my teach once told me that we're actually a representative republic

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That is true. A lot of people didn't like the fact that R. Paul referred to us as a republic but it's in the Pledge of Allegiance. "And to the republic for which it stands."

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Republic means representatives so we're actually a Republican Democracy, although we're more Republic. If we were a TRUE democracy, there would be no Senate or House of Representatives either. Obviously that works for a Greek village of 50 people, not a developed country of 400 million.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That's just impractical, given the size and population of the country.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Does a "true democracy" exist? All the systems are designed to give the impression of democracy ... no voters have an equal say in decisions - they only have an equal say in who gets into "power" after THAT what they say or want is largely ignored

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The founding fathers designed our system to be a Republic, not a Democracy. In the entire writing of the Constitution the only thing that wasn't contested was the electoral college system. Every founding father agreed we could not do without it. Something like 10-15 cities in the US would decide the entire election without the electoral college in place. The electoral college gives a weighted vote to minorities so they are actually important when it comes to voting. To give an example, North Dakota wouldn't even have half a vote if the voting system went based on population. The minimum is 3 votes though so everyone in North Dakota has a very heavily weighted vote.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

So, everybody in the city has a lightly weighted vote?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

There are a lot of different ways to weigh a vote. You could do it by land, or you could do it by population, or even by ethnicity. Everyone in a big city has exactly 1 vote for the popular election. The state they live in as a whole will only get a certain amount of electoral college votes (With a minimum of 3). California has 30-50x the population of North Dakota, but California still only gets 55 electoral college votes and North Dakota gets 3. It's far less uneven that way.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I understand this- but why not count every individual vote? If we did this instead, we could kick all the fat cats in congress out on their asses.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Every vote is counted in the popular election. The electoral college does it a bit differently For example, say there are 10 acres of land in the USA. You own 5 acres and you're the only person who lives there. Then there are 4 people who live on the other part that you don't own. Those 4 people would likely have 1 electoral college vote, but you would also have one since you live away from everyone else and would be the minority. So they could all vote together and win the popular vote, but you would cancel out their electoral college vote all on your own. People who live together are likely going to have similar ways of thinking, but just because someone lives in a smaller community or alone doesn't mean their opinion shouldn't be equally important. That is one of the purposes behind the electoral college.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Growing up my political views were always in opposition with my parents.. I thought I was a far left liberal or even anarchists, but the more I discuss politics and live in the adult world, the more I realize how mildly conservative I actually am. This is my 11th year as a registered voter and it is the first time my parents and I have been in political agreement over GOP candidates.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

If everyone's vote was tallied, regardless of city/state, then it would have nothing to do with a certain few cities making all of the decisions. If people sharing a household can harbor different political opinions, then so can the citizens in a city/state.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Perhaps I'm wording it poorly. Try looking up some information on how the electoral college system works. The candidates would spend all of their time in 10-15 cities because those cities would have all of the population required to decide the outcome of the election.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

What I meant by the OP is that every vote from every voter should be weighed equally, and considered. The EC has more than once, at least in my state, gone against the popular vote and that doesn't really make sense. Also, considering they no one ever agrees 100% with the policies of any one politician, stating that we elect the EC representatives to vote for us is sort of insulting. From what I have seen in my 11 years of being a registered voter, MOST people elect the "lesser" of the "evils," even though we know that person will not champion all of the issues we want them to. It's kinda like being at a buffet, and choosing to eat ham when you really wanted a porkchop- since there are no porkchops, and you don't want chicken, you choose ham, not because it's what you want but because it is the better alternative for the choices you are given.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The people in the popular vote control the electoral college votes. Your representative doesn't take your Libertarian vote and cast it for the Democratic party. If a state votes 51% for the Republican party and 49% for the Democratic party, then the Republican party gets 100% of the electoral college votes. Some states to split it up into percentages where in a 51-49% vote both sides would get half the votes and so on, but this is basically a smaller version of the popular vote so almost no one does it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Eliminating the electoral college would not change the fact that people vote for the "lesser of two evils" nor would it promote independent candidates to win. I'm also confused as to why the EC is insulting

by Anonymous 11 years ago

What 10-15 cities would they pick? Without an electoral college, it would be all popular vote, so whoever gets more than 50% of the vote wins. There are no 15 cities in the US that contain more than 50% of the population. NYC, the country's largest city by far, has about 8 million people. After that, population drops off dramatically, #2 is LA with 3.8 million people, Chicago with 2.7. #10 is San Jose, which has only .9 million people. The top 10 cities added together are only 7.9% of the popular vote, no where near the needed 50%. Beyond that, adding the next 90 biggest cities doesn't even reach 20%.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Sorry, I was just spewing off some things without fact checking myself. Instead of cities I should have said states. California alone has almost 12% of the population. The electoral college is to help balance out states like California who have an overwhelming amount of power in the popular vote. If the electoral college was not in place no presidential candidate would ever go on a campaign tour to a sparsely populated state if there were no electoral college votes to be had. After all, who wants to waste time on Wyoming's 0.18% population?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It's already been posted.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I always appreciate it when people admit mistakes., or say so when they "agree" with the some/part of the other side's debate. :)

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The top 100 most populous cities in the US aren't even 20% of the population of the country. 10-15 cities is not all the population required to win, at all. And if trying to get politicians pay attention to the entire country is the goal of the electoral college, it's not doing a very good job. Ohio's vote has a ~48% chance of determining the winner of this election. This is not fair at all. This forces candidates to campaign in Ohio way more than they should, much more than candidates would campaign in cities if there were not an electoral college.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Yeah, I was way off on that. Sorry about that. Look at my other comment to see what I should have said before.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

But even with the electoral college in place no one cares about Wyoming! Or California, or Texas, or New York, or Massachusetts, because all these states have made up their minds about which candidate they support, so there is no point in campaigning there. A Democrat in Texas or a Republican in Massachusetts has basically no say in who becomes president (through their vote, that is) because their vote won't be considered in the electoral college. Instead, voters in Ohio and Virginia have much more of a say because their state could go to either candidate, and possibly decide the election. If the popular vote were used, a Democrat in Texas would have just as much say as an Independent in Ohio. Also, this video can explain everything I'm trying to say much better than I can: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That's only half true though. A candidate has not come along that can change the minds of those states right now. Not too long ago the West Coast was heavily Republican and the East Coast was almost entirely Democratic. Now it's reversed. These things do change. Also, most presidential elections in the US's history have been decided by 1-2% that means that a 3% victory is a landslide. A candidate does not need to change the minds of a lot of people to change their chances of winning an election. The founding fathers were entirely against the 51% controlling the outcome of ANYTHING. This is a much scarier thing than most people realize. The electoral college system was set up so that even if 51% of the people agree on something it does not mean they should completely control that issue. Just because someone is in the 49% does not mean their opinion should be thrown in the trash. That is the idea behind the electoral college.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

What about a popular vote with preferential voting?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It gives underpopulated states a larger vote, thus giving those people more of a say, thus giving minorities more of a say. Their say should be based on their numbers and not given an advantage because of their few numbers.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The Electoral College is impractical beyond belief. See the video above that someone already posted. I've actually ranted about it before, but unfortunately, our representatives won't do anything to get a bill passed about it because they don't want to be seen as "mavericks" that are trying to "change the system".

by Anonymous 11 years ago

This post is true, but irrelevant. The United States is defined as a Republican Democracy. Direct Democracies, or "True" Democracies if you prefer, generally mean the people individually vote on leaders or in some cases on policy issues themselves. I'm no authority but based on what I've been told, Japan was the only historical example of a Direct Democracy, but the system has been replaced years ago.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

You mean a true Representative Republic... and TRUE democracy has no government, Congress, President, etc.

by Anonymous 11 years ago