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An electoral map by county

Does this map of electoral results by county make you glad we have the EC?

  • yes

    Votes: 9 33.3%

  • no

    Votes: 16 59.3%

  • not sure

    Votes: 2 7.4%
  • Total voters
    27
AliHajiSheik said:
No, the Queen doesn't appoint the political party leaders.

Do you think you have more say over who the leader of Canada is than the Queen?
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Don't know what you're getting at here. The Queen doesn't even have a vote in Canadian politics.
Are you referring to the Governor General? Who asks the Prime Minister to form a government in Parliament?
 
Grand Mal said:
Don't know what you're getting at here. The Queen doesn't even have a vote in Canadian politics.
Are you referring to the Governor General? Who asks the Prime Minister to form a government in Parliament?
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My question was straightforward, do you or don't you have more say who the leader of Canada is than the Queen?
 
AliHajiSheik said:
My question was straightforward, do you or don't you have more say who the leader of Canada is than the Queen?
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Of course I have. I can vote in the election- she can't.
This is like you asking me if I have more say in the election of the Prime Minister than you have. The question makes no sense. Straightforward nonsense is still nonsense. You have to make a point here pretty quickly- this became a waste of time about two posts ago.
 
Grand Mal said:
Of course I have. I can vote in the election- she can't.
This is like you asking me if I have more say in the election of the Prime Minister than you have. The question makes no sense. Straightforward nonsense is still nonsense. You have to make a point here pretty quickly- this became a waste of time about two posts ago.
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I made my point, as I said "Neither country directly votes for its leader, that point was clearly lost on you." The Queen appointed the GG and the GG selects the leader. Customs are one thing, but if the power isn't taken away, it is still there.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
I made my point, as I said "Neither country directly votes for its leader, that point was clearly lost on you." The Queen appointed the GG and the GG selects the leader. Customs are one thing, but if the power isn't taken away, it is still there.
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Your point is a nonsense one, as I said to you. There's no equivalent to a President in a Parliamentary system. One of the reasons for a Parliament is that there's no President. There's a body of representatives that discuss the issues of the day and vote on legislation, a group of ministers with specific areas of responsibility and a Prime Minister who directs the Cabinet and leads the government as long as he has the confidence of Parliament. The Prime Minister is elected to Parliament by the citizens in his riding and elected leader by the members of his party.
A President is elected by the citizens of a country to be the leader of the country. The whole idea is that he's separate from the legislature- he rules at the behest of the people, not the legislative body. That's why most dictators call themselves presidents.
The point is that the Prime Minister was never intended to be a popularily-elected position. The President is supposed to be.
And surely I don't need to explain to you that the Monarchy is a purely ceremonial body, that the Queen has no political power anywhere in the Commonwealth.
 
upsideguy said:
Acreage does not vote. Much of the middle of the country is very sparsely populated. That map is fundamental "How to lie with Statistics," which was a required read my Frosh year of college.

So, yes, I am glad that Prairie Dogs don't vote.
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Clinton beat Trump by around 3,000,000 votes out of almost 130,000,000 cast or about 2%, so apparently there are a few people living on that acreage, too.
 
Yes, there are plenty of issues with the EC.

But since we are on the subject of dealing with urban areas and higher density that tend to vote Democrat and rural areas that tend to vote Republican what is the alternative?

If we go with a straight up popular vote for the President then it may end up being just like that, a decision on which group is marginalized. Urban voters or rural voters.

What would we really achieve with that, other than quicker acceleration of the decline of rural America? Perhaps that is not as big a deal to some but at the end of the day the argument to remove the EC comes down to an argument to marginalize a different minority. One we would form almost overnight abandoning the EC.

And all of this purposefully suspends the conversation on the reasoning for State lines in all of this in the first place. If you agree that the whole point of the EC was basically a compromise between those that wanted the election of the President by a vote in Congress and others that wanted a vote by "qualified citizens" then removing that compromise means State voting patterns would then only apply to Congress. The Executive Branch would be a straight up popularity contest, probably furthering the stronghold of two party politics for that power.

We sure we want that? (Legitimate question.) I can picture all sorts of unintended consequences like further pushing of gerrymandering districts so that the rural vote has some sort of representation in government else all that would be left is literally today's liberalism removing from discussions any voice from the rural population. Purposeful representative silence. Is it not? (I'll agree in advance there seems to be plenty of that motivation by both sides going back a very long time anyway.)
 
Greenbeard said:
This is a picture of the United States at night.

us_night.gif
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What time at night? Some folks in rural areas go to bed early. :)
 
Grand Mal said:
So it's okay that your vote carries more or less weight depending on where you live? Two Texans or Californians have to vote to count as much as one in Montana, that lines up right with you?
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California get 59 electoral votes, how many does Montana get?
 
Bullseye said:
California get 59 electoral votes, how many does Montana get?
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Don't know.
Should a President be elected by the people or by the states?
 
I value the Electoral College with its ability to be more of a balance for trying to value both low population regions and the majority as well as its potential to stop demagogues. However, it needs to be seen as legitimate, and the last 18 years has put serious strain on that model and it failed to stop a demagogue from getting into office.

If events from the last 18 years continues in the near future, I would be in favor of modifying the Electoral College. Again, modification, not removal.
 
Grand Mal said:
Fine. Make it as simple as it needs to be for you to wrap your mind around it.
Fact is, I'm Canadian. I didn't have anyone to support in that fiasco you guys call an election, certainly not the Clinton gorgon. I consider the whole process that unfolded an indication of the sickness of your system and the result, a president elected by a minority, just icing on the cake.
And you and millions like you defending the dysfunction of the process, including the nominations of two of the worst candidates in the recent history of the developed world, just shows that there's no relief in sigh for you. It can only get worse.
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Sorry, but why should we care what a Canadian thinks about our election process and the electoral college?
 
Grand Mal said:
Don't know.
Should a President be elected by the people or by the states?
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Directly by the people trivialized voters in small states; IMHO EC reduces, but does not totally eliminate that. Big states get more electors, based on number of Senators and Representatives (and Reps are apportioned by population) so population does effect election but doesn't overwhelm it.
 
trixare4kids said:
Sorry, but why should we care what a Canadian thinks about our election process?
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Why did we care about a French aristocrat's observations of Jacksonian American democracy? Grand Mal is no Alexis de Tocqueville, but the thought you raised needs some push back.
 
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AliHajiSheik said:
Neither country directly votes for its leader, that point was clearly lost on you. In the US, the primaries allow the citizens to have a say who the candidates for leader will be, no such mechanism to allow the citizens of Canada a say. The Queen of Canada has more say than you do who the leader of Canada. Chew on that little fact.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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:applaud
 
trixare4kids said:
Sorry, but why should we care what a Canadian thinks about our election process and the electoral college?
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Entirely up to you, innit. Your disinterest sure as hell doesn't mean more to me than my opinion does to you, though.
I've got opinions on lots and lots of things that are none of my business. And I'll beak off about all those things right here.
Up to you what you do with that.
 
Bullseye said:
Directly by the people trivialized voters in small states; IMHO EC reduces, but does not totally eliminate that. Big states get more electors, based on number of Senators and Representatives (and Reps are apportioned by population) so population does effect election but doesn't overwhelm it.
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That's what I keep hearing, but it still doesn't sound right to me. To me, the EC takes the election of the President out of the hands of the people and gives it to the states. The people elect the Congress, the states elect the President. That's how it looks to me.
 
Grand Mal said:
Your point is a nonsense one, as I said to you. There's no equivalent to a President in a Parliamentary system. One of the reasons for a Parliament is that there's no President. There's a body of representatives that discuss the issues of the day and vote on legislation, a group of ministers with specific areas of responsibility and a Prime Minister who directs the Cabinet and leads the government as long as he has the confidence of Parliament. The Prime Minister is elected to Parliament by the citizens in his riding and elected leader by the members of his party.
A President is elected by the citizens of a country to be the leader of the country. The whole idea is that he's separate from the legislature- he rules at the behest of the people, not the legislative body. That's why most dictators call themselves presidents.
The point is that the Prime Minister was never intended to be a popularily-elected position. The President is supposed to be.
And surely I don't need to explain to you that the Monarchy is a purely ceremonial body, that the Queen has no political power anywhere in the Commonwealth.
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re: Bolded. The President was never intended to be a popularly-elected position, and isn't. How a country chooses to select a leader through non-direct means is the point.

As for the Queen, she still retains all the monarchy powers over Canada as Queen of Canada, but she lends them to other people, such as the Governor General and the Prime Minister. They may seem ceremonial from a practical standpoint, but they nonetheless are still in force because that power hasn't been taken away (yet).
 
Grand Mal said:
Entirely up to you, innit. Your disinterest sure as hell doesn't mean more to me than my opinion does to you, though.
I've got opinions on lots and lots of things that are none of my business. And I'll beak off about all those things right here.
Up to you what you do with that.
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Thanks for your permission. For the life of me, I simply don't understand why you think I should care what a non-citizen thinks of our electoral college.
 
trixare4kids said:
Thanks for your permission. For the life of me, I simply don't understand why you think I should care what a non-citizen thinks of our electoral college.
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For the life of me I can't understand why you think your disinterest in my opinion should matter to me.
 
By itself, this is useless. Just as the maps showing population density and voting are, by themselves, useless. So to are the egotistical ridiculous notion that people who live in those red areas don't count enough to be referred to as "people" when talking about "people" living in those areas.

The reality is, there's an ongoing dichotomy across this nation and all others as it relates to representation and governance: the individual and the community. Both entities are important to take into consideration when desiring a cohesive country. Population density maps do a wonderful job of showing where individuals are clustered together, while county maps typically do a better job at showing disparate communities that are spread across the nation. Focus on the later singularly, and you have a majority of the population being governed in a fashion they don't agree with, helpless to truly change it. Focus on the former singularly, and you have a majorities of the communities being governed in a fashion they don't agree with, with little real chance to change it.

To a certain degree, it's why I like the electoral college and also why I like the difference between the House and the Senate in terms of representation types and power. I don't believe that "land" votes, but I also don't believe that a handful of cities with tons of people should singularly dictate how things work in the multitude of communities across this nation. Both entities are important, despite the pathetic and egotistical attempts by people that prefer one to the other to belittle, mock, insult, and attack the other.
 
Bullseye said:
Clinton beat Trump by around 3,000,000 votes out of almost 130,000,000 cast or about 2%, so apparently there are a few people living on that acreage, too.
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The win was from densely populated areas, not the acreage. People that live in a community tend to vote differently than those that commune with prairie dogs. Maybe its that "friends don't let friends....." thing?

Clinton wins popular vote by nearly 3 million - Business Insider

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/mapping-how-americas-metro-areas-voted/508313/
 
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