Re: Re: nader/green party (political - duh)

["Peter T. Chattaway" <petert@interchange.ubc.ca>]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Bethany Keeley wrote:
> but if someone is (hypothetically) a democrat in a largely republican
> area, it makes no difference if they vote at all, becasue everyone knows
> that the republican candidate will win all the electoral votes.  

Well, if Democrat (or any other) voters are that fatalistic, they deserve
what they get for not voting.

> Even if there are more americans who want a particular candidate,
> arbitrary districting (and sometimes intentional districting) can skew
> the results one direction or another.

Of course they can -- they're *supposed* to.  If the voting public wants a
certain President by a wide margin, then the Electoral College makes the
margin even wider.  And if the vote is so close as to indicate the public
evidently can't make up its mind, then the Electoral College breaks the
tie.  If you want to find a way to make the districting *less* arbitrary,
then that might be a good thing.  But banning districting altogether is
just asking for trouble.  For all practical intents and purposes, the
Electoral College *only* makes a difference when the vote is so close it
stands to reason the candidates would be demanding recounts.  And I
repeat, I don't think you'd want to be doing that nation-wide.

> > > This seems un-democratic to me, especially in the world of mass
> > > communication and global culture.
> >
> > Uh, what has "global culture" got to do with national elections?
>
> I chose the word "global" badly.  What I mean is that the electoral
> system was originally set up so that people could vote well by selecting
> someone locally to make a decision on behalf of their community.  Then
> community was much more geographical, but now the community that
> influences thought and ideology is not neccisarily geographically based.

Fair point.  But there are still good reasons for having the Electoral
College system *now*, even if they are different from the reasons for
which it was set up in the first place.

--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter@chattaway.com ---
Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments; only afterwards do they
   claim remembrance, on account of their scars. -- Chris Marker, La Jetee

---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/OtR/