paddy no 11 wrote:The orange one calls for a recount in Wisconsin

Zero chance of overturning 20k but with the lawyer's heading to Pennsylvania they will just drag the arse out of it and issue more lies etc....it'll go nowhere for the fat cunt though

Agreed. Its just a publicity stunt bourn out of desperation. He hopes someone will find evidence of voter fraud that is on a sufficient scale to be able to declare votes null and void or to discount postal votes en masse. This is really pathetic and I really hope that there is sufficient shift in Pennsylvania so that Biden gets well past 270 votes and its not even a narrow victory.

Sandydragon wrote:

paddy no 11 wrote:The orange one calls for a recount in Wisconsin

Zero chance of overturning 20k but with the lawyer's heading to Pennsylvania they will just drag the arse out of it and issue more lies etc....it'll go nowhere for the fat cunt though

Agreed. Its just a publicity stunt bourn out of desperation. He hopes someone will find evidence of voter fraud that is on a sufficient scale to be able to declare votes null and void or to discount postal votes en masse. This is really pathetic and I really hope that there is sufficient shift in Pennsylvania so that Biden gets well past 270 votes and its not even a narrow victory.

He needs about 67% of the remaining votes to pinch PA. That will be tough.

Buggaluggs wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:

paddy no 11 wrote:The orange one calls for a recount in Wisconsin

Zero chance of overturning 20k but with the lawyer's heading to Pennsylvania they will just drag the arse out of it and issue more lies etc....it'll go nowhere for the fat cunt though

Agreed. Its just a publicity stunt bourn out of desperation. He hopes someone will find evidence of voter fraud that is on a sufficient scale to be able to declare votes null and void or to discount postal votes en masse. This is really pathetic and I really hope that there is sufficient shift in Pennsylvania so that Biden gets well past 270 votes and its not even a narrow victory.

He needs about 67% of the remaining votes to pinch PA. That will be tough.

That has dropped to 64.8% - so maybe it is possible.

Puja wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Puja wrote:
Hitler only ever got 21% of the vote if I remember my history lessons correctly.

Puja

I'm no expert but he got 43.9% according to Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1 ... l_election

Mr Matusiak would be disappointed in me. Although that election was after they'd seized control and banned a lot of the opposition parties, as well as having their troops in the streets, so it was an election in the same sense that they have them in Russia. However their high water mark before that was 37%, so I was still wrong.

Puja

I did modern (ie post WW1) history in school; don't think I ever learned the Nazis' percentage of the vote but I know they were voted in (albeit on the back of civil unrest driven by ... the Nazis, amongst others). Important subject, everyone should learn it in order to understand the present day.

Buggaluggs wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:

paddy no 11 wrote:The orange one calls for a recount in Wisconsin

Zero chance of overturning 20k but with the lawyer's heading to Pennsylvania they will just drag the arse out of it and issue more lies etc....it'll go nowhere for the fat cunt though

Agreed. Its just a publicity stunt bourn out of desperation. He hopes someone will find evidence of voter fraud that is on a sufficient scale to be able to declare votes null and void or to discount postal votes en masse. This is really pathetic and I really hope that there is sufficient shift in Pennsylvania so that Biden gets well past 270 votes and its not even a narrow victory.

He needs about 67% of the remaining votes to pinch PA. That will be tough.

Philly will come through brother. No one like the cunt here, and most of our votes have yet to be counted.

And a bunch of Trump supporters have shown up in Detroit claiming they want to be observers to try and stop votes being counted. They're not packing AR-15s yet.

The Pennsylvania Gap is closing, now down to 350ish k. Still 17% of the votes to count.

J Dory wrote:And a bunch of Trump supporters have shown up in Detroit claiming they want to be observers to try and stop votes being counted. They're not packing AR-15s yet.

I think if I were in charge of the counting stations, I'd be asking for a police presence.Just in case.

130 of their observers already in therr like

paddy no 11 wrote:130 of their observers already in therr like

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Sandydragon wrote:

J Dory wrote:And a bunch of Trump supporters have shown up in Detroit claiming they want to be observers to try and stop votes being counted. They're not packing AR-15s yet.

I think if I were in charge of the counting stations, I'd be asking for a police presence.Just in case.

American police?

Given where it is, would be better to ask the Canadians