US's voting system

[cityStatic]

Do you agree or disagree with the Electoral College?

I hate it. A great example of why is the 2000 vote. Al Gore had 50,999,897 votes and Bush had 50,456,002, but Bush won because he had 271 Electoral Votes and Gore had 266 (should've had 267).

 

[Watch Me Sink]

I agree with you there (not on the Bush thing, the not liking the electoral college).

It was created because the founding fathers didn't think that citizens were educated enough to vote for President directly. Back then, national elections were mostly determined by representatives, and they would vote for whoever they liked, with some of the public's opinion. Now representatives rarely vote against what their state determines, when it comes to popular vote.

 

[katy perry is hot]

I disagree with it too, and it was because of that crap that we ended up with Bush in 2001.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

The electoral college didn't even elect the president in 2000; the conservative Supreme Court did.

 

[MissTake]

Does anyone know the turn out percentage of voters for the USA? In the UK it is very low, something like 28%.......

 

[Deleted member 1609]

The voter turnout in the USA was 56.8% for the most recent election (2008). I had to double check because I wasn't sure of the exact number. However, voter turnout in 2008 was the highest in at least forty years.

 

[cityStatic]

In 2000 it was 51.3%, in 2004 it was 55.3%, and in 2008 it was 56.8%.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

Voter turnout in the United States has never been that high. The only reason it seemed high in the nineteenth century was because of all the voter fraud.

 

[cityStatic]

Voter turnout in the United States has never been that high. The only reason it seemed high in the nineteenth century was because of all the voter fraud.

And no race has been so one-sided as the 2008 was in a long time.

 

[MissTake]

People here in the UK have lost all heart with all parties....we are due a general election very soon but I don't think anything will change. Our system votes for local candidates, whichever party get the majority candidates into parliament wins.....is that the same as the USA?

 

[Deleted member 1609]

Are you forgetting about the Reagan elections?

 

[fantanoice]

It's flawed, IMO. You don't get anywhere near the 'official' opinion of the entire country's population simply because about half of them can't be arsed going to electoral.

It's ridiculous.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

People here in the UK have lost all heart with all parties....we are due a general election very soon but I don't think anything will change. Our system votes for local candidates, whichever party get the majority candidates into parliament wins.....is that the same as the USA?

Not exactly. We elect both local and federal candidates to represent us. Also, in the United States, the parties don't have as much power.

The Democrats are the more liberal party (like your Labour party), and the Republicans are the more conservative party (like your Conservative party, of course). The Democrats control both houses of Congress (the House of Representatives being like your House of Commons and the Senate being like your House of Lords) and the presidency, but they still can't pass their entire agenda because the Republicans can unanimously vote no, and there's also a "centrist" faction of the Democratic party that currently tends to side more with the Republicans. One party controlling everything doesn't necessarily mean that everything gets done like in a parliamentary system. Also, the entire party system in the UK is probably shifted to the left a bit. In other words, all your politicans are probably more liberal than their counterparts in the United States would be.

 

[MissTake]

Oh my, that sounds a bit long winded?

Our Labour party used to be for the working classes but not so much now, they are more conservative than the conservatives! Speaking as an outsider Obama seemed to be a new breath of fresh air to the US I may be wrong? We could use someone like that over here.....a man of action, not just full of hot air!

Why can they not just make things simple, everyone vote for the man/woman they want in in a general election and vote for the regional candidates throughout the year? life is never that easy huh?

 

[Nebulous]

I think it should be by the popular vote too. The people as a whole should decide the outcome.

 

[cityStatic]

Are you forgetting about the Reagan elections?

Pfft. 20 years is a long time for me. Mainly because I haven't been around that long...

 

[MissTake]

Whether you've been around that long or not, it's still history. I've been around twice that time and seen some corkers of elections. :roll: A fair vote is all anyone should ask for, many countries even now still have rigged voting, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Zimbabwi.....Florida :lol:

Changing a countries voting system has proved to be very difficult in the past, could America really cope with that kind of change or would it all fall apart in chaos? :shrug:

 

[cityStatic]

Whether you've been around that long or not, it's still history.

We were talking about margins of victory. 😛

 

[el canadiano]

Do you agree or disagree with the Electoral College?

I hate it. A great example of why is the 2000 vote. Al Gore had 50,999,897 votes and Bush had 50,456,002, but Bush won because he had 271 Electoral Votes and Gore had 266 (should've had 267).

Want to know why? It's because the United States uses a first-past-the-post system of voting. Most countries' democracy system is like that.

I'd love to see some Proportional Representation electoral systems come to more developed nations (I know New Zealand has a hybrid first-past-the-post and proportional representation system). However, what I find inefficient is how long elections take. It drags on for years, just face it. I remembered when Canada had an election called in June, 2008, and ended just two months later. Maybe I'm just too used to parliamentary systems that Canada, UK, Australia, etc. have.

On a slightly unrelated note, I'd like to see voting mandatory like in Australia. I'm elligible to vote in November, and I would be more than willing to cast my vote.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

Re:

I'd like to see voting mandatory like in Australia.

Too many lazy people here in the USA. It took women and African-Americans hundreds of years to get suffrage, yet not all of them vote. Whites are lazy too (in case somebody calls me a racist or a sexist).