Tooth loss by state

Post by **Devari** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:40 am

Oh, FPTP is totally crazy as well. We have that in Canada, and I intensely dislike it. I'm just saying, for a Presidential system, the US has one of the stranger/less direct ones, making it a bit of an anomaly in a system which is usually supposed to result in the direct election of the head of state.

The Hungarian system is quite good, from what I can see. It seems to be an interesting cross between the Single Transferable Vote and Mixed Member Proportional electoral systems. Personally, I favour parliamentary systems elected in such a fashion.

Post by **Devari** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:44 am

And, yes, I believe nev is right - the distribution of Electoral College votes is not quite proportional to a state's population, meaning that the vote of a person in a smaller state technically counts more than that of a person in, say, California. That is, if you measure the value of the vote by taking the number of eligible voters divided by the number of electoral college votes. [edit] Or, rather, perhaps the reverse. It is late, what can I say? :*laughs*:

Nuclear Raunch · Post by **Nuclear Raunch** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:15 am

Electoral college votes dispersement may be found here.

California gets 55, Delaware gets 3.

Census information may be found here.

California gets 33,871,648, Delaware gets 783,600. Delawarians get 1 vote for every 261,200 citizens, while California barely gets 1 for every 615,848 citizens. 1 Delawarian voter counts just as much as 2.35 Californian voters.

It is retarded, it is complete bull****, and it goes against many of our "ideals". For those 3 reasons it will never change

Post by **The Beatles** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:37 pm

OK, my textbook was referring to "average power", not "weight". See attached explanation from this textbook:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0130338516/

Post by **Freenhult** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:16 am

The Electorial College is a very good check. If it wasn't there, all the people who are campaigning would just go to the big cities to win the popular vote. But because of the EC...it causes them to go all over. The popular vote is a good thing to have...but I was to make sure that my city can compete with Detroit. Otherwise...where the point of me to vote?

Post by **Devari** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 5:07 am

But the EC is an absolute victory kind of system - if you win even .001% more of the vote in a state, you get ALL of the electoral votes. In that hypothetical example, 49.999% of people in that state have absolutely no say in the election of the President.

But, eh, whatever. If you guys like it, who I am to question it? My time would be better spent trying to reform the Canadian electoral system.

Post by **The Beatles** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 6:55 am

Which is what the probability book referred to.

Hungary's system is fine, it's the politicians that aren't...

Post by **Devari** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:04 am

Yes, Hungary has a pretty good system. As for politicians, where are they actually fine?

Post by **The Beatles** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:27 am

Redwall Abbey. I really like their leadership style. Salamandastron's a military dictatorship, Floret is a constitutional monarchy, and there are some one-party states too. But Redwall's leaders are great.

Nuclear Raunch · Post by **Nuclear Raunch** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:33 am

The electoral college does not even have to vote as their respective states did. For example if John Kerry had gotten 60% of the vote here and 54 of our electoral college voted for Kerry but one decided to vote for Bush instead then he would be allowed to do so. I think it's happened 80 or 90 times so far, with the worst case being in Virginia when all 23 of their electoral college decided to vote for the candidate that lost the popular vote in virginia.

So basically we elect the electors and tell them how we'd prefer them to vote, but they can do whatever they want. Isn't American politics fair and just?

The electoral college was used to prevent candidates from focusing on large metropolitan areas and never speaking to people in rural areas. However with the advent of TV's, radios, the internet, and all that other good stuff virtually every American can see and hear every campaign speech any candidate makes so it kind of eliminates the need for that check and balance. Personally I think taking away our voting power was too heavy a price to pay even back then, and it most certainly is now.

Devaro wrote:As for politicians, where are they actually fine?

We had one over here but he got run out of town. Good ole Gary Condit. Best politician (major accomplishment) we've had in my lifetime.

Post by **Devari** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:55 am

Well, I mean, up in Canada we've had a few good guys - some of the fellows like Tommy Douglas from the CCF and NDP (democratic socialists and social democrats) have genuinely cared for the people. We had a couple good Prime Ministers - Pearson and Trudeau. But, really, good politicians are the exception rather than the rule.

Redwall Abbey... What are they? I was going to say benevolent dictatorship, but, really, the focus is around cooperation and egalitarianism. Commune isn't the right word, though... I agree, they do have a good system working - most importantly, most everyone seems to be happy and content.

It's a real shame there aren't peacetime stories set in the Abbey, rather than the constant killing. A less violent adventure would be a welcome change of pace.

Post by **The Beatles** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 5:27 pm

In Hungary, I don't think we've had a good PM, really. Antall, perhaps, but he was mostly popular because he was the first PM after Communism.

Argentina hasn't had a significantly good president, but that's because they've been really unstable for a lot of modern history.

Winston Churchill was a great politician, but again exception rather than rule.

Post by **Gen. Volkov** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:22 am

Post edited.

Oh and Raunch, that's only true for a few states. In Indiana, the Electoral college has to vote the way the state voted, and no dissenting votes are allowed. But it still means that if person x got 51% of the vote and person Y got 49%, all the electoral votes go to person X.

Also, we've had some decent presidents come out of the system. FDR(Even if he did create Welfare and Social Security for us to deal with now), Truman, Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, Reagan(I'm sure some will disagree on that one), Jackson, and of course, all the Founding Fathers who eventually got elected President.

Post by **The Beatles** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:01 am

I don't quite agree with several of your ideas, but let's just agree to disagree on this one, I don't have the energy to debate it.

Post by **Gen. Volkov** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:30 pm

*laughs*. Alright. I don't really have the energy myself anymore anyway. Being in the midst of a depression tends to do that too ya.

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