Election Methodologies Discussion WARNING: HERE BE DRAGONS!!!

[Gamerprinter]

When I said, "political pros", I did not mean career politicians, rather people spending at least a limited term in the full time job of politicking. I could see it as a way of community service that many people from many backgrounds could serve in these positions.

Still, someone with some familiarity and interest in the matters at hand. I'm still refering to such as "them" as in "not me".

I'm all for the democratic process in our government. I couldn't do it, I'd have to be a dictator to participate, I'm not good with "committees". I've some experience in a board of directors for an Art organization - I don't play well with other committee members. Its not for me...

GP

[Karro]

OK, I voted today, and for whom, well that's my business, however...

I'm all for online voting, by popular vote only and complete elimination of the electoral college. I still believe we need political professionals like senators and representatives to ply congressional muck to respond to their constituents, but shouldn't have overriding power to the popular vote.

With hacking, is there a possibility of fraud, sure but money is exchanged fairly securely online. The level of voting fraud is far less than the joke of local voting laws which allow for all kinds of manipulation, every state, often even every county within a state has its own method and requirements for voting - such that corruption is fairly easy.

By applying the popular vote, the big enemy (in my eyes), lobby groups would have far less power, since the real vote comes from individuals not the "college".

Oh, don't get me started on what's wrong with American politics - I don't want to go there!

GP

I disagree that the Electoral College should be eliminated. It serves an important function, one of which is to ensure that the many do not trample the rights and beliefs of the few. One of the key successes of America is allowing the majority to have its way only after compromising with the minority in order to ensure that both are as satisfied as possible. The Electoral College enshrines this into the process of choosing a President by ensuring that smaller/more rural/low-population states still have some power--i.e. they are garaunteed 3 Electoral Votes, no matter how small their population, by virtue of having 2 Senators and a Representative in Congress, and no matter what happens to their population, they won't lose those 3 votes.

Conversely, however, I believe that Election procedures, laws, and rules ought to be standardized across the nation. However, this shouldn't be done at the Federal Level, but at the State level. This, for example, is how UPCs and Seat Belt Laws became ubiquitous: not by Federal mandate, but by States banding together and agreeing as one to adopt these standards. It's hard to get the individual States to agree, but it can and should be done, IMO.

Further, I think part of this standardization of the Electoral College process should involve Electoral Vote apportionment. The 2 Senate-based Electors should be pledged to the overall State winner and the remaining Electors in each State should roughly match the net popular vote in that State (This means that a State with only 3 Electors will have all three pledged to the overall winner in that State, but a large State like California with 50+ Electors would have a number of their Electors split between the two main Candidates).

I also think another major problem with American Politics is that we remain a 2 Party System. This ensures that only the most extreme views on either side are the ones nominated by each party: the only way to get Nominated by your Party is to pander to the basest and most reactionary elements at the fringe of your party. (That Obama was able to shift his campaign back somewhat toward the Center, where politically the vast majority of Americans lie, was likely a Herculean feat, and necessary for his final victory.)

I disagree, also that the Electoral College has anything to do with the power of lobbyists (though I agree with Joe that Term Limits on Senators and Representatives could help--especially Term Limits with Senators, who are less beholden to the voting public at large, being elected for 6 years at a time, and therefore more susceptible to the temptations and evils of wealthy lobbyists).

Unfortunately, I don't know a good solution to Lobbying, at the moment, since anything that wiped away the power of large corporate lobbyists would also eliminate the influence of groups of actual concerned citizens, constituents, and voters who had organized to get their opinion known by their Congresspersons. And finding something that would pass the muster of respecting Freedom of Speech would have to be delicately crafted. Unfortunately, our system is currently designed such that it is in our Congress' economic self interest not to craft any such legislation that would eliminate the power and influence of corporate lobbyists.

[jfrazierjr]

I also think another major problem with American Politics is that we remain a 2 Party System. This ensures that only the most extreme views on either side are the ones nominated by each party: the only way to get Nominated by your Party is to pander to the basest and most reactionary elements at the fringe of your party. (That Obama was able to shift his campaign back somewhat toward the Center, where politically the vast majority of Americans lie, was likely a Herculean feat, and necessary for his final victory.)

I agree that the 2 party power structure is a horrible thing. However, to play devils advocate for a second, multi party systems have not always worked out to well. As an example, my understanding is that there were over 100 political parties(200+ IIRC) in Germany after World War I. I want to state emphatically, that I am not a history major, nor should I be considered an expert. In any event, the German people were fairly destitute and the political infighting between so many parties pretty much meant nothing could get accomplished to help the average Joe in the country. Also, note that this was around the time of the US Great Depression so this whole time period was bad for everyone in the world. Ultimatly, this political infighting lead to a few parties banding together and this lead to the power rise of Hitler. Hitler then began creating his secret police force to silent opponents as well as increasing his military might (which was expressly forbidden by the WWI treaty).

Of course, history is always re-written by the winners of any conflict to make themselves look better, so take this all with a grain of salt and look into the facts and make up your own mind. Your conclusions could be different from mine.

[jfrazierjr]

Unfortunately, our system is currently designed such that it is in our Congress' economic self interest not to craft any such legislation that would eliminate the power and influence of corporate lobbyists.

Agreed. That's why we have the abysmal tax system we have. It is really in neither parties favor to make sweeping overhauls of the US tax system. But really, is there any reason for it to be 60,000 pages (or what ever the crazy number is). Why can't it be simple, perhaps 15 pages via some form of National Sales tax. No deductions, no credits, no paper work to keep up with. Personally, I favor the Fair Tax(132 pages) idea brought forth by Congressman John Linder(R-GA) and Neil Boortz(Talk show host), but again, such things get little to no play in Washington due to lobbyists whose interests would not be served. I would expect that large number of lobbyist spend majority of their time dealing with tax issues and such a plan would eliminate this junk entirely.