# How can the US improve the election process for 2022 and 2024? Can it be done bi-partisanly?



## spudmunkey (Nov 5, 2020)

After yet-another election shitshow in the US, what are bi-partisan ways the election process could be improved?

I specify "bi-partisan" because there are a lot of ways that I will concede likely favor the left (like eliminating the electoral college, statehood for Puerto Rico, etc) and some that would likely favor the right (left-leaning voters would be more willing to support a 3rd party candidate, more likely splitting their vote).

I have to admit, as much of a clusterfuck as it seems with basically every county doing things their own way, I do see how the US election itself it impossible to "hack" because of how de-centralized, so any efforts to make some sort of comprehensive national system would assuredly lead to less-secure results....what are some middle-ground ideas out there?


Here are some thoughts: I'm A-OK with ONLY counting ballots RECEIVED by the end election day....

...*IF* all states have early mail in ballots available more than 1 month before, early in person voting starts 2 weeks before. I'm all for stopping voter suppression, and I feel like that timeline is reasonable and haven't come across any arguments for needing a longer season other than "But....the more time the left has to vote, the more they do" which isn't a valid reason to extend it, IMO.

So many people are like "Why can Florida get it right, but Pennsylvania can't?" It's specifically BECAUSE they were allowed to process early ballots before election day. The laws in Florida were changed after the disastrous 2000 election to specifically allow it...and yet it's also what the right successfully out-lawed in Pennsylvania, to make them only able to START counting early ballots on election day...and then also tried to sue them to STOP counting at the end of election day.

I imagine it's too much to ask, but it would be great if, after the close of election day on Tuesday, that no results would be given until all counts are to be completed by noon Friday, and released all at once.

Other thoughts?


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## Jonathan20022 (Nov 5, 2020)

There's no reason to not have mail in ballots during a pandemic, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it doesn't open a whole can of worms and that there is ZERO potential for voter fraud.

However during the pandemic there are people who simply needed it to express their choice of candidate. No one can deny people of their right to vote, and I'd rather equip those people for that instead of giving them the option of life or death by forcing them to poll in person.

I also think it's bullshit that states couldn't process mail-ins before election day.

That being said, I'm 100% in for digital voting, the world is evolving and so the voting system can as well. If you need some kind of convoluted live vetting system to validate that you are the one submitting the vote yourself then so be it. I'd rather have that than mail in ballots in an ideal world, because I'm seeing instances of dead people who have been absentee voting for several elections being spread right now. And that shit is just ridiculous if true.


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## StevenC (Nov 5, 2020)

Fixing the election process in the US is inherently partisan because the GOP have known for decades that voter suppression is their only path to victory.

As to why Pennsylvania is taking so long, several states just anticipate a large number of postal votes based on historical trends but Pennsylvania didn't have the infrastructure to deal with such an influx. The could have. But they didn't. Because of the first bit.


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## mbardu (Nov 5, 2020)

Why even put any restriction on "ONLY counting ballots RECEIVED by the end election day"?

Sometimes even day-of votes take time beyond election day to be counted, and mail-in ballots could arrive late for a number of reasons out of control of the voter. Why would we disenfranchise such voters as long as their vote is postmarked on time? The issue is always going to be about edge cases.

On a more general note, I don't believe _anything _can be done in a bipartisan way in the US at this point. And specifically not anything election related, and even less anything related to _national _elections because it is clear to everyone that the only reason Republicans have any national power left is because the system is unfair in their favor- and they would never agree to change that.


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## spudmunkey (Nov 5, 2020)

mbardu said:


> Why even put any restriction on "ONLY counting ballots RECEIVED by the end election day"?
> 
> Sometimes even day-of votes take time beyond election day to be counted, and mail-in ballots could arrive late for a number of reasons out of control of the voter. Why would we disenfranchise such voters as long as their vote is postmarked on time? The issue is always going to be about edge cases



There will always be extenuating circumstances, right? IMO, it'd be better to work those out on the back end, by having better systems in place and earlier. There *has* to be a deadline at some point, and the final in-person election day seems like as good a day as any. If we're still getting so many ballots after that, then we need to back the "start" dates out further to be earlier.

The dates I mentioned were just my thought of what would be more-than-sufficient: more than a month for mail-in, and 2 weeks of early in-person. If it needs to be longer than that, I'm OK with that...I'd rather have it be 8 weeks/6 weeks instead, than have the count cut-off pushed out further and further to make accomodations.


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## mbardu (Nov 5, 2020)

spudmunkey said:


> There will always be extenuating circumstances, right? IMO, it'd be better to work those out on the back end, by having better systems in place and earlier. There *has* to be a deadline at some point, and the final in-person election day seems like as good a day as any. If we're still getting so many ballots after that, then we need to back the "start" dates out further to be earlier.



It wouldn't really help to back the "start" date further, would it? There are still going to be people who send their ballot earlier or later. If you want all ballots to arrive by election day, then the answer would be to only accept votes with postmark way _before _the day of in-person voting (a week or two...whatever we feel is required for mail to arrive), but even that comes with it's host of problems with a gap in time between mail-in and in-person voting.


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## bostjan (Nov 5, 2020)

The two parties will cooperate as soon as the Sun freezes over.

The only way to change things is if one of the parties breaks into two, dissolves, or beats the other in a civil war.


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## Jonathan20022 (Nov 5, 2020)

I agree with @spudmunkey there should always be a hard stop on the vote counting.

Make the start of election voting 1 - 2 months in advance of the cutoff date. And anything that's received after that date/time doesn't count. No offense to people, but the fringe shit I hear about people voting at the last second usually has more circumstances than the out of control keeping them from doing so.

1 - 2 months should be more than enough time to send in your vote or go process it.


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## Randy (Nov 5, 2020)

McConnell is to blame, and that's not a Republican Derangement Syndrome argument. If you remember McConnell making the pledge that the goal of the GOP was to "make Obama a one term president", that was the first shot across the bow.

There was a lot of mutually agreed upon rules that made sure you didn't take an action that was "winner take all" flipping based on party. That's why you see previous SCOTUS picks chosen at near unanimous vote and now it's constantly 50%+1.

The problem you have is that the Dems could take control and choose to change rules in a way that shoot them in the foot but are better for bipartisanship, then the Republicans can use those rules to handcuff Dems while they're in control, campaign on Dems inability to get anything done, take back over the Congress and change the rules back to give themselves unilateral control.

Only way you're going to get any change that sticks would be an amendment or amendments, since the threshold is so high to be able to change it.


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## diagrammatiks (Nov 5, 2020)

america is super fucked. the symptoms were there for a while but the tipping point was really Obama.
dems sat on their asses and liberals waited for their magic black president to fix everything
while republicans just straight fucked up shit up behind the scenes. 

add that to the fact that no one really knows how or why a democracy can function where 50 percent of the people disagree with the other 50 percent fundamentally disagree on really basic shit.

democracy is for deciding like hey which contractor and how should we fund fixing some roads.
it's not meant to work when one side wants to fix roads and the other side thinks abortion is evil.


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## zappatton2 (Nov 5, 2020)

It's funny, I'm watching the Walking Dead tonight, and the part I always found the most far-fetched about this show was the idea that people would instantly tribalize and turn on each other during a common crisis. Now I'm wondering if in the Walking Dead universe, the rest of the world solved the zombie crisis 9 years ago, and they're all just watching Americans go at each other with guns and baseball bats.


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## Xaios (Nov 5, 2020)

zappatton2 said:


> It's funny, I'm watching the Walking Dead tonight, and the part I always found the most far-fetched about this show was the idea that people would instantly tribalize and turn on each other during a common crisis. Now I'm wondering if in the Walking Dead universe, the rest of the world solved the zombie crisis 9 years ago, and they're all just watching Americans go at each other with guns and baseball bats.


That sounds like a great idea for a dystopian comedy, where you've got one formerly powerful country reduced to the bare minimum of survival whose leaders are saying that the rest of the world has been decimated (e.g. Breitbart's constant hue and cry that "Europe has been lost to the Muslims"). Pan to every other country and it's nothing but picket fences and neighbors sharing cups of sugar while watching the news coming out of the wacko country with morbid amusement.

Actually, that basically sounds like North Korea, aside from the "formerly powerful country" bit.


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## fantom (Nov 5, 2020)

1) the other party should be able to vote in primaries to remove candidates from consideration. This means people like Bernie Sanders and Trump should not be on the election ballot at all. Honestly, I would be fine if every year 10 random people were assigned like jury duty too

2) Term limits for congress and judges

3) Congress and other public service salaries and benefits should be the median (not average) of the region they represent. In other words, if the median income for a family in Kentucky is 50k with mediocre health care, Mitch McConnell should not be making 175k with top of the line healthcare

4) ban private entities giving any funding or quid pro quo at all to politicians, especially for elections. Also stop treating business as more important than people when it comes to policies

5) reelection should require 60% of the vote instead of 50%. Seriously, you had years to prove you are better than an unknown, if you can't get supermajority to back you, gtfo.

6) either get rid of the electoral college or redo the votes to better represent the people

7) senator votes should be weighted by the number of people they represent (decimate to the nearest million), so 70k people represented is 1 vote. 30.6 million people represented is 30 votes

8) put deadlines on when a bill should be voted on. Consequences: Senators should lose their jobs for bullshit tactics to delay votes

9) stop trying to change idealogical differences with policy. Stop trying to pass and protect abortion, gun control, death penalty, etc. If people can't agree for 50 years, it's a waste of time to discuss it. You can read this as: stop trying to push federal law on everyone when they clearly disagree and let local communities and states deal with their people

10) the incumbent should be on the ballot independent of a party. So this year, Republicans should have put a 2nd candidate on the ballot with Trump


The complete shit show the last 30 years is career politicians pushing hyper-partisan policies and tactics instead of collaborating. If you remove the hyper partisan players and the career players using disincentives and forcing more options, maybe things will start being more civil.

And if it isn't clear, my point here is that the election process is not the problem. It's career politicians and hyper partisanship that need to be dealt with.


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## Descent (Nov 5, 2020)

The country as we know it is done. Once the boomers pass, it'll be all half doped up zombies with limited intelligence, like AOC. All the people with money will pack up and leave as they did in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Looks like the next happening place will be Brazil.


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## spudmunkey (Nov 5, 2020)

Descent said:


> The country as we know it is done. Once the boomers pass...



I know that's been sort of a shining hope off in the distance, but honestly...with the rise of social media as it currently exists? I'm doubtful. It used to be that the more you learn about the world, typically, the more open you are to it. However, the rise of social media has given every niche an echo chamber, and a sense of community with like-minded individuals, helping solidify their stances....I honestly don't think it'll be the case. 



Descent said:


> half doped up zombies with limited intelligence, like AOC



There's no denying her twitter clap-back game, though.


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## zappatton2 (Nov 6, 2020)

Descent said:


> Once the boomers pass, it'll be all half doped up zombies with limited intelligence, like AOC.


 I don't know where you're getting this, AOC has been one of the few points of genuine intelligence in American politics over the past four years. Maybe someone in politics fighting passionately on behalf of the actual _public interest_ just looks too foreign in the States, but there's a lot of social democracies, with progressive taxation, higher social mobility and a wider spread of actual wealth, that feature leaders that reflect the spirit of public interest.

Plus, their economies are some of the most productive and successful in the world, above and beyond Norway's oil reserves. People don't flee those countries because they foster success, just not in the zero-sum, winner-takes-all method we assume is normal in North America.


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## USMarine75 (Nov 6, 2020)

The problem with the election process is several issues:

1. There is a reason why the Founding Fathers thought the Constitution needed editing through the years. Things like the Electoral College have become outmoded and outdated. How can you have a 3M popular vote lead but lose the election? How can you have 7 of the last 8 popular votes for the Presidential elections won by Democrats, only to have Republicans take office twice? And during those years 5 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices were installed for lifetime appointments? None of this reflects the collective will of the people.

2. Get money out of politics. Until you do your vote will never compare to the vote of corporations.

3. Term limits for SCOTUS and Congress. The Founding Fathers never thought political appointments should be for life.

4. Get rid of gerrymandering and redistricting. Both parties do it but the Republicans far better.

I can’t overstate this enough. The current mail-in process has been around for hundreds of years. This was not changed except by Republican state legislatures this term to make it more difficult. If you believe the Democrats are stealing the election with mail in votes via a corrupt process the likes we have never seen before (as seen on Fox News) you are a fool of the highest order. 

Bonus: Get rid of Mitch McConnell.


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## Drew (Nov 6, 2020)

Jonathan20022 said:


> There's no reason to not have mail in ballots during a pandemic, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it doesn't open a whole can of worms and that there is ZERO potential for voter fraud.
> 
> However during the pandemic there are people who simply needed it to express their choice of candidate. No one can deny people of their right to vote, and I'd rather equip those people for that instead of giving them the option of life or death by forcing them to poll in person.
> 
> ...


Bolded bit - take that up with the Pennsylvania GOP. Look at what happened in OH vs PA - OH, where early votes were counted when they were received, started off very blue but swung red as the night went on. PA, which the GOP stale legislature and governor fought attempts to allow mail-in ballots to be counted when received, and could only start even opening envelopes on 7am of election day, started off extremely red, and when all's said and done, by tonight, may not even be a particularly close race. Contrast that with Arizona, which has long allowed and even encouraged voting by mail, and in particular the state GOP has a pretty effective vote-by-mail get out the vote operation; this is one of the reasons a lot of networks have been hesitant to call the race. 

If I could wave a magic wand and implement any electoral reform, though, a nonpartisan districting committee would be my first pick. The supreme court is open to challenging partisan gerrymandering, but hasn't found a case to make it stick (TBD, now that it's 6-3 conservative). Just ore-empting the issue and taking the district-defining process out of the hands of political parties would go a long way towards getting more competitive elections with incumbents facing real challenges from the other party, and not simply worrying about being primaried by an even more radical member of their own party. 

Second would be doing away with the Electoral College, which - let's be honest - ever since the Civil War settled the question of balance of power between the states and federal government, is an anachronism. The GOP will never accept that, though, because they've only managed to put together a majority of the popular vote in the presidential election once since HW Bush in 1988.


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## nightflameauto (Nov 6, 2020)

Randy said:


> McConnell is to blame, and that's not a Republican Derangement Syndrome argument. If you remember McConnell making the pledge that the goal of the GOP was to "make Obama a one term president", that was the first shot across the bow.
> 
> There was a lot of mutually agreed upon rules that made sure you didn't take an action that was "winner take all" flipping based on party. That's why you see previous SCOTUS picks chosen at near unanimous vote and now it's constantly 50%+1.
> 
> ...



Yeah, my first thought in this thread was "as long as McConnell holds a seat at the table, there's no fixing anything."



zappatton2 said:


> It's funny, I'm watching the Walking Dead tonight, and the part I always found the most far-fetched about this show was the idea that people would instantly tribalize and turn on each other during a common crisis. Now I'm wondering if in the Walking Dead universe, the rest of the world solved the zombie crisis 9 years ago, and they're all just watching Americans go at each other with guns and baseball bats.


This is entirely too close to where we're headed.


Descent said:


> The country as we know it is done. Once the boomers pass, it'll be all half doped up zombies with limited intelligence, like AOC. All the people with money will pack up and leave as they did in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Looks like the next happening place will be Brazil.


Brazil? If anything right at the moment they seem at least as fucked as we are.

The only real way to fix the election process in this country is to dump first past the post. We need ranked voting so that people can actually pick someone they want during primaries rather than, "this is the one person I think can win." And in all honesty, if we did ranked all the way up to election day, let there be four candidates on the ballot. That'd mix shit up real good and we wouldn't end up with the two least desirable candidates sitting on the goal line waiting for the go ahead to spike the ball into the public's face.

The senate needs a massive shake-up. 

SCOTUS needs term limits.

And we need to destroy the entire lobbying industry. The very fact that it exists is messed up enough, but the fact that the public KNOWS it exists and just shrugs it off as nothing is insane. We're literally seeing corporations shoveling funds directly into government officials pockets and we just don't seem to care. And the few that do care are stuck wondering WTF we can do about it.

But all this shit is pure theory until McConnell and his obstructionist do-nothing brigade are driven out of office. He'd stop any and all progress simply because ignoring the will of the people is the Republican creed.


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## StevenC (Nov 6, 2020)

Descent said:


> The country as we know it is done. Once the boomers pass, it'll be all half doped up zombies with limited intelligence, like AOC. All the people with money will pack up and leave as they did in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Looks like the next happening place will be Brazil.


Imagine saying "look, this used to be better" about South Africa of all places.


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## fantom (Nov 6, 2020)

nightflameauto said:


> Yeah, my first thought in this thread was "as long as McConnell holds a seat at the table, there's no fixing anything."



The sad part, he's been in office for 35 years now. Why should one manipulative asshole from Kentucky, a state that is literally less than 1.5% of the entire population, be able to influence US policy for pretty much my entire life. The people of Kentucky keep reelecting him and don't give a shit that he is despised by a large percentage of the population.


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## fantom (Nov 6, 2020)

Descent said:


> Once the boomers pass, it'll be all half doped up zombies with limited intelligence, like AOC



I'll admit, I haven't paid much attention to AOC, but she has not come across as limited intelligence to me at all. Do you have any specific things you can point to?


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## nightflameauto (Nov 6, 2020)

fantom said:


> The sad part, he's been in office for 35 years now. Why should one manipulative asshole from Kentucky, a state that is literally less than 1.5% of the entire population, be able to influence US policy for pretty much my entire life. The people of Kentucky keep reelecting him and don't give a shit that he is despised by a large percentage of the population.


There should be a limit that prevents that type of shit from happening. 35 years of being an obstructionist piece of shit and he keeps getting reelected? I wonder what the folks voting for him think he's accomplished? I mean, as far as I can tell his main accomplishments are blocking Democrats from doing literally anything and then complaining that Democrats don't do anything.


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## mbardu (Nov 6, 2020)

fantom said:


> I'll admit, I haven't paid much attention to AOC, but she has not come across as limited intelligence to me at all. Do you have any specific things you can point to?



Trump and Ben said so


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## fantom (Nov 6, 2020)

nightflameauto said:


> There should be a limit that prevents that type of shit from happening. 35 years of being an obstructionist piece of shit and he keeps getting reelected? I wonder what the folks voting for him think he's accomplished? I mean, as far as I can tell his main accomplishments are blocking Democrats from doing literally anything and then complaining that Democrats don't do anything.



Well he has limited democratic policy and biased the courts pretty heavily. I'd say people in Kentucky would probably think he is doing a good job regardless of how it is eroding the rest of the country.

I think I said this earlier, but the bigger problem is that the federal government needs to back off and give power to states. If Kentucky's population likes what McConnell is doing, let's just accept it and limit the blast radius to Kentucky.


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## StevenC (Nov 6, 2020)

nightflameauto said:


> There should be a limit that prevents that type of shit from happening. 35 years of being an obstructionist piece of shit and he keeps getting reelected? I wonder what the folks voting for him think he's accomplished? I mean, as far as I can tell his main accomplishments are blocking Democrats from doing literally anything and then complaining that Democrats don't do anything.


He's consistently protected Kentuckians from the oppression of education and healthcare.


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## wankerness (Nov 6, 2020)

mbardu said:


> Trump and Ben said so



Exactly. Note the critical thinking/grammatical ability of anyone that complains about her being stupid. You might think she's an annoying prick, but she certainly is not dumb compared to the vast majority of people in politics. Only dullards suggest otherwise.

There's no way for election reform unless the Georgia senate runoff goes double blue. Mitch Mcconnell absolutely will not allow one shred of expanded voter rights through while he's in control. We're in this state of affairs till 2022 at least.

To people saying "this decentralized thing proves it would be impossible to hack," I'd counter that this election is showing that hackers would only have to focus on one or two states to change the outcome of the election. The suppressed USPS votes alone came within a razor's edge of giving the win to Trump.


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## Jonathan20022 (Nov 6, 2020)

Drew said:


> Bolded bit - take that up with the Pennsylvania GOP. Look at what happened in OH vs PA - OH, where early votes were counted when they were received, started off very blue but swung red as the night went on. PA, which the GOP stale legislature and governor fought attempts to allow mail-in ballots to be counted when received, and could only start even opening envelopes on 7am of election day, started off extremely red, and when all's said and done, by tonight, may not even be a particularly close race. Contrast that with Arizona, which has long allowed and even encouraged voting by mail, and in particular the state GOP has a pretty effective vote-by-mail get out the vote operation; this is one of the reasons a lot of networks have been hesitant to call the race.
> 
> If I could wave a magic wand and implement any electoral reform, though, a nonpartisan districting committee would be my first pick. The supreme court is open to challenging partisan gerrymandering, but hasn't found a case to make it stick (TBD, now that it's 6-3 conservative). Just ore-empting the issue and taking the district-defining process out of the hands of political parties would go a long way towards getting more competitive elections with incumbents facing real challenges from the other party, and not simply worrying about being primaried by an even more radical member of their own party.
> 
> Second would be doing away with the Electoral College, which - let's be honest - ever since the Civil War settled the question of balance of power between the states and federal government, is an anachronism. The GOP will never accept that, though, because they've only managed to put together a majority of the popular vote in the presidential election once since HW Bush in 1988.



I'm just annoyed that we have to sit and wait and find out 3 - 4 days later. There's no reason for that shit, I understand that there's some concern over voter fraud but what does opening a massive amount of votes in a short time span do to reduce voter fraud from happening?



nightflameauto said:


> Brazil? If anything right at the moment they seem at least as fucked as we are.



Please don't mention Brazil as if you understand how bad it is 

My entire family (other than immediate family) live in Brazil, and Bolsonaro is an infinitely worse President than Trump. I'm all for solving our issues before we try to raise up other countries, but everything you think Trump could do to the USA Bolsonaro has effectively already done.

Let's compare Corona alone to give you some perspective.

Fauci still has his job, meanwhile Bolsonaro has fired or had several health experts equivalent to the role Fauci plays in the US for a Pandemic Response. With just under 2/3 (209m) of the USA's population, Brazil has managed to have 162k deaths related to the Coronavirus and growing. Meanwhile he still sits in office for another two years while Brazilians sit with virtually zero support from their government.

This isn't to excuse Trump in any way, but you're fucking off your rocker if you think Brazil is anything other than completely drowned after jumping off the cliff.


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## StevenC (Nov 6, 2020)

Yes Jonathan, that's what at least means.


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## Jonathan20022 (Nov 6, 2020)

StevenC said:


> Yes Jonathan, that's what at least means.



And? Are we above clarifying that a guesstimate of "about the same" is incorrect?


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## diagrammatiks (Nov 6, 2020)

fuck it. by all means take all your guns and move to Brazil.

it's super happening.


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## Drew (Nov 6, 2020)

Jonathan20022 said:


> I'm just annoyed that we have to sit and wait and find out 3 - 4 days later. There's no reason for that shit, I understand that there's some concern over voter fraud but what does opening a massive amount of votes in a short time span do to reduce voter fraud from happening?



Oh, this had nothing to do with voter fraud.  

The PA legislature are Republican and have been in a feud with the Democratic governor over trying to force through a FL-style reopening. They've insisted that vote counting doesn't begin to election day not because they're concerned with fraud, but because they know it will delay results, and with mail-in ballots disproportionately Democratic, the longer it takes the longer it looks like Trump is winning the state. This isn't about fraud, this is political inside baseball. 

Really makes you wonder what was going through the minds of Fox News when they called AZ, aggressively early, for Biden, which put Trump behind in the electoral vote count, and made his case for declaring an early victory that much more preposterous.


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## Andromalia (Nov 6, 2020)

Seen from the outside, the decent alternatives/changes.

-Less change option: Keep delegates, but abolish "winner takes all"
-Rase the table: abolish delegates, one man, one vote for the president. Have the representatives be elected on a federal proportional list, and the senators by state on a majority vote.
If you are electing federal representatives, let them be elected at the federal level, not state.
-Get to work on voter suppression and gerrymandering.

I understand the less populous states want to be heard and have a voice, but it usually works better if the majority actually is the majority, and not a minority with a cheat multiplier code.


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## Descent (Nov 7, 2020)

Jonathan20022 said:


> Please don't mention Brazil as if you understand how bad it is


Not if you have money and a good stock portfolio. Talking about South Africa - pretty much the majority of the successful and smart people moved out, I had a chance to meet a lot of them in the country club. They took all their smart and wealth with them, and it is pretty much a shitshow over there since.

About AOC - just look up at some of her speeches and rants, there was one particularly funny one about her wondering what does a kitchen garbage disposer do and where it goes.

Someone mentioned Norway and Finland, I believe. I've seen the socialist underside of both, where you're being punished for being inventive and rewarded for being lazy and sitting on welfare. Since we're musicians, there was a guy I was in a band with and his wife's whole family was on the dole over there, getting about $1.5k a month and all they did is smoke and drink beer and watch soccer, all in their undies, from the kids in their early 20s to the parent and grandparents. If you've seen "Keeping up Appearances" - like Onslow and his family. 
The other one was a part time musician, that felt depressed cause she was in the same job for 5 years, took a 1 1/2 year vacayy, paid by the State to find herself under their social programs, while her rent was being all paid up. You know what she found? More weed


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## StevenC (Nov 7, 2020)

Descent said:


> Not if you have money and a good stock portfolio. Talking about South Africa - pretty much the majority of the successful and smart people moved out, I had a chance to meet a lot of them in the country club. They took all their smart and wealth with them, and it is pretty much a shitshow over there since.
> 
> About AOC - just look up at some of her speeches and rants, there was one particularly funny one about her wondering what does a kitchen garbage disposer do and where it goes.
> 
> ...


You're making a great bid for dumbest person on this board. #Descent2020


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## possumkiller (Nov 7, 2020)

Descent said:


> Not if you have money and a good stock portfolio. Talking about South Africa - pretty much the majority of the successful and smart people moved out, I had a chance to meet a lot of them in the country club. They took all their smart and wealth with them, and it is pretty much a shitshow over there since.
> 
> About AOC - just look up at some of her speeches and rants, there was one particularly funny one about her wondering what does a kitchen garbage disposer do and where it goes.
> 
> ...


Dude, what do you do that you get to hang out at the country club to rub elbows with South Africa's best and brightest?


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## diagrammatiks (Nov 7, 2020)

Man I wish I could go to a country club where I could rub elbows with a bunch of racist fucks who fled South Africa when their racist fairy tale kingdom came to an end.

oh and you mean Finland? home to supercell and rovio. and literally is the second boomiest tech hub after Silicon Valley? actually maybe third now.

seriously are you a fucking moron.


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## Descent (Nov 7, 2020)

diagrammatiks said:


> Man I wish I could go to a country club where I could rub elbows with a bunch of racist fucks who fled South Africa when their racist fairy tale kingdom came to an end.
> 
> oh and you mean Finland? home to supercell and rovio. and literally is the second boomiest tech hub after Silicon Valley? actually maybe third now.
> 
> seriously are you a fucking moron.


Looky here, you claim the people in the CC were racist (majority were actually Jewish btw), but the guy running for President in this contested election, Joe Biden, is on public record being a racist and you call me a fucking moron?
Here is Harris actually chewing Biden on his racist voting record:


OK, so what does the "boomiest tech hub" have anything to do with the BS social programs out of their tax payer money that are letting all these lazy dole recipients "find themselves" for the rest of the lives?

@possumkiller - I played in a band that was hired to play, don't worry, I wasn't one of the 1% 

@fantom since you were wondering, here's current AOC quote, as of today. She is actually in the process of making a hit list of all Trump campaign workers so they never get hired again (McCarthyism anyone?), and those are not Nazi tactics?
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078


----------



## spudmunkey (Nov 7, 2020)

Descent said:


> @fantom since you were wondering, here's current AOC quote, as of today. She is actually in the process of making a hit list of all Trump campaign workers so they never get hired again (McCarthyism anyone?), and those are not Nazi tactics?
> https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078



That is a strawman arguement and you know it. That's not what she's saying.

There's a difference betwee not wanting to come together because of disagreeing on policy, and not wanting to work with people who you feel are lying, deceitful, and not acting in good faith.

Like, making a list of people I dont want to invite to my home, because I disagree with them about movies is one thing...but then if I go on to list murderers...that's another. Yes, hyperbole...But still.


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## StevenC (Nov 7, 2020)

Descent said:


> Looky here, you claim the people in the CC were racist (majority were actually Jewish btw), but the guy running for President in this contested election, Joe Biden, is on public record being a racist and you call me a fucking moron?
> Here is Harris actually chewing Biden on his racist voting record:
> 
> 
> ...



Since you clearly haven't a clue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid


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## Bodes (Nov 7, 2020)

For those who say "take money out of politics" and "stop political donations":
In Australia, we almost have that (in a direct way), but what happens, is family members of politicians get high-paying cushy jobs with these companies, or the politicians are promised (and get) high-paying cushy jobs after they retire/get voted out with these companies.
We had our defence minister retire to a highly paid cushy job with a company who bids on creating defence-type supplies. His job was to advise the company how to talk to politicians and how to write bids to get government money for defence jobs.... 
Our pollies are just as corrupt as yours are in the USA, but it is generally less obvious here. 
I am not sure which is scarier: Knowing about the corruption while they are in office, or finding out afterwards?
Plus our moronic Prime Minister dissolved most of our political corruption body. Who were investigating the defence minister mentioned above.


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## Boofchuck (Nov 7, 2020)

I think we should just abolish the office of the President. I don't think any single person should be so important or have so much power.


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## possumkiller (Nov 8, 2020)

Boofchuck said:


> I think we should just abolish the office of the President. I don't think any single person should be so important or have so much power.


They aren't and definitely weren't supposed to be to begin with. There has just been a few presidents getting away with shit they shouldn't and then came trump that just did and said whatever the fuck he wanted. The whole thing is based on the assumption that people in charge will be the best people. Responsible adults that even if lacking above average intelligence, would have the common sense to be advised by the ones that do.

The problem is ignorant fucktards want someone to worship for some reason.

I think voting should not be a right. Just like firearms should be and cars already are. You should have to be educated in the matter and tested to be certified that you are qualified to operate a vehicle/own a gun/vote. To be honest, after the shitshow the US has become, I would even go so far as to say breeding should be illegal without a license.


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## Viginez (Nov 8, 2020)

possumkiller said:


> I would even go so far as to say breeding should be illegal without a license.


that sounds so 1933. and your suggestions are the real issues. you call half of your nation turds and what not and then ask for things to improve?
also, you can improve all you want about election process', but there still reamains outside interferance like viruses that then get politicized and it's basically an invitation to all kinds of problems in the process, just like we saw it now.


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## StevenC (Nov 8, 2020)

Viginez said:


> that sounds so 1933.


Based on your previous posts in P&CE, you have been excluded from making these comparisons.


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## Drew (Nov 9, 2020)

Descent said:


> Looky here, you claim the people in the CC were racist (majority were actually Jewish btw), but the guy running for President in this contested election, Joe Biden, is on public record being a racist and you call me a fucking moron?
> Here is Harris actually chewing Biden on his racist voting record:



Funny thing about this exchange - one of the reasons Harris's own campaign fell apart was, in the aftermath, she struggled to come up with ways in which her platform would differ from Biden's today. This was political theater - excellent political theater, but it didn't take away from the fact that Biden had clearly learned from his mistakes, if there was no policy difference between the two today. 

I mean, not for nothing, she accepted a spot on his ticket, at the end of the day. You don't do that as a minority if you think the guy at the top of the ticket is a racist shitbag.


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## fantom (Nov 10, 2020)

Descent said:


> @fantom since you were wondering, here's current AOC quote, as of today. She is actually in the process of making a hit list of all Trump campaign workers so they never get hired again (McCarthyism anyone?), and those are not Nazi tactics?
> https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078



How does someone wanting to archive information to hold others accountable imply a hit list? She literally said nothing but to keep information that may be deleted. If Trump said something about keeping Hillary from deleting her emails, you would be jerking off to it.

I wholeheartedly agree that many people in the GOP right now need to understand consequences of their actions and complacency. Asking to archive evidence seems appropriate given the situation.

I never though I would say this, but look at people like Mitt Romney right now. If the GOP would just stand up to Trump , the situation would have defused itself. Instead, you have people like Barr trying to unilaterally overthrow oversight of the elections office leadership with no evidence and most Republican senators just hoping the tactic works. They are so afraid of Democrats running things that they refuse to compromise, cooperate, or play by the rules. More importantly, they refuse to stand up to a tyrant. You really want that information to just be deleted from public record?

As much as I get frustrated by democrats, the GOP needs to atone for their bullshit attitude enabling a person like Trump (and McConnell tbh) destroying this country. If you can't see it because you are envious of a daddy's boy that got to @*$# Karen McDougal and brag about taking advantage of people, well I can't help you much. But I don't think that tweet shows an unintelligent person at all.


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## Phlegethon (Nov 10, 2020)

Jonathan20022 said:


> I also think it's bullshit that states couldn't process mail-ins before election day.



There should be no reason why states should wait to process them. At least with everything in Canada, once election day is over? It's done. Everything's counted and sussed out before then. Granted, the pandemic is magnifying flaws in the USA's system but still. Things like mail in votes should be done well ahead of time so that things run smoothly. Because the last USA election sounds like it needed to run a lot better than it did.


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## spudmunkey (Nov 10, 2020)

OK, maybe a shorter way to ask the initial question:

There's no denying there have been two major clusterfuck elections this century, 2000 and 2020. Have Republicans suggested any ways to improve elections, or are there any changes they've proposed ?


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## fantom (Nov 10, 2020)

Phlegethon said:


> There should be no reason why states should wait to process them. At least with everything in Canada, once election day is over? It's done. Everything's counted and sussed out before then. Granted, the pandemic is magnifying flaws in the USA's system but still. Things like mail in votes should be done well ahead of time so that things run smoothly. Because the last USA election sounds like it needed to run a lot better than it did.



FWIW, I used to live in a red state..voting there required 2-3 hour lines. Only one poll place per zip code. You had to go to your designated place on the day of the election.

I moved to California about 10 years ago, they mailed me a ballot 1 month ahead to drop off at any polling location in the same county (most were open 30 days before the election). There were 3 of them within a mile of where I lived. There was never a line. The one time I lost a ballot, I could go get a new one or just vote in person within 5 minutes. Voting went from feeling like an arduous task that required planning to just a quick errand on my way home at my own convenience.

My point here: the entire US system is not screwed up. I didn't understand the systematic oppression of voters in red states until I moved. The GOP is intentionally trying to make it hard for people to vote. I don't understand why people want that or defend it.


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## Xaios (Nov 10, 2020)

fantom said:


> The GOP is intentionally trying to make it hard for people to vote. I don't understand why people want that or defend it.


The overarching narrative behind "own the libs" and "not hurting the right people" is that your modern American republican is willing to endure all manner of suffering at the hands of their elected officials who are supposed to be serving them if it forces people that they don't like to endure similar suffering.


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## diagrammatiks (Nov 10, 2020)

spudmunkey said:


> OK, maybe a shorter way to ask the initial question:
> 
> There's no denying there have been two major clusterfuck elections this century, 2000 and 2020. Have Republicans suggested any ways to improve elections, or are there any changes they've proposed ?



yeah less people voting = shorter lines.


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## nightflameauto (Nov 11, 2020)

possumkiller said:


> They aren't and definitely weren't supposed to be to begin with. There has just been a few presidents getting away with shit they shouldn't and then came trump that just did and said whatever the fuck he wanted. The whole thing is based on the assumption that people in charge will be the best people. Responsible adults that even if lacking above average intelligence, would have the common sense to be advised by the ones that do.
> 
> The problem is ignorant fucktards want someone to worship for some reason.
> 
> I think voting should not be a right. Just like firearms should be and cars already are. You should have to be educated in the matter and tested to be certified that you are qualified to operate a vehicle/own a gun/vote. To be honest, after the shitshow the US has become, I would even go so far as to say breeding should be illegal without a license.


Honestly, without that last point we're fast heading into the real Idiocracy.


spudmunkey said:


> OK, maybe a shorter way to ask the initial question:
> 
> There's no denying there have been two major clusterfuck elections this century, 2000 and 2020. Have Republicans suggested any ways to improve elections, or are there any changes they've proposed ?


The Republican's have suggested changes that make it worse, because the more people vote, the worse their chances are at maintaining power. I really wish we could get that message to stick among their electorate, but unfortunately preventing abortion and keeping guns rank far more important than voter suppression, human rights, healthcare, and education.


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## bostjan (Jan 8, 2021)

Now that the craze is finally starting to cool, I guess we can say that the system in place ended up working in the end, even if just barely.

Nobody should have been surprised that making it easier for disadvantaged people to vote would cause a significant blue wave. Nobody should have been surprised that Trump would half-ass attempt a coup.

It's sad to me, as a staunch moderate, to see the calls for conservative blood from liberals over the shenanigans Trump's people tried to pull. Keep in mind that there are significant numbers of the religious, the economically conservative, and single-issue voters, who didn't want any part of that crap, and that those people's voices still matter. If things ever boil down to "right versus wrong," then it all hinges on whomever gets to decide where to draw the line. In the case of Nov 2020- Jan 2021, we saw that, when an insane megalomaniac gets to determine what's right and what's wrong, in order to determine important issues, everything could quickly and easily collapse.

What needs to change long-term, is better watchdogging, with some actual repercussions when things are tampered. The Russian interference of 2016 needs to be prevented in the future. And next time a sitting president extorts political favours from another foreign power and gets caught, that president needs to face consequences severe enough to discourage that behaviour.

Sadly, this won't happen in time for 2022, I don't think. Maybe by 2024, we can hope, but, with major changes to how our political system works requiring a 2/3 majority for everything, and the political system being as opportunistic and stubborn as it is, I doubt things will get done until that changes first.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 8, 2021)

So the argument against a unified national effort towards Voter ID that it makes voting harder, but also disproportionally affects minorities/low income groups.

The rolling narrative in 2016 was Russian Collusion, and this time in 2020 it's rampant Voter Fraud.

It's already troubling that you can instill doubt in process so easily, leading to absolute degenerates pulling off what they did this week.

Millions of dollars were spent by both Democrats and Republicans crying foul and investigating the elections. So AFAIC fuck both of them and renovate the process by which we vote, if it's a registered database of individuals who have to pre-qualify to vote, then so be it.
The country can't handle election after election being called a mishandled mess much longer before it implodes on itself and all confidence is lost in the process.

Instead of wasting resources repeatedly trying to find faults with a flawed system in order to turn the result on it's head. The nation's leaders should be focusing on a permanent solution that allows for very little room to doubt the integrity of a national election.

I don't care if you need to scan my pupils and fingerprints to count my vote, I want to vote in 2024, sit back and by the end of Election Night know the result of the fucking Election.


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## possumkiller (Jan 9, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Keep in mind that there are significant numbers of the religious, the economically conservative, and single-issue voters, who didn't want any part of that crap, and that those people's voices still matter.


Do they? It seems like they had no problem supporting trampling the rights of people they didn't like. 

Religious people are fucking morons. They believe the same hocus pocus fairy tale horse shit that trump spews. Only theirs was written down thousands of years ago. The world will be a much better place when religion finally dies. 

By "economically conservative", I assume you mean rich assholes that fuck everyone around them over to make an extra buck and then sit on their surplus wealth while everyone around them starves. Fuck those assholes. 

Single issue voters are fucking morons. We don't live in a single issue world. I voted for Bush in 2004 because I was ammosexual and only cared about him letting the Clinton-era firearms bans expire. I was a fucking moron. 

Everyone that voted republican and supported trump knew he was a shitbag and either supported it or turned a blind eye. Either way, fuck them.


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## diagrammatiks (Jan 9, 2021)

possumkiller said:


> Do they? It seems like they had no problem supporting trampling the rights of people they didn't like.
> 
> Religious people are fucking morons. They believe the same hocus pocus fairy tale horse shit that trump spews. Only theirs was written down thousands of years ago. The world will be a much better place when religion finally dies.
> 
> ...



i only care about ending farming subsidies and vaping. so you know. back off man.


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## possumkiller (Jan 9, 2021)

diagrammatiks said:


> i only care about ending farming subsidies and vaping. so you know. back off man.


That is two issues.


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## diagrammatiks (Jan 9, 2021)

possumkiller said:


> That is two issues.



ya but there's no chance our not lol socialist government will ever end farm subsidies. they paid out 37 billion in 2020 and 22billion in 2019. not even jeff bezos could fund that for more than a few years.

so ya. just the vaping.


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## bostjan (Jan 9, 2021)

possumkiller said:


> Do they? It seems like they had no problem supporting trampling the rights of people they didn't like.
> 
> Religious people are fucking morons. They believe the same hocus pocus fairy tale horse shit that trump spews. Only theirs was written down thousands of years ago. The world will be a much better place when religion finally dies.
> 
> ...



Agreed about people being morons. Religion is superstition, but people do dedicate their lives to it nonetheless, and there is no level of logic that can change that. It's uber-level brainwashing and probably why such an alarming number of those people join cults.

But anyway, unless you want to round up all of the religious people and reprogram (i.e. imprison and torture) them, whether or not you want to give them the right to exist, they'll still have a voice equal to an atheist, as long as we have democracy.

Economic conservatives just don't want the big bloated government getting bigger and bloateder. They don't always have their sights set on public welfare programs. In fact, the ones who do are morons, because those programs cost pennies for ever dollar that goes to administration and that even pales to military spending. And you know how the military spending goes out, I assume. $400 for a broom because Colonel Klink's nephew owns the one broom distributor that is approved.

Single issue voters feel super strongly about one issue. It's moronic to be that way, but it's also moronic in this day and age to have issue platters to choose from. If you want to see in concrete terms how idiotic it is to choose one of two option platters, if we had abortion and 2A voted a la carte instead of GOP vs DNC, we wouldn't have ended up with Trump, but we don't do that, so we did end up with him. The irony is that those issues didn't even go their way, since they were rewarded for their lunacy by getting to watch Trump inject human embryonic stem cells for covid and prosecute more procedural gun violations (nonviolent gun laws) than any president ever.

We could sit here and point fingers saying "moron" at each other the rest of our lives and accomplish nothing, or we could propose changes that take other people's wants and needs into account to actually form some semblance of progress through compromise. But this is the USA, so fuck all if either side will ever compromise anyway. We're in freefall, so we'll just all go down in together as the right wing and left wing clobber each other instead of lifting us up.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 9, 2021)

My take on the election- Biden may have received 80+ million votes, but there’s no way in hell 80+ million people cast a ballot for him. There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud the people in charge of overseeing their state’s election lacked the will to take a serious look into what went down. Many of these state governors and Secs of state within mere hours of the media publishing results declared that their election was fair and results were legit, essentially going with the flow and giving themselves a pat on the back for a job well done. Only an idiot interferes with an election and leaves an easily found paper/data trail of breadcrumbs saying “Yup, I done it!”

Fixing the matter is going to be extremely difficult. A huge step in dealing with it is illegalizing ballot harvesting. This practice is a huge benefit to Dems/Progressives as voting results show a densely populated urban areas. However, There is no national election, hence it is up to each state legislature to make the rules. The PA executive really did something incredibly stupid by overriding mail in voting laws within their state, setting up a precedent which I would not be surprised exploited by other state executives in the future.

Voter ID needs to be a thing also. Canada has it, why doesn’t the US?


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## Rock4ever (Jan 9, 2021)

USMarine75 said:


> The problem with the election process is several issues:
> 
> 1. There is a reason why the Founding Fathers thought the Constitution needed editing through the years. Things like the Electoral College have become outmoded and outdated. How can you have a 3M popular vote lead but lose the election?



Do you think one state should be able to decide who is president? 2?


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## groverj3 (Jan 9, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Do you think one state should be able to decide who is president? 2?


The person who wins the most votes should be president.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 9, 2021)

groverj3 said:


> The person who wins the most votes should be president.



That's your opinion. There is no national election. If there were as things stand today, the popular vote would Ca and NY to lord over the other 48. That is why winner is not determined by popular vote.


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## groverj3 (Jan 9, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> That's your opinion. There is no national election. If there were as things stand today, the popular vote would Ca and NY to lord over the other 48. That is why winner is not determined by popular vote.


People vote, not empty land. Everyone's vote should count exactly the same, as opposed to the electoral college diluting it. Conservatives in CA and NY should support this as well, because right now their votes don't count.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 9, 2021)

Having an electoral college does not dilute the national vote. A state's electoral votes reflect their % of the national population, not their land percentage which I'm sure you already knew.

In 2016 HRC had a 4.2Million surplus in the CA popular vote, so it's really silly to say a national popular vote will allow CA conservatives, or ANY conservative nationally to be heard, and I have to wonder if that's how you'd like it. Her surplus nationally was 2.8mil. In a 50/50 nation Ca would be enough to take a national popular vote, especially when the corporate press is essentially a propaganda arm of one of the parties. Had HRC not stepped on her own foot along the way, and had she visited a few places in rural WI she might be president today and 2 or three of her nominees on the SCOTUS. Her folly.


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## groverj3 (Jan 9, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Having an electoral college does not dilute the national vote. A state's electoral votes reflect their % of the national population, not their land percentage which I'm sure you already knew.
> 
> In 2016 HRC had a 4.2Million surplus in the CA popular vote, so it's really silly to say a national popular vote will allow CA conservatives, or ANY conservative nationally to be heard, and I have to wonder if that's how you'd like it.


I guess if conservatives want to win elections they should focus on having policies that more people actually support.



Rock4ever said:


> Her surplus nationally was 2.8mil. In a 50/50 nation Ca would be enough to take a national popular vote, especially when the corporate press is essentially a propaganda arm of one of the parties. Had HRC not stepped on her own foot along the way, and had she visited a few places in rural WI she might be president today and 2 or three of her nominees on the SCOTUS. Her folly.



I don't disagree that HRC and the Dems didn't try to get the vote in places like WI and MI, and just assumed they'd win there. This is a problem, too.


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## StevenC (Jan 9, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> That's your opinion. There is no national election. If there were as things stand today, the popular vote would Ca and NY to lord over the other 48. That is why winner is not determined by popular vote.


That most democratic of American phrases:

"They the people"


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## groverj3 (Jan 9, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> ... That is why winner is not determined by popular vote.



No, the popular vote isn't used because old people who owned slaves 200+ years ago didn't think that the people would know who the candidates were since communication back then was difficult over large distances. It was thought that you'd know the local politicians, but not necessary someone in DC and you'd instead vote for someone else who would then vote for president.

Also, at the time only white men who owned land could vote. Maybe they didn't have the greatest ideas all the time and this is an outdated concept. Just a thought.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 9, 2021)

possumkiller said:


> Do they? It seems like they had no problem supporting trampling the rights of people they didn't like.
> 
> Religious people are fucking morons. They believe the same hocus pocus fairy tale horse shit that trump spews. Only theirs was written down thousands of years ago. The world will be a much better place when religion finally dies.
> 
> ...



Religion aside, people vote with their self interests first on instinct. No one votes to help their neighbor but fuck themselves, no amount of virtue signaling will convince me people do that unless they are in a privileged enough position to not have to worry about the effects of their vote.

I'm not accusing you of this, but I've seen it enough in my peer group to feel like a good number of people do this. People hate rich people until they realize how low the bar to be considered "rich" is, and subsequently hit that tax bracket over the course of a decade. Those same people realize their altruistic bullshit held zero worth, then they begin to grift and hold Democratic beliefs while sitting on their wealth (And probably still vote red).


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## thraxil (Jan 9, 2021)

Electronic voting machines need to be removed or there need to be significant improvements to their certification and oversight. I'm an engineer and old enough to remember that there were major concerns and conflicts back in the early 00's when it was Diebold Election Systems (which rebranded to Premier Election Systems and was then bought up by Dominion Voting Systems). They were hostile to security researchers who were demonstrating flaws and the CEO had shady connections to various right-wing groups. At the time it was mostly groups on the left objecting to them, but now the right wing is convinced that Dominion stole the election from them, so maybe we can finally get some bipartisan agreement here.


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## spudmunkey (Jan 9, 2021)

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember many of the earlier objections coming from a lack of paper trail, which most machines have now. And when manual audits/recounds take place, I haven't heard of any outside-margin-of-error discrepancies.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 9, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> Religion aside, people vote with their self interests first on instinct. No one votes to help their neighbor but fuck themselves, no amount of virtue signaling will convince me people do that unless they are in a privileged enough position to not have to worry about the effects of their vote.
> 
> I'm not accusing you of this, but I've seen it enough in my peer group to feel like a good number of people do this. People hate rich people until they realize how low the bar to be considered "rich" is, and subsequently hit that tax bracket over the course of a decade. Those same people realize their altruistic bullshit held zero worth, then they begin to grift and hold Democratic beliefs while sitting on their wealth (And probably still vote red).



This point EXCATLY is why I always qualify what wealth bracket I am talking about. Not income bracket, wealth bracket. Because apologies to any hard working doctors/attorneys but $400k/yr isn’t “rich” in the sense of discussing wealth taxes. 

It’s a whole different conversation/topic for another day but I agree with you on this in general. 

If someone tried creating the public library system today they’d be crucified. 

Certain things can be “forced” and then people will realize they prefer, but it would go over more smoothly and have less pushback from interest groups once society “catches up” and decides they want it/are more open to the idea of voting for something they’d have to pay a bit for.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 9, 2021)

groverj3 said:


> I guess if conservatives want to win elections they should focus on having policies that more people actually support.



Abortion and immigration and maybe 2A aside, GOP and DEM priorities are aligned in many and possibly most other instances. Democrats really can no longer claim to be a pro labor focused party. I see the 2 parties like this- Both Dem and GOP largely want the same things and their driving two different vehicles to get at the same destination. I characterize the dems, especially the progressives as teens at the wheel of the car going down the highway and they've cut the brakes. The conservatives in contrast are the older couple on the highway riding the brakes, so they get there later. By then progressives are tired of waiting and the other crowd are labelled nazis/racist or some other form of faux REEEEE! outrage. I see incremental change as better than fast wholesale change because it's a hell of a lot harder to get a bad law off the books than it is to get them on. A caution for those who feel their moral convictions trump any lack of factual basis for the assumptions they've made to form them.

Small gov't vs big govt. This past year has exposed problems with big goverments and bureacracies. Smaller governments tend to be less over-leveraged hence more agile. Governments found in larger cities/blue states are much more over-leveraged, less agile. To make matters worse they treat government as an enterprise to be expanded. But government doesn't produce a fucking thing so they have to float a bond or put their tax payers on the hook for their service initiatives that in many cases only serve to grow the problem it seeks to remedy, projects which often face cost over runs. Don't be surprised if there are massive tax increases in many of these locations due to budget shortfalls caused by their lockdowns. Pols, our so called leaders are skilled in gauging which way the wind blows but would in the private sector would be largely incompetent people. Another issue is there's an increasing number of people in this country who believe it is goverment's obligation to take care of them and ensure their comfort. This is bullshit. A lot of these people believe a system of infinite resources is nigh and they want their's too. These people are exploited every 4 years, and to them I say may they enjoy the crumbs thrown their way.



> Also, at the time only white men who owned land could vote. Maybe they didn't have the greatest ideas all the time and this is an outdated concept. Just a thought.[\QUOTE]



This would be a valid point if property and sex restrictions, and other items like the 3/5ths compromise were still in force


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## USMarine75 (Jan 10, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Do you think one state should be able to decide who is president? 2?



Do you think North Dakota and South Dakota should have twice the say of California?


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## Rock4ever (Jan 11, 2021)

USMarine75 said:


> Do you think North Dakota and South Dakota should have twice the say of California?



Everyone agrees that ND/SD do not have twice the power of CA in determining who is elected president.

I've heard this on RT w/ Bill Maher so much I've lost count. What about IL, NY? After all their state populations are a fraction of CA.... To the point-what is your arbitrary threshold of acceptable on this? It's a crap argument.

Fine merge the Dakotas, but then merge Vermont with NH and possibly Maine, Delaware with MD....though I doubt you'd find those latter items palatable.


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## diagrammatiks (Jan 11, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> I've heard this on RT w/ Bill Maher so much I've lost count. What about IL, NY? After all their state populations are a fraction of CA.... To the point-what is your arbitrary threshold of acceptable on this?
> 
> Fine merge the Dakotas, but then merge Vermont with NH and possibly Maine, Delaware with MD....though I doubt you'd find those latter items palatable.



sure why not. The most people should have the say.


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## StevenC (Jan 11, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Everyone agrees that ND/SD do not have twice the power of CA in determining who is elected president.
> 
> I've heard this on RT w/ Bill Maher so much I've lost count. What about IL, NY? After all their state populations are a fraction of CA.... To the point-what is your arbitrary threshold of acceptable on this? It's a crap argument.
> 
> Fine merge the Dakotas, but then merge Vermont with NH and possibly Maine, Delaware with MD....though I doubt you'd find those latter items palatable.


Electoral College votes should be approximately the same as population. That would fix the issue.

So if California has 40 million people, they should get 40 million electoral college votes. And if Wyoming has 600,000 people they should get 600,000 electoral college votes.

Ot take of the millions and call it 40 and 0.


----------



## Rock4ever (Jan 11, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Electoral College votes should be approximately the same as population. That would fix the issue.
> 
> So if California has 40 million people, they should get 40 million electoral college votes. And if Wyoming has 600,000 people they should get 600,000 electoral college votes.
> 
> Ot take of the millions and call it 40 and 0.



Smh.... that’s a recipe for revolution.


----------



## StevenC (Jan 11, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Smh.... that’s a recipe for revolution.


If you're in the minority, maybe.

Just admit you don't like democracy.


----------



## USMarine75 (Jan 11, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Everyone agrees that ND/SD do not have twice the power of CA in determining who is elected president.
> 
> I've heard this on RT w/ Bill Maher so much I've lost count. What about IL, NY? After all their state populations are a fraction of CA.... To the point-what is your arbitrary threshold of acceptable on this? It's a crap argument.
> 
> Fine merge the Dakotas, but then merge Vermont with NH and possibly Maine, Delaware with MD....though I doubt you'd find those latter items palatable.



Its def not a crap argument. Not in the slightest. And I wasnt arguing for merging states. The Senate was originally established to solicit for the benefit of State's rights which is why Senators weren't originally elected. They've become something different now that they are elected. But they still reflect that all states have equal representation in the Senate, where as the citizenry is reflected by the House. I think having a bicameral Congress with both elements makes sense - will of the people vs State's rights.

And let me be clear I was making an analogy using state power in the Senate. I was typing that as my flight was taking off so I had to be brief and later realized it might not have been clear. And where they are similar is as a check against the rise of Popularism and the idiocracy of the people, as well as to protect the will of the minority.

And FWIW your argument is purely a slippery slope fallacy.


----------



## Rock4ever (Jan 11, 2021)

StevenC said:


> If you're in the minority, maybe.
> 
> Just admit you don't like democracy.



Hot takes like yours call to mind a quote I rather enjoy.

_“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” -H.L. Mencken
_
Just admit you’re ignorant of the flaws and shortcomings of direct democracy. The matter has been discussed by philosophers and thinkers since antiquity. The people who formed this country were aware of them and made careful considerations. 

Nobody in this country EVER moved to a smaller state cuz “MOAR representation”. The notion is absurd. The House represents interests of the populous. California has 53 representatives, while Wyoming has just one. The Senate was created to represent the interests of the states, each state with 2 senators. There is a balance there. Nobody says the US system is perfect, just that it’s pretty damn good.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 11, 2021)

USMarine75 said:


> Its def not a crap argument. Not in the slightest. And I wasnt arguing for merging states.



It’s Maher’s solution to his Senate issues. I incorrectly assumed yours also. My bad.


----------



## StevenC (Jan 11, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Hot takes like yours call to mind a quote I rather enjoy.
> 
> _“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” -H.L. Mencken
> _
> ...


Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not pro-democracy. It's a system that heavily incentivises preying on the ill-informed. See: GOP strategy since 1960s.

I wouldn't advocate for direct democracy if there was a better solution, but the USA is a laughably bad democracy and you wouldn't be defending bad democracy if you were in the majority.

And of course people don't move to Wyoming because they're better represented, because Wyoming is a wasteland. All the good places to live vote Dem. But objectively, 55 votes for 40 million people compared to 3 votes for 600,000 people is unfair and biased towards the fewer.

For some smaller numbers you might have an easier time with:

Imagine one place has 4 people and another place has 0 people. Which place should get to determine what happens to the people?


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## Rock4ever (Jan 11, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not pro-democracy. It's a system that heavily incentivises preying on the ill-informed. See: GOP strategy since 1960s.
> 
> I wouldn't advocate for direct democracy if there was a better solution, but the USA is a laughably bad democracy and you wouldn't be defending bad democracy if you were in the majority.
> 
> ...



I findthe discussion and focus on gop and the southern strategy interesting, but only because it completely ignores what was happening on democratic urban areas- Pols need votes to stay in office, and they got them by keeping unionized blue collar white males/families content and employed by jailing minority males, and growing public aid for those falling behind, and ostensibly also for those affected by their mates/partners incarceration.

Have you been to Wyoming? It might not have pro sports teams, but it is one of this country’s most beautiful states.

Your last line reassures me I’m not the one having problems with numbers....not that there was ever any doubt.


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## StevenC (Jan 11, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> I findthe discussion and focus on gop and the southern strategy interesting, but only because it completely ignores what was happening on democratic urban areas- Pols need votes to stay in office, and they got them by keeping unionized blue collar white males/families content and employed by jailing minority males, and growing public aid for those falling behind, and ostensibly also for those affected by their mates/partners incarceration.
> 
> Have you been to Wyoming? It might not have pro sports teams, but it is one of this country’s most beautiful states.
> 
> Your last line reassures me I’m not the one having problems with numbers....not that there was ever any doubt.


40 and 0.6 might as well be 4 and 0. It's a much better approximation than 55 and 3.

You're basically arguing that people shouldn't decide the president. And if people shouldn't decide the president, why should people they decide anything?

And once again, what are the first three words to the Constitution?


----------



## bostjan (Jan 11, 2021)

0.6 rounds up to one, though, not down to zero.


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## StevenC (Jan 11, 2021)

bostjan said:


> 0.6 rounds up to one, though, not down to zero.


40,000,000 divided by 10,000,000 is 4
600,000 divided by 10,000,000 is not 0.6


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## bostjan (Jan 11, 2021)

Oh yeah, I'm bad at reading, I suppose.

My point is that it'd be fairer to divide votes in such a way that no one gets completely left out. If they told you that you had 0.1 of a vote, that's categorically less worse than having 0 of a vote.

So, whatever point you are ultimately trying to make might be interfered with by your numerical examples.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 11, 2021)

StevenC said:


> 40 and 0.6 might as well be 4 and 0. It's a much better approximation than 55 and 3.
> 
> You're basically arguing that people shouldn't decide the president. And if people shouldn't decide the president, why should people they decide anything?
> 
> And once again, what are the first three words to the Constitution?



We the people. I suspect you’re taking it out of context though.


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## StevenC (Jan 11, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> We the people. I suspect you’re taking it out of context though.


I can't see how I would be, unless the next line is "have no right to establish a constitution and would prefer to live under an unelected king".


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 11, 2021)

StevenC said:


> I can't see how I would be, unless the next line is "have no right to establish a constitution and would prefer to live under an unelected king".



In what ways is the American Democratic system "bad", the system works. The only reason we're seeing outrage in the last two cycles is because of rampart misinformation, and a lack of effort in fortifying people's confidence in their vote and the election as a whole.

I'm the last person you'd see advocating tradition and a need to maintain how we do things. But I don't see the power you're outlining, if you want to count the Dakotas as net 0 electorate vote, then we should just merge the states together then.

You're making a point that the people aren't the ones directly voting a candidate into office, while completely disregarding smaller states' valid representation in the vote count.

Presidents being placed in office in direct opposition to the popular vote occurred 5 times in American History.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 11, 2021)

StevenC said:


> I can't see how I would be, unless the next line is "have no right to establish a constitution and would prefer to live under an unelected king".



Out of context in how WtP makes for a catchy phrase that people try to apply to themselves or in some other contemporaneous manner. The preamble clearly refers to people at the time of document’s creation.


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## StevenC (Jan 11, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> In what ways is the American Democratic system "bad", the system works. The only reason we're seeing outrage in the last two cycles is because of rampart misinformation, and a lack of effort in fortifying people's confidence in their vote and the election as a whole.
> 
> I'm the last person you'd see advocating tradition and a need to maintain how we do things. But I don't see the power you're outlining, if you want to count the Dakotas as net 0 electorate vote, then we should just merge the states together then.
> 
> ...


Electoral college is inherently undemocratic and to your 5 in 250 years I would say two of the last 3 presidents.

The American system incentives a two party system, which incentives polarised policy, which leads to no progress on basically anything ever. Parliamentary systems are way better at this. Parliamentary systems always score higher in democratic measurements than America.

House of Representatives is the most representative part of the US government being the closest to proportional to the general population. But the House has no power to enact the will of the people without approval from the Senate, which has an inherently undemocratic makeup based on arbitrary land allocation, and the president, who as we've seen twice in the last 3 presidents, can be elected by a minority. This leads away from progress and compromise to stonewalling until you get a trifecta and then going for extremism. The system of checks and balances breaks down very quickly, as we've seen in the past 6 to 12 years, when people stop acting in good faith.

A two party system means you only have to paint one group as bad, which is way easier than tarring multiple groups. Awful anti-democratic politicians can sustain long careers because there is no viable alternative and no competition. Mitch McConnell for example has been a total negative for all of his constituents over a long career but all he has to do is say the democrats will kill babies and he won't fear losing his seat.

Rampant misinformation is not a flaw in the system, it's the logical conclusion and where it was always heading. The Senate and electoral college where literally put in place on the assumption that voters wouldn't be informed, allowing senators and electors to misinform constituents.

I don't care about the Dakota. I literally live in a part of my own country that has no sway over the rest, but because we're an insignificant population, how much catering should we really get? They have a lower population because people leave because there's nothing there. They have higher birth rates than pupulous blue states and all of those kids leave for actual pastures. Their outsized representation gets them absolutely nothing positive but gets everyone in the country a lot of negative.

Land shouldn't vote.


Rock4ever said:


> Out of context in how WtP makes for a catchy phrase that people try to apply to themselves or in some other contemporaneous manner. The preamble clearly refers to people at the time of document’s creation.


But none of the rest of the concurrently authored document belonging to "We the People" refers to the time of creation? For example outdated worries of the electorate being unfamiliar with who is running for president leading to the establishment of the electoral college.


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## possumkiller (Jan 12, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Out of context in how WtP makes for a catchy phrase that people try to apply to themselves or in some other contemporaneous manner. The preamble clearly refers to people at the time of document’s creation.


Ahhh... 

So I guess 2a was only meant for the people at the time of its creation. That solves a lot of arguing.


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## diagrammatiks (Jan 12, 2021)

possumkiller said:


> Ahhh...
> 
> So I guess 2a was only meant for the people at the time of its creation. That solves a lot of arguing.



it only refers to ball muskets. that makes everything so much easier.


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## possumkiller (Jan 12, 2021)




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## nightflameauto (Jan 12, 2021)

StevenC said:


> I don't care about the Dakota. I literally live in a part of my own country that has no sway over the rest, but because we're an insignificant population, how much catering should we really get? They have a lower population because people leave because there's nothing there. They have higher birth rates than pupulous blue states and all of those kids leave for actual pastures. Their outsized representation gets them absolutely nothing positive but gets everyone in the country a lot of negative.


As an actual South Dakotan, I do think we have a disproportionate amount of say in the election process, even if it's fairly insignificant already. As a state, we swing hard towards the red every single time, and since we don't have proportionate electoral college votes, my vote (which very, VERY rarely is for the Republican candidate) is essentially worthless. But I know a lot of folks in my area, the largest city in South Dakota (which I'm well aware is a joke in a lot of the country) trend blue. But the rest of the state overwhelms the few scattered blue counties and there we go.

But I do think utterly ignoring less populated areas isn't the right direction to head. Decisions for hugely populated massive cities aren't really going to do a damned thing for a state like South (or North) Dakota. Though, it's not like either party has any damned clue what life is like out here in the wastelands, so I don't know what direction would be helpful.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 12, 2021)

Agreed on the topic of a two party system, it always develops absolutely toxic rhetorics pointing at the other party since it's devolved to low level tribalism at this point.

And yes while the last two republican presidents were indeed minority presidents, there's a few distinct realizations to be had there.

Bush was off by 450k deficit, Bush v Gore goes into more detail about what happened with Florida. With the more recent being Trump with a 2.9m deficit, while far more egregious was still only a 2.1% deficit.

These aren't alarming shifts from the popular vote, I can acknowledge that it could be problematic if this was a regular occurrence. But it is unfortunately a by-product of the system that a state regardless of it's populace is assigned 3 electoral votes by default.

This is Voter Turnout vs a count of Voting capable citizens per state (fdr circa 2019)

*State / V. Count 20 / V. Pop 19 / Turnout % / EV Count
Smaller States*
North Dakota: 347k / 582k / 60% / 3
South Dakota: 411k / 667k / 62% / 3
Rhode Island: 507k / 854k / 59% / 4
Wyoming: 267k / 445k / 60% / 3
Delaware: 597k / 770k / 77.5% / 3
Wash. DC: 335k / 577k / 58% / 3

*Large States*
New York: 8.5m / 15.4m / 55% / 29
Idaho: 841k / 1.3m / 63% / 4
Florida: 11m / 17m / 64% / 29
Texas: 11.2m / 21.6m / 51% / 38
California: 17.1m / 30.6m / 56% / 55
Nevada: 1.4m / 2.4m / 58% / 6

How do you feel about granting/removing Electorate voters not only based on population, but voting population turnout? People canvas and promote voting in larger states because large swaths of the country literally don't vote, smaller states already have significantly higher turnout. Is it fair that California with 56% of the state voting is granted 55 EV? Whereas Delaware has nearly 80% of it's population vote, but is only granted 4 EV.

Like I said, I'm not strapped against tradition but I also don't see disregarding minority opinions based on how insignificant their population is by state will bring us any closer to a system that works invariably more democratically than ours.

But on your other points, I whole heartedly agree. The two party incentivized system is shit, career politicians are shit, and the house not reflecting the balance of the senate could definitely be done better.

Sources:
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/president/
https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...timates-of-the-voting-age-population-for-2019


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## StevenC (Jan 12, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> Agreed on the topic of a two party system, it always develops absolutely toxic rhetorics pointing at the other party since it's devolved to low level tribalism at this point.
> 
> And yes while the last two republican presidents were indeed minority presidents, there's a few distinct realizations to be had there.
> 
> ...


You're making the same argument that the electoral college is dumb and should be abolished. 

California and Delaware should totally both have electoral votes proportional to their voter turn out. Something to the tune of every voter that shows up counts for 1 electoral vote. Do the same with every other state.

On the UK we have the House of Commons (MPs voted in by constituents) and the House of Lords (unelected lifetime appointments for service to the country [controversial]). The Commons is meant to represent the people and the House is meant to be a voice of experience. Currently if a bill passes Commons, it becomes law within a set time limit if the Lord's don't vote it down. This is a super simple solution to the problem in the Senate.

The US Senate needs so much reform because it's totally outdated, way overpowered and very unrepresentative. It often needs 67 votes to do things but needs only 51 to stop things. Just stupid.


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 13, 2021)

Then at the heart of the conversation you're simply for a raw popular vote, no need to delegate it as an Electoral Vote per individual vote. I however wasn't making that point, just because the electoral voting structure has flaws doesn't mean it cannot be balanced in a way that makes it work more fairly, but if the bar is "There should never be a use case where the popular vote doesn't dictate the end result" then it's just not going to happen.

I don't see how the House Commons applies here? I highly doubt the House of Lords would let a national election go unnoticed but if that has happened please let me know. But I know you were comparing it to our Senate and the process of passing new legislature.

I don't think the 67 votes to pass/51 to stop is necessarily stupid. Considering swaying power of corporations and how DC flirts with major businesses, being able to talk to a single Senator and flipping their vote is way too powerful. I don't agree with this, nor do I think that's how it should be but again the reality is usually far more gut wrenching when you have to consider a higher majority to enact new changes to our country so flippantly would be downright chaotic.


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## narad (Jan 13, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> Then at the heart of the conversation you're simply for a raw popular vote, no need to delegate it as an Electoral Vote per individual vote. I however wasn't making that point, just because the electoral voting structure has flaws doesn't mean it cannot be balanced in a way that makes it work more fairly, but if the bar is "There should never be a use case where the popular vote doesn't dictate the end result" then it's just not going to happen.
> 
> I don't see how the House Commons applies here? I highly doubt the House of Lords would let a national election go unnoticed but if that has happened please let me know. But I know you were comparing it to our Senate and the process of passing new legislature.
> 
> I don't think the 67 votes to pass/51 to stop is necessarily stupid. Considering swaying power of corporations and how DC flirts with major businesses, being able to talk to a single Senator and flipping their vote is way too powerful. I don't agree with this, nor do I think that's how it should be but again the reality is usually far more gut wrenching when you have to consider a higher majority to enact new changes to our country so flippantly would be downright chaotic.



Even if it were to work more fairly, it is difficult to justify a system that would give one American's vote 20x more effective power in determining the outcome of the election than another's. The nice thing about a popular vote is you don't have to weasel along this grey area to determine how much more or less each American's vote should weigh in the totals. 

Otherwise it's basically there with the 3/5ths compromise in trying to rate people against each other, this time by location instead of race, but why should either matter?


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## Jonathan20022 (Jan 13, 2021)

narad said:


> Even if it were to work more fairly, it is difficult to justify a system that would give one American's vote 20x more effective power in determining the outcome of the election than another's. The nice thing about a popular vote is you don't have to weasel along this grey area to determine how much more or less each American's vote should weigh in the totals.
> 
> Otherwise it's basically there with the 3/5ths compromise in trying to rate people against each other, this time by location instead of race, but why should either matter?



No qualms with an election via Popular Vote from me, 

My initial post in this thread was to secure the process and actually innovating on the space, while also utilizing tools like Voter ID financially backed to provide all qualifying Americans the tools they need to then place their verified vote.

With the countless dollars spent looking for election fraud in both 2016/2020, I find it null that we can't pursue systems and fund it with all of that money used in wasted efforts trying to overturn election results.


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## StevenC (Jan 13, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> Then at the heart of the conversation you're simply for a raw popular vote, no need to delegate it as an Electoral Vote per individual vote. I however wasn't making that point, just because the electoral voting structure has flaws doesn't mean it cannot be balanced in a way that makes it work more fairly, but if the bar is "There should never be a use case where the popular vote doesn't dictate the end result" then it's just not going to happen.
> 
> I don't see how the House Commons applies here? I highly doubt the House of Lords would let a national election go unnoticed but if that has happened please let me know. But I know you were comparing it to our Senate and the process of passing new legislature.
> 
> I don't think the 67 votes to pass/51 to stop is necessarily stupid. Considering swaying power of corporations and how DC flirts with major businesses, being able to talk to a single Senator and flipping their vote is way too powerful. I don't agree with this, nor do I think that's how it should be but again the reality is usually far more gut wrenching when you have to consider a higher majority to enact new changes to our country so flippantly would be downright chaotic.


America's main issue with voter fraud comes from non-paper ballots. Because voting machines are the least secure means of voting. Every other country has basically figured this out: pencil and paper.

Most places don't require voted IDs because it doesn't really help prevent fraud. It's not a thing in the UK, for example, except Northern Ireland (because of course) where we can use driver's license, passport, bus passes or electoral cards that everyone gets if they were in school at 18.

Once again, this is just a case of America inventing a problem and throwing money at not fixing it because even $1 would prove it's not a problem anyone else has. See: education, healthcare etc.

Commons/Lords example was that if the Senate followed the same rules as Lords "the people" would get the policies they want through or the Senate would have to vote on things and recommend changes. As it is now, the Senate can just obstruct popular things endlessly. Merely having a majority allows you to halt all progress, but you need 2/3 to seriously fix things. Which is dumb.


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## bostjan (Jan 13, 2021)

I'd suggest re-engineering congressional terms. Make representatives eligible for one four-year term and senators eligible for one eight-year term. And make it so that no representative can be elected to the Senate over a four-year cool-down period. That way nobody is campaigning while they are supposed to be legislating. The nation has nearly 330 million people, so it's not like we will run out of people to run for congress.

But, because of the 2/3 thing you are discussing, along with the fact that no congress members will vote to fire themselves, it'll never ever happen.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 13, 2021)

StevenC said:


> As it is now, the Senate can just obstruct popular things endlessly. Merely having a majority allows you to halt all progress, but you need 2/3 to seriously fix things. Which is dumb.



You only need 41 to halt things endlessly.

Edit for clarity- the 41 I state is for invoking cloture on legislative items.

The majority you state applies to executive and judicial nominations.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 13, 2021)

possumkiller said:


> Ahhh...
> 
> So I guess 2a was only meant for the people at the time of its creation. That solves a lot of arguing.


Steven specifically referred to those 1st 3 words.

Boiled down- The preamble goes like this

We the people, for reasons, do ordain and establish this Constitution....

Future people will not be ordaining and establishing the constitution. Existing sections are grandfathered in unless being repealed by amendment eg Amendments 18, 21


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## ResistentialAssultSquadron (Jan 13, 2021)

Voting algorithm developed by Entertainment Tonight producers.
Congress remodeled by producers of Hollywood Squares. And senate, brought to you by the producers of Hee-Haw and Duck Dynasty. Probably wouldn't even notice the differences.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 14, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> You only need 41 to halt things endlessly.
> 
> Edit for clarity- the 41 I state is for invoking cloture on legislative items.
> 
> The majority you state applies to executive and judicial nominations.



Also, Harry Reid deserves credit for the latter.


----------



## Rock4ever (Jan 14, 2021)

StevenC said:


> I literally live in a part of my own country that has no sway over the rest, but because we're an insignificant population, how much catering should we really get? They have a lower population because people leave because there's nothing there. They have higher birth rates than pupulous blue states and all of those kids leave for actual pastures. Their outsized representation gets them absolutely nothing positive but gets everyone in the country a lot of negative.
> 
> Land shouldn't vote.



I'm not going to claim to know the situation in Northern Ireland. I'm just going to stick to my experience.

Like you I'm from the middle of nowhere. The town I grew up in, Murphysboro IL(funny I know. folks over here in WA try to spell it like an Irishman's donkey) had a population of 10k. When I left in 2005 it was 9200 and since I've left it's gone down to 7200 I think. It's also the county seat and there are some low level government jobs there. Going back it feels like I'm travelling in time as very little has changed. A town surrounded by forest and agriculture. A uni in another town 10 miles away. It has an engineering college but its focus is clearly Liberal arts...basket weaving, woke studies, etc.

I feel like this is also political- as in steering people out of these places and into more urban locations whose news media is entirely different slant, which usually means a heavy dose of editorializing at the local level-we know it's there at MSNBC/CNN/FNC ETC. We live in a time where work can literally be sent anywhere. There are some educationed professionals in the town I grew up in but for the most part everyone with a brain just gets out. The area stagnates at best....otherwise it regresses. What's left behind are the those few professionals, people who peaked in high school and an aged population. Technology has advanced faster than these people keep up. Media/news outlets do have an impact on people's views that I think is underestimated.


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## Rock4ever (Jan 14, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> I'm not going to claim to know the situation in Northern Ireland. I'm just going to stick to my experience.
> 
> Like you I'm from the middle of nowhere. The town I grew up in, Murphysboro IL(funny I know. folks over here in WA try to spell it like an Irishman's donkey) had a population of 10k. When I left in 2005 it was 9200 and since I've left it's gone down to 7200 I think. It's also the county seat and there are some low level government jobs there. Going back it feels like I'm travelling in time as very little has changed. A town surrounded by forest and agriculture. A uni in another town 10 miles away. It has an engineering college but its focus is clearly Liberal arts...basket weaving, woke studies, etc.
> 
> I feel like this is also political- as in steering people out of these places and into more urban locations whose news media is entirely different slant, which usually means a heavy dose of editorializing at the local level-we know it's there at MSNBC/CNN/FNC ETC. We live in a time where work can literally be sent anywhere. There are some educationed professionals in the town I grew up in but for the most part everyone with a brain just gets out. The area stagnates at best....otherwise it regresses. What's left behind are the those few professionals, people who peaked in high school and an aged population. Technology has advanced faster than these people keep up. Media/news outlets do have an impact on people's views that I think is underestimated.



Is there a fucking edit button?! I find one when I'm on my phone/ipad do not one when on pc.

EDIT and then the edit button presents when I quote myself as I did in the above but not regularly?!


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## possumkiller (Jan 14, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> Is there a fucking edit button?! I find one when I'm on my phone/ipad do not one when on pc.
> 
> EDIT and then the edit button presents when I quote myself as I did in the above but not regularly?!


It's got a timer so people can't say a bunch of stupid shit and then go back later and pretend they didn't.


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## Masoo2 (Jan 15, 2021)

Rock4ever said:


> I'm not going to claim to know the situation in Northern Ireland. I'm just going to stick to my experience.
> 
> Like you I'm from the middle of nowhere. The town I grew up in, Murphysboro IL(funny I know. folks over here in WA try to spell it like an Irishman's donkey) had a population of 10k. When I left in 2005 it was 9200 and since I've left it's gone down to 7200 I think. It's also the county seat and there are some low level government jobs there. Going back it feels like I'm travelling in time as very little has changed. A town surrounded by forest and agriculture. A uni in another town 10 miles away. It has an engineering college but its focus is clearly Liberal arts...basket weaving, woke studies, etc.
> 
> I feel like this is also political- as in steering people out of these places and into more urban locations whose news media is entirely different slant, which usually means a heavy dose of editorializing at the local level-we know it's there at MSNBC/CNN/FNC ETC. We live in a time where work can literally be sent anywhere. There are some educationed professionals in the town I grew up in but for the most part everyone with a brain just gets out. The area stagnates at best....otherwise it regresses. What's left behind are the those few professionals, people who peaked in high school and an aged population. Technology has advanced faster than these people keep up. Media/news outlets do have an impact on people's views that I think is underestimated.


I too grew up in the same kind of town, the one where the few that remain either work unskilled manual labor (fast food, Walmart, lawncare) or occupy one of the few skilled labor/professional slots that a town this small could handle (one dentist, one pediatrician, a plumber or two, one electrician, etc). It's not even like the unskilled manual labor is factory work, the majority of those factory jobs are long gone. Everyone I knew who had the opportunity to leave, whether to go to college in any capacity (not just STEM) or enlist in the military, did so and never returned, myself included. Technology and education truly has advanced faster than these small towns are able to keep up with, but is that not the case everywhere? How can you prevent the ever-growing urban-rural divide when that's been the reality of the developed world for hundreds of years?

Also why the liberal arts hate, it's not like people don't get jobs with those degrees lol. I expected you to drop a "Gender Studies" in with the basket weaving and woke studies when in reality it's a fantastic interdisciplinary field with tons of job opportunities in HR, NGOs/non-profits/IGOs, federal/state jobs, or being used to go to law school with.



StevenC said:


> America's main issue with voter fraud comes from non-paper ballots. Because voting machines are the least secure means of voting. Every other country has basically figured this out: pencil and paper.


I understand risks associated with electronic voting, whether on physical voting machines at polling locations or on your own device, but I've never understood the argument that paper ballots are any more secure. If you know of any studies or papers published on the topic please send them over because it's something I've long wondered.

On the surface, paper voting to me seems the most vulnerable of all forms. You're trusting that your little slip of paper is actually taken at the polling station, placed into the right shipping box, is actually placed onto the truck, is actually delivered to the counting station, and is counted accurately all the while countless hands could have potentially tampered with the vote along the way with as much as a simple pen. Not to mention that in most US states you aren't able to actually confirm the voting status of your ballot once submitted until after the election, meaning there's no way of knowing if the candidates you marked on your ballot actually received the votes. It just seems that there's so much more room for error.

I've always liked the way Estonia handled voting, similar feelings about how they handle everything else through their e-Estonia system. You're even allowed to change your vote as many times as you want until the voting period has ended, something not possible with a paper ballot.


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## Millul (Jan 17, 2021)

Masoo2 said:


> I too grew up in the same kind of town, the one where the few that remain either work unskilled manual labor (fast food, Walmart, lawncare) or occupy one of the few skilled labor/professional slots that a town this small could handle (one dentist, one pediatrician, a plumber or two, one electrician, etc). It's not even like the unskilled manual labor is factory work, the majority of those factory jobs are long gone. Everyone I knew who had the opportunity to leave, whether to go to college in any capacity (not just STEM) or enlist in the military, did so and never returned, myself included. Technology and education truly has advanced faster than these small towns are able to keep up with, but is that not the case everywhere? How can you prevent the ever-growing urban-rural divide when that's been the reality of the developed world for hundreds of years?
> 
> Also why the liberal arts hate, it's not like people don't get jobs with those degrees lol. I expected you to drop a "Gender Studies" in with the basket weaving and woke studies when in reality it's a fantastic interdisciplinary field with tons of job opportunities in HR, NGOs/non-profits/IGOs, federal/state jobs, or being used to go to law school with.
> 
> ...



I think in most places, votes are counted locally where they are casted.
No shipping, no manipulations, no sheanigans.


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## Vyn (Jan 19, 2021)

I think it can be done BI-partisanly, where the two parties are the Dems and whatever is left of the Republicans after the Trumpite scum is glassed out of the fucking universe.

It's actually going to take a good couple of generations to fix this


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## Andromalia (Jan 20, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Fixing the election process in the US is inherently partisan because the GOP have known for decades that voter suppression is their only path to victory.



That is the main issue: the GOP doesn't, in good faith, want the elections to work.

The only way this can work is, one man, one vote, and each vote having equal weight. You don't need state weighting coming in or indirect suffrage when electing a single individual to a federal position.



> I think in most places, votes are counted locally where they are casted.



Works that way in France. Ballots are opened in the voting office, with representatives from every political party that wants to attend checking everything is done right.
This the actual safest way, because the more you put technology in, the easier it becomes to tamper with the result. Manually counting sheets of paper works, and changing it will bring no benefit. I do participate in ballot openings from time to time, and it's overall a pretty good experience, you feel you are actually doing something useful. 
The only pain is having to deal with the racists checking on me every 5 mn because of the long hair and not very far-right looks I usually have.


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## Millul (Jan 21, 2021)

Yep, it works like that in italy as well, and I've participated into it once - I think it's a reasonably solid system.


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