Letters to the Editor
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Spartan30
It is so in order to check & balance the power of larger population dense states.
Except that it doesn't actually work that way. In the general election candidates will ignore the states with few electoral votes in order to secure the "big prizes".
If you want voters in small states to have more say, abolish the electoral college. That's the only way a voter in Montana will have the same influence as a voter in Ohio. As it is, if a candidate sees a state as solidly in one camp or the other, everyone in that state is ignored. If you want "solid states" voters to have as much say as "swing states" you have no choice but to abolish the electoral college. And if 2 states are swing states, say Wyoming and Florida, Wyoming will sit forlorn while the candidates spend their time in Florida.
The electoral college was put in place because the Founders didn't trust the rabble to vote "properly". Hardly a system to ensure the people are heard.
Abolishing the electoral college is the only thing that makes sense.
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SaltyPappy
You do indeed show that you consider thinking to be bad.
Don't knock it 'till you've tried it.
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make elections fair
It is important to adopt better systems for recording informed public preference. Unfortunately, the adoption of better systems is largely in the hands of those who are likely to see their advantage in the status quo: elected officials, their parties, and the special interests who deal with them. Without addressing this matter, the book reviewed becomes just an interesting academic exercise. Moreover, Mr. Manjoo's cavalier dismissal of the current primary system and the electoral college bespeaks a lazy-minded naivete. These systems may well be deeply flawed, but the case has to be made. Correspondingly, the adoption of a single, nationwide primary or election has defects of its own, however evenhandedly democratic it may be. The goal is not just creating the most accurate measure of voter preference, but also the creation of a process that allows voter opinion to become informed beforehand. The current primary process, chaotic though it may be, allows voter opinion to evolve and become better informed over time.
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"The something-or- other urgency of now" - Obama
Who the blazes writes this condswallop? All I can think of is the urgent need to go to the bathroom or rest-room (I love euphemisms) or perhaps the Romans foresaw all of this with their "Vomitaria". It's late in the evening and I thought I'd have a look-see. Lo and behold! there they are all over the place like a veritable plague of locusts with Xrandadu Hutman showing extraordinary stamina and buzzing so loudly that I can hear him across the miles (or kilometres). I suppose this is supposed to be an earnest discussion but it's hard to take it seriously. The crud that constitutes the Drudge Report informs a breathless world that "Nancy Pelosi is leaning towards Obama". Is she drunk or what? There's also a picture of a round-faced African-American lady who seems beside herself with joy or sorrow; it's hard to tell but, frankly my dears, I couldn't give a damn because, having briefly glanced up to see what was on Sky News, I nearly keeled over when I saw long-faced (I have to be even-handed) John Kerry plugging the wonders of Obama. This the fellow who gave you Bush and cronies for four more years! I'll concede that Rove is fiendishly clever. He'd leave th Borgias far behind. Although he doesn't poison his enemies, he surely has poisoned the mood of the Democrats as they do his work for him. What a wheeze! Game, set and match to Klever Karl and I don't know if he even plays tennis.
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@maureen, re "the fierce urgency of now"
Not that it has anything to do with the subject of the article, Maureen, but to answer your question about who wrote the "urgency of now" line, it was a fellow named Martin Luther King, Jr.
"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time."
April 4, 1967.
http://www.africanamericans.com/MLKjrBeyondVietnam.htm
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voter confusion
Several have commented on how range voting (or other alternatives) would confuse voters. Witness the confusion already caused by our simple plurality voting system. I think that's absolutely true.
Here's my question: Why should people who can't follow very simple instructions be allowed to vote anyway? I think all ballots should include questions designed to ensure some minimal level of intellectual competence. Can't pass the test, your ballot is invalidated.
Who would write the questions? Who decides what minimum level of competence is required? Good questions, and I don't have the answers. I still like the idea though.
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Nominating presidential candidates is one thing, electing presidents is another
It may be true that we do not quite know the result of our votes in a preferential primary. All those who voted for Paul, Huckabee, and Romney in the primarys did not realize that by splitting their votes they would make MCain, with about a third of the party's support, the nominee.
But the voting systems mostly propounded by this article and by these comments would guarantee that no voter would know in any election run by this system who they were helping most by their votes. That is indeed a screwy system.
Let's get back to reality. The present way of choosing candidates is pretty bad, and this nominating season shows it.
We need to keep primaries. We need to downgrade the importance of the Iowa Caucus and New Himpshire Primary in the process. Going to a few thousand donuts stands and having coffee in the living rooms of a few hundred arrogant egotistical political junkies who fancy themselves the arbiters of who is fit to be President is no way to choose someone who is going to lead the country. Every candidate worth a damn knows how to make small talk in the kitchen and barbershop, how to shake hands, and how to get out of answering an awkward question. They don't have to pass a New Hampshire or Iowa baby kissing, autograph signing test.
We also need to require a candidate in one of these primaries to get at least a majority of the votes in order for all the delegate slots to go to that candidate. Otherwise, proportional delegates for all the candidates with enough votes to get at least one delegate. if that system were in play, McCain would have fewer delegates than he has now and Romney might still be in the race.
We also need to keep the superdelegates. They might be able to pull he democrats out of the ditch at he conveniton this year. They are, after all, mostly elected officials and in fact represent a real constituency.
If any of you can think of any other strategy to downplay Identity politics and prevent another 2008, that would improve the nominating process, too.