Get out and Vote

[Comancheseven]

Today is the day, make sure you go and vote. This election may be the most important election we have faced in our lifetime. The stakes to our Freedom and our Country are too great. Vote for Freedom!

I am the NRA and I Vote.

Thanks.. Dave

 

[Pistolgripshotty]

I agree this election alone will impact us for the next 30 years

 

[Stressfire]

I am the NRA and I Vote.

Cheers!

Regardless of the candidate(s) one chooses to support, however, we should all be supporting and exercising this right just as fervently as we support our 2A rights.

Now if only we can do away with this electoral college nonsense

 

[zxcvbob]

Now if only we can do away with this electoral college nonsense

The electoral college is actually good, even though it's not obvious. For one thing, can you imagine if there was a national election where the outcome was a virtual tie? (Florida 2000, but the whole country) We would never finish the recount.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Actually, the biggest problem with our voting system is the "All and Nothing" opinion that it forces.

I can't vote for one candidate without giving 100% of my support to that person and 0% to the others. ALL the others.

Range Voting makes far more sense. It lets the voter give an honest opinion about EVERY candidate instead of choosing "the lesser of two evils". Particularly, since there are a lot more than 2 choices, in reality.

 

[zukiphile]

BP, the "all or nothing" trait isn't a problem -- it's a feature.

A voter's nuanced opinion of a wide range of candidates isn't the subject of an election.

I believe that two party, pick A or B, voting gives people greater policy choice than other systems that accommodate niche tastes.

The latter come in a couple of flavors. One of those would be a proportional representation parliamentary system. You end up with a few fringe party seats that are rarely consequential and several of the larger factions keeping more or less stable shares of seats over time.

The range voting you describe would only serve to delete the strength of the plurality or majority the single winning candidate would show. This would not itself lend that office holder any greater legitimacy.

In the two party format, politically active people get fairly good input at the primary level, offering people the likelihood of a simple majority victory in the post-distillation process. That's frustrating for people who don't feel included in that two party choice, but if your candidate could make it through one of the party primaries, it is exceedingly unlikely he would prevail in any kind of general election.

Just my two cents.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

BP, the "all or nothing" trait isn't a problem -- it's a feature.

I disagree.

The USA was not intended to be a 2 party political system. Unfortunately, popular vote systems encourage the reduction of choices over time by giving incentive to combine forces and gain influence until only the two remain. It doesn't take very long either. We've been saddled with the two choices that we have today since about 1820, with only a few name changes along the way. We've been forced into the least competitive system in the free world.

Forcing an "All and Nothing" vote can also cause a candidate who would LOSE to ANY of the others, if it were a two way race, to actually WIN.

Think about that. The LEAST popular choice can WIN, and it's because of the "All and Nothing" nature of of system.

Range voting takes nothing away from a truly popular candidate. That candidate will still get more support than any of the TRULY less popular opponents. What it does is give the people a COMPLETE voice and breaks the strangle-hold the two party system has on our options.

 

[mobayjd]

DONE!

 

[zukiphile]

I don't know whether you've spent much time with the site in your first link. Some of its claim strike me as especially dubious.

The LEAST popular choice can WIN, and it's because of the "All and Nothing" nature of of system.

That isn't correct in a literal sense, since the person who gets fewer votes is categorically less popular than the one who gets more. The harm indicated in the link, that a plurality candidate would prevail, can be solved by a simple run-off in which voters make an actual choice rather than express contingent and hypothetical preferences.

"All or nothing" represents the choice made in an election so long as the winner gets "All" of the office for which he runs and the other get none of that office.

There are ways to re-jigger that in parliamentary systems, but for the reasons I noted above the result can be a sort of parliamentary trench warfare that can actually result in a narrower band of policy over time, with the range determined by the parliamentary coalition builders rather than those who elected them.

At a very practical level, we seem to have sufficient difficulty counting votes now in a simple majority, one man one vote model. I would have little hope that a system lots of voters would not understand at a conceptual level would result in the kind of clarity that would settle an election.

 

[JimPage]

Voted at 9:00am EST. Easy voting here (upstate NY). Mark a paper ballot, put into a scanner and the computer does the rest. Just have to trust it. I assume there is sampling taken to make sure the computer reads the ballot correctly.

I didn't see any Black Panthers, but I'm not in Philly. No Pink Panthers either.

I'll be glad when the suspense is over. Buy lots of ammo now.

 

[Al Norris]

I have just returned from doing my civic duty (and now getting ready for work).

The Rupert Civic Center was busy... Talked to the ladies and they told me that there were folks lined up at 7am when they opened the polls. Been brisk for the last 2 hours.

This bodes well for a large turnout, at least in our county. Many first time voters and registrations, causing delays for those of us already registered. No grumbles, though.

 

[SIMP]

Our polls here in Mississippi opened at 7:00 CST. I was in and out by 7:20 which wasn't too bad.

 

[jmortimer]

The USA was not intended to be a 2 party political system
Yes, and it was hoped that would never happen by the founders, but ideology quickly morphed into a party system. I'm not sure the multi-party system is any better. It is all messy and bitter, then as it is now.

 

[Don P]

Better may be to do away with the electoral vote and go with the one who has the most votes in his column wins. Simplifies things and does away with the battle ground stuff. All total I spent 1 hour from the time I hit the line until I was out the door. An hour well spent

 

[Comancheseven]

I just returned home from voting, I did my duty for my Country. Now we just have to wait to see if the majorty of the American People can see through the fog of B.S.

Dave

 

[BGutzman]

Done! I must say I passed a polling station at 7 this morning that had almost every spot in the parking lot filled. In 2008 the same place was maybe 45% - 50% full at the same time of day. I dont know what to read from the parking lot tea leaves but it seems obvious theres a lot of emotion out there no matter what side your on.

 

[Tom Servo]

I wish I could say the same. When I walked into my polling station, I singlehandedly doubled the turnout. The parking lot was empty but for the cars of the folks working there.

I asked if this is how it had been all day, and they said yes. The biggest "rush" was in the morning, and even then, there was no wait for the 5 ballot machines they had.

This isn't a rural small town, either. It's a major suburb of Atlanta.

 

[MLeake]

With regard to the electoral college, just had this discussion a half hour ago with a friend (a Texan).

He felt we should get rid of the electoral colllege.

I pointed out that doing so would enable candidates to ignore smaller states and small towns, and focus on LA, Chicago, NYC... So most national level decisions would bias even more toward large urban area voters.

My Texan friend now thinks maybe the electoral college is not all bad.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Aye. The Electoral College definitely serves a purpose, even if only to get candidates campaigning more places that just the most populated cities.

10.5% of the U.S. population can be found in just 20 of the largest cities.
53% of the U.S. population can be found in just 10 states.

Link.
Link.
Link.

 

[JimPage]

Electoral college was designed to do that in theory, and I believe it worked for awhile. But since then (over a hundred years ago) the electoral college itself draws the same attention to the states with the most electoral votes.

The easiest way to address this issue is to make the electoral college votes from each state proportional to the votes cast for different candidates within that state. Winner takes all in any state is silly and not representative.