Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 20:01:28 12/02/00
Go up one level in this thread
On December 02, 2000 at 22:01:02, Michael Cummings wrote: >On December 02, 2000 at 10:04:09, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On December 01, 2000 at 23:54:32, David Rasmussen wrote: >> >>>On December 01, 2000 at 16:01:07, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>>Inside the states, it _is_ one person, one vote. At the federal level, the >>>>states are given an equal starting point in the electoral college (each state >>>>gets 2 votes regardless of the population, then a proportion of electoral >>>>votes matching their proportion of the total population.) >>>> >>>>The scheme makes perfect sense. And has stood the test of time for > 200 >>>>years. It works and isn't broken in the least... >>> >>>Well, as I've said, I don't think it works. It's a matter of what you call >>>democratic. You're just stating an opinion, you're not arguing WHY you think it >>>works. I've argued as to why I DON'T think it works. I haven't heard any >>>counterarguments. >> >> >>I don't know why you refuse to read, but here goes again. The US is a >>collection of 50 individual states, with individual state governments, with >>an overall federal authority sitting on top of them. When the framers of >>the constitution considered this authority, they felt (and rightly so) that >>popular vote would not work. At the time the constitution was drawn up, >>there were 13 original colonies that became states. 75% of the population >>was in 2 or 3 of the colonies. Which meant they would control _all_ federal >>government decisions. As a result, the senate and house were defined, with >>the house voting on popular vote lines, and the senate giving each state >>equal voice. To select the president, these were combined into the electoral >>college concept. Makes perfect sense. Has worked perfectly for > 200 years. >>Will probably work fine for another 200 years. >> >>People have rights. So do individual states. Without the electoral college, >>35 out of the 50 states would have _no_ say-so in the presidential election >>process at all. Hence the need for the electoral college to give even sparsely >>populated states a say... > >Maybe have worked perfectly for the past 200 years but right not it is not >working, which basically I think has to do not with how it works, but how the >votes are counted. > >I do not understand how some places can have three mechanical recounts and each >vary by thousands of votes after each count. To me the technology is flawed and >I think that is what should be challenged. Of course their is a small degree of >corruption, every election in any country has that. But to me it is allot easier >to do it on mass when technology starts to play a part. Just so you know, _all_ of the following are true: 1. there is _no_ perfect voting methodology. Some are more error-prone than others (punched cards comes to mind) but _all_ have an error rate that is larger than the margin in the Florida election. 2. there is _no_ way to prevent corruption. There are ways to attempt to control it. But it is _impossible_ to eliminate, when you have 100 million potential votes to deal with. 3. recounting 6 million of anything, since the error rate can not be zero, is going to produce a different answer the second time. And the third time. All within the standard error for the process, generally, but errors still. 4. 99% of the time, the election isn't close enough to make the error rate significant. This is an exception. 5. The US will have a new president soon, and things will be back to normal quickly, and things will run smoothly for the next 4 years, until the next election.
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