F... US voting bureaucracy

Is anyone else sick of the way we elect officials? This archaic system needs to be overhauled. We make it far more difficult. We need to get rid of the electoral college and we need to get rid of this whole delegate system for primaries. This system worked great when it took months for information to travel, but it’s time for us to move to popular vote. We have the technology to see what the American people think. No more wasted votes if you live in an overwhelmingly Democratic/Republican state.

Am I alone in being sick of this? Does it really add anything to the process? I’m going to be very upset if the super delegates end up deciding the Democratic primary instead of the voters.

One of the good things about the electoral college is that it takes the pressure off of a vote that would wind up roughly 50/50. If a popular vote (for an important election) was split down the middle, like + or - 2%, you'd have 2000 all over again, in every state. It would be mass chaos.

It is a pretty outdated system though, and could use some refining. I'm just not sure that straight up-popular vote is the best way to go.

The Super Delegates that the Dems use are not very fair to the rest of us, but the Electoral College system works.

The electoral college makes it worth a candidate's time to go to places like South Dakota or Maine and campaign. With a straight popular vote, they would never have to leave Washington, New York, and Los Angeles. I can understand why some people, who view the middle part of the country as extraneous anyway, would not be bothered by that, but IMO, it would have the further, detrimental consequence of making politicians in Washington even more isolated from the people.

The electoral college makes it worth a candidate's time to go to places like South Dakota or Maine and campaign. With a straight popular vote, they would never have to leave Washington, New York, and Los Angeles. I can understand why some people, who view the middle part of the country as extraneous anyway, would not be bothered by that, but IMO, it would have the further, detrimental consequence of making politicians in Washington even more isolated from the people.

Very good point - the only places that would really matter would be the larger population centers. It wouldn't so much be a country-wide vote campaign as it would be candidates catering exclusively to densely populated urban areas.

The electoral college makes it worth a candidate's time to go to places like South Dakota or Maine and campaign. With a straight popular vote, they would never have to leave Washington, New York, and Los Angeles. I can understand why some people, who view the middle part of the country as extraneous anyway, would not be bothered by that, but IMO, it would have the further, detrimental consequence of making politicians in Washington even more isolated from the people.

EXACTLY. If we elected by the popular vote, the candidates would ignore the entire nation except New York City, L.A., Detroit and Chicago.

They'd also have to have agendas tailored more towards urban populations (aka welfare crowd) since they hold a lot of the population...

The MAJORITY of the nation would be screwed.

Take a look at the 2000 and 2004 election maps. The blue represents the votes for the Democrat candidate. Notice how the only places they really won individual county popular votes were concentrated mainly around large cities: New York, CA cities, Phoenix, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philly, Miami, St. Louis, Seattle, Pittsburgh. The remainder of the country voted the opposite way and under the electoral college system, the majority of the nation gets a candidate that represents them. If we elected by popular vote, you can see only a few miles of the thousands of miles of the nation would be represented by the winner, which would be a bad thing for the majority of the nation. Also, the winner of the electoral votes in nearly every election ALSO wins the popular vote, so the system DOES work for both the majority of AREA and POPULATION of the nation.

2000:
http://realclearpolitics.com/news_images-on_site/countymap.jpg

2004:
http://realclearpolitics.com/images/rcp%20electoral/2004_results_by_county..gif
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/images/rcp%2520electoral/2004_results_by_county..gif

im not sure how i stand on this. i do see a need for every small town to have the vote counted. but the bigger cities is where all the revenue to run the government comes from. in voting, you can carry 3 of the smaller states, gaining all of their votes from the electoral college. but the actual voter count from 3 of the smaller states would still probably be less then that of new york city. does this mean that if everyone in new york city wanted a certain candidate for president, their vote shouldn't count as much? i guess the popular vote should decide. does anyone know of any other country that uses anything close to the system that we use?

So god forbid a majority of the PEOPLE elect a president? Are you sure? Yes, North Dakota would miss out on campaigning. I realize what a shame that is, but how many people actually go to campaign events to decide who to vote for? Has anyone on this board gone to a campaign event and changed their mind? I doubt it. We have all the information easily available via the internet now. Campaigning is more of a pep rally than a way to bring people over to your side.

I don't understand why you're equating land mass to population. If a MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE (aka the welfare crowd as you ignorantly put) want a candidate, why should the less than 2 million people in north dakota have such a big impact?

So god forbid a majority of the PEOPLE elect a president? Are you sure? Yes, North Dakota would miss out on campaigning. I realize what a shame that is, but how many people actually go to campaign events to decide who to vote for? Has anyone on this board gone to a campaign event and changed their mind? I doubt it. We have all the information easily available via the internet now. Campaigning is more of a pep rally than a way to bring people over to your side.

I don't understand why you're equating land mass to population. If a MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE (aka the welfare crowd as you ignorantly put) want a candidate, why should the less than 2 million people in north dakota have such a big impact?
this is a great point. its called making numbers look any way you want them to.

So god forbid a majority of the PEOPLE elect a president? Are you sure? Yes, North Dakota would miss out on campaigning. I realize what a shame that is, but how many people actually go to campaign events to decide who to vote for? Has anyone on this board gone to a campaign event and changed their mind? I doubt it. We have all the information easily available via the internet now. Campaigning is more of a pep rally than a way to bring people over to your side.

I don't understand why you're equating land mass to population. If a MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE (aka the welfare crowd as you ignorantly put) want a candidate, why should the less than 2 million people in north dakota have such a big impact?

I think it is less about campaigning and more about avoiding politicians making sure ALL the money and benefits our gov't can offer going to only those places with high population density. If we went straight popular vote and I were a politician willing do whatever it took to get elected I'd make sure NY, LA Chicago, etc... KNEW I was looking out for them specifically. That's what the elctoral college seeks to do...avoid making certain people voiceless.