Talk politics.

Now imagine Obama with McCain being his VP. I think we already had several examples when president would put his opponents in his cabinet. And usually it ends up in internal bickering and complete mess.

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Aye lad, we had that once before. We called it the Adams Administration. We never wanted it again....

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the-rukh.livejournal.com

Hopefuly we wouldn't have got to the winner-take-all do-anything-to-win state we are in now in the first place if you always had to share power with the runner-up.

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It's late so I'll be short and maybe a little be incoherent. So I apologize.
1. We are Republic. There are several mechanisms to ensure we don't go down the road of dictate of majority.
2. GOP and Dems do have different fractions inside of them. Kinda makes them "alliances". Look how euorpean parliaments function. They get elected and then starting working out pacts and alliances to rule. Also that system is more politically volatile.

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mrsilence.livejournal.com

1. The mechanism in place to prevent the dicate of the majority is invested in the Constitution itself, which sets out the boundaries of what (a bare) majority is and isn't allowed to change.

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that's why we have several mechanisms... cause if it was that simple and obvious to everyone, we wouldn't need Bill of Rights.

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mrsilence.livejournal.com

Oh of course everyone has their own ideas.

But the "official list" as it were is in the Constitution, which both absolutely restricts changes of law which contradict or countermand the Bill of Rights or the rest of the the Constitution, and commands officers of the state to preserve the individual rights of citizens enumerated therein.

So with the Constitution both describing and command the enforcement of boundaries of lawful possibility, all other things are open to amendment subject to the democratic will of the people. As is the Constitution, ultimately.

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anfalicious.livejournal.com

I think you'd find a preferential system would promote less tyranny of the majority. If a president got elected on preferences then that president would know he had a whole cohort of people who didn't like them as their first choice, and would have to adjust policy accordingly. Take, for example, Australia in the mid to late 90s. We had a racist party pop up who didn't steal votes from the right wingers (because they ended up with the preferences) but gave the party an idea that there were people who weren't completely happy with them. The right went further right on racial issues (mainly through dogwhistling so as not to upset the centre) and wiped out the party. It also gives minor parties a chance. A) people don't feel like they've "wasted their vote" by voting for a minor party; if your candidate doesn't get up, you still get to vote for the lesser of two evils and B) if you get over 4% of the primary vote here, you get $2 per vote. This money is essential for the minor parties to keep going and continue to be advocates, regardless of whether they win any seats. This system has allowed our Green party to now essentially be in a coalition government with our left in one state. It's taken them close to 30 years to build that support, but without preference voting they probably would have disappeared in the early 90s.

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The distinction between democracy and republic was quite important in the era of the Roman Republic and the Athenian Polis.

In case you hadn't noticed 2,000 years have passed. That difference is irrelevant today.

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It is irrelevant until your party is in minority. When I hear about the referendum votes in this country - it's scary.

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Yes, interesting that direct democracies are so willing to vote away the rights of minorities, isn't it?

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it's not that they are willing - they just don't think about it.

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mrsilence.livejournal.com

Not saying it's a bad idea off the cuff, but it should be remembered that every system of voting has it's drawbacks.

Really depends on the type of outcome (i.e mandate seeking, achieving equal representation, representing all social segments, etc etc) you're looking for, so you need to talk about which of those you are seeking and then why that is a good thing, before you can say system X is better than Y.

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hannahsarah.livejournal.com

Sounds like a good idea to me. There have been plenty of times where I've felt like I was "throwing my vote away" or voting for "the lesser of two evils". I'm become quite cynical about the system overall.

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A horrible idea.

All it does is insure that the Democrats and Republicans never need to make any concessions to the Left and Right respectively, because they can expect to pick up their votes in the second round. The message is, "Go ahead and vote third party. We no longer care."

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squidb0i.livejournal.com

As if they do now?

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Okay, "We care even less, because now there's no way that ignoring you can cost us an election."

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squidb0i.livejournal.com

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Because the threat of splitting the vote and throwing the election to the other party is the only power that third parties have, and IRV surrenders it.

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penguin42.livejournal.com

It surrenders it but in exchange gives 3rd parties the potential to actually become viable contenders in the future. And fixes the problem where if the main party doesn't get *enough* of the 3rd party voters, the election will just swing the completely opposite way, producing a result the *most* voters would consider their least preferred outcome.

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Never trade away actual power for a nebulous potential. The reality is that despite the fact that on paper such a deal could result in 3rd party ascendency, it will not. But by the time third parties crunch the numbers and realize how badly they ducked themselves in supporting such a system, it will already be fait accompli.

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ducked = fucked

damn iPhone autocorrect

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anfalicious.livejournal.com

It does entrench the two party system, however.

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I think another thing that needs to be thrown out is our Electoral College system. The Presidency needs to be a straight up popular vote, having up to half of a state's votes not count seems to oppose the idea of a democracy.

This is because the United States not a democracy (despite all of the political rhetoric otherwise), we're a constitutional republic. The founding fathers set it up this way for quite specific reasons, mainly because they thought democracies had a tendency to go bad really, really easy.

There are a lot of really compelling reasons for the electoral collage, mainly that it allows all states to get proportional representation in the national election. If you want for a straight up popular vote, the presidential candidates would simply pander to the most populated areas of the country and tailor all of their policies accordingly. Not that it's likely to happen since it would take a constitutional amendment to change it anyway.

I do like the idea of runoff voting, and I am not a fan of the two party system, but I'm guessing that it's so ingrained into our political culture now that it won't ever change.

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This is because the United States not a democracy
I knew it was only a matter of time before someone split this hair. A republic is a form of democracy. A republic is a democratic government, one determined by the people, as opposed to a monarchy, a theocracy, etc.

What you're thinking of is a direct democracy.

As far as the states go, they get their representatives through Congress. The Electoral College is an antiquated system that serves no real purpose.

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Democracies and Republics are two different things and have two very different purposes. The purpose of a democracy is to empower the majority (which is what you want to do with having a direct vote, right?). Republics are about protecting the minority from the majority (which is what the electoral college does). And that's the real point here. The founding fathers set up a constitutional republic instead of a representative democracy for a reason: they didn't want the majority interests to be able to barrel over the minority interests. That is what would happen if we had a flat up popular vote election for the President, and that is why they quite purposefully set the system up the way it is.

As far as the states go, they get their representatives through Congress.

Yeah. And? They also get a say in who is going to be President, as they should.

The Electoral College is an antiquated system that serves no real purpose.

Except for keeping the President from campaigning and pandering to the highest population areas of the country and ignoring the people in less populated areas. Except for making sure each state has a say in who gets to be president instead of the top five or ten most populated ones.

We'd be better off keeping the electoral college, but getting rid of the winner take all system that most states have. Splitting the electoral votes according to the way the population voted a the state would make much more sense than getting rid of the system entirely.

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Even back in the days of Classical Greek culture, the Athenians set up strict controls to prevent mob rule. For one thing, Citizenship was how one got to be in the electorate, let alone rule. Athenian citizens were the rich, wealthy male landowners, and not at all the entirety of the female and poor male population, let alone the slaves. Solon set up a system with sharp limits on the power of the Boule/Council because he didn't want a deteroriation into mob rule, which had connotations every bit as anarchistic to a well-educated Ancient as it did to the founders.

Where the Roman Republic had checks and balances more ornate than the USA today does, but was still very much a society of, by, and for the rich.

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Democracies and Republics are two different things and have two very different purposes
Nope, once again you are confusing Direct Democracy with Democracy. Republic is just a type of Democracy.

Yeah. And? They also get a say in who is going to be President, as they should.
Their people get to decide who is going to be President, at least THEY should.

Except for keeping the President from campaigning and pandering to the highest population areas of the country and ignoring the people in less populated areas.</i. Oh please they all get a voice, and a vote. What's happening right now is the minority in each state doesn't.

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You're completely and utterly missing the point I've been making about democracies vs. republics. If you define "democracy" with such a watered down definition as "a government determined by the people" then yes, you're right most forms of governments are democracies and it's a completely meaningless term.

But really, were just screwing around playing semantic games. The real point is that in our Republic, we have built in safeguards to protect the minority from the majority. The electoral college is one of them. We should keep it.

Their people get to decide who is going to be President, at least THEY should.

Their people already do decide who gets to be president, when they vote for one every four years. The electoral college doesn't negate this.

Oh please they all get a voice, and a vote. What's happening right now is the minority in each state doesn't.

Even if this is actually true and you're totally right, you don't have to get rid of the electoral college to fix it. You just have to split the electoral votes that each state gives out along the popular vote amongst that state. So why not just do that? Because frankly, you've got a snowball's chance in hell of passing a constitutional amendment, where as the split amongst the electoral vote can be put into effect by a change in state law.

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I agree it's purely a semantics issue, but you're the one that brought it up. As far as splitting the electoral votes, I'd be for that as well.

And yes I know the odds of it happening are astronomical, but I think the more that people hear that we have alternatives (pun intended) to our voting systems then the idea may gain traction.

Should we give up every idea out there just because it may be difficult to do? Of course not.

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The definitions of democracy and republic were quite different back when Rome was ruled by 2 consuls and Athens was governed by the reforms of Solon.

Today is a vastly different time. The only meaning of a republic is a society without a monarchy, which means that the USSR, Zimbabwe, and the USA are/were all "republics."

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lafinjack.livejournal.com

...the presidential candidates would simply pander to the most populated areas of the country and tailor all of their policies accordingly.

They already do this, except for swing states (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/2004CampaignAttention.png).

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tcpip.livejournal.com

Yes, of course the US, UK should have "instant runoff" (we call it "preferential voting" in Oz) elections.

First-past-the-post means the biggest minority wins.

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The only viable way is to do away with the Electoral College. The only problem is that would be extremely hard to do.....

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lafinjack.livejournal.com

Instant-runoff will never happen: the people who vote on the bill to enact it are the ones who then face a much higher chance of getting voted out.

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reality-hammer.livejournal.com

As much as the current political landscape is full of crap, some things work well. The EC, for example. It's the safeguard to ensure that someone doesn't hoodwink the electorate; can replace a candidate who dies; forces candidates to build extensive support systems (electors) and prevents a "regional" candidate from dominating politics. (That means you, Virginia!)

Instant runoff tends to elect everyones second choice in hotly contested battles. I'm not convinced that leads to effective leadership.

As far as proportional representation goes...I really don't want to see America descend into an Italy. Tiny factions gain too much power in the coalition governments that often result. Do we really want Lyndon LaRouche, Ross Perot or Ralph Nader dictating conditions to the people who actually won a plurality of votes?

The political party system has survived because the parties themselves have either evolved over time or given way to other political parties. There's no reason for a socialist/communist party in the US because the Democrats pretty much adopted every one of their political platform planks, for example.

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Do we really want Lyndon LaRouche, Ross Perot or Ralph Nader dictating conditions to the people who actually won a plurality of votes?
Oh please, what this would do is reduce the power of party leaders and force them to compromise to get things done. People voted them all in and they'd all have a voice, and if they're willing to work together to get things done then so much the better. Will it be perfect? Of course not. Will it be better than what we have now? By leaps and bounds.

The political party system has survived because the parties themselves have either evolved over time or given way to other political parties.
They've survived because our system encourages it and because they've solidified their power, and the result is the corruption of both. Because of this it's going to be next to impossible to enact something like this but a man can dream.

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penguin42.livejournal.com

I prefer approval voting, but I think IRV is still better than what we have. Look out though, the voting system community has lots of people who absolutely hate IRV because it's mathematically messy. They usually support something like Condorcet voting (which is good too).

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They're all mathematically messy, gives me a headache trying to sort it all out at times. :P

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The Constitution can be changed, sir, if enough want it to.

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Sure it can. But both ways of amending the constitution require ratification by 3/4ths of the states.

Why the hell would low population states or even medium population states ratify something that would hand their power over to high population areas? It's just not going to happen.

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