Are you registered to vote ?

[Desidero]

Looks about right. I'm in Illinois - I tend to lean towards the republican side (real republican values, not the bullshit big government and foreign involvement stuff that they've been doing lately) and it's really pointless to vote. Democrats will always win Illinois. Chicago can basically "outvote" the rest of the state, and Chicago is major democrat territory, so they win. I could vote for anyone I feel like voting for and it won't make a damn bit of a difference. That being said, at least the republican territories matter with the electoral college system. Republicans in blue land get fucked, but huge portions of the country would be completely ignored without this system. Do you really think people would be happy knowing that a handful of the 50 states (basically all of the high-pop states are blue) decide who gets to run the country? Barring a series of unbelievable fuckups, there would never be a non-democratic president ever again. Hell, knowing the way Chicagoans vote, even with a semi-retarded worthless fuck running, they'd still pick him/her simply due to the party lines.

[Vatoreus]

Don't tase me bro!

[dak]

Selling my vote for $100 paypal PST

That's a gross misdemeanor, can get a $5,000 dollar fine and up to a year in jail.

-edit, oh Italy.

[Vatoreus]

It would be if I were serious. Nice edit

[Erumaron]

Originally Posted by Fammaden

I don't know if your sample is a very general representation here.

Was going to say the same thing.

[FulorianC]

Originally Posted by AngryGerbil

You think the people in the middle have no voice now? Eliminate the electoral college and then we really wouldn't have any. Presidential candidates would be campaigning and pandering to voters in California and New York and nowhere else. Because that is all they would need.

That's utter stupidity. The total population of the U.S. is 300m, while the combined total of New York+New Jersey+California is 62m. There's another 240 million people in the middle.

Not to mention, the electoral college is based off of making the entire state swing one way, which never happens. VERY VERY rarely does a state have more than a 60/40 skew in the general election. A Democrat that pandered only to those three states would earn at best 40 million votes from it, a far cry from the 150 million they would need to clinch the election.

The electoral college still exists for one reason alone: to protect the two parties from ever losing their stranglehold on the reins of power. The two parties don't hate each other, they love each other. They're the reason the other can survive. Without an enemy to rally us against, people would lose interest or vote with their true intentions, rather with the 'fear' of allowing the 'enemy' party win.

[Kolle]

i don't like it because it makes voting pointless in some states. and the possibility is there for a candidate to have more people voting for him and he still loses. that's beyond stupid bullshit.

i don't think politicians would ignore more areas without electoral college. look at what happens now. do you see the candidates spending tremendous amounts of time in alaska?

[Sunder]

A good solution would be to keep the electoral college, but split the electoral votes from each state according to the percentage of the vote. Every vote matters, and as we saw in the Democratic primary this year, every state would matter.

[Sinter1]

I'd like Sunder's method or just going to a straight popular vote. The criticism it has received is laughable. Each single vote counts. What is wrong with that? It's not like New York is completely blue. The City is but places like Staten Island and a good deal of upstate is red. Staten Island has had a republican congressman representing us for the past 8-10 years(?) and I must say for the most part he has done a fairly good job. However, 1 person from Manhattan's vote will count equally as 1 person from Syracuse. It will give more incentive for a Republican candidate to come to New York in hope of gathering maybe a few ten thousand swing votes which could help him gain ground in a popular vote election or in Sunder's example of splitting the states based on popular vote as opposed to awarding the winning candidate the entire state. The same holds for Democrats who could gain some much needed swing voters in Texas for example.

Ultimately making it an actual democratic process where each individual vote counts as opposed to now where only 3-4 states matter? (Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Michigan likely this election)

[Candiarie]

If I remember right, some states do split their votes, but it's up to the states to decide how they want to allocate their votes.