The college itself has a valid reason to exist, giving small states a boost, so I'm neutral on that. But I'm against that fact that votes are all-or-nothing per state instead of a split based on each state's popular vote.

I find american politics to be broken based on the fact that no one campaigns as themselves, but as a party line. Later, after the election is over, everything changes.

Also people largely walk into booths and press straight-ticket buttons and make all the campaigning basically useless anyway.

It's pretty useless only because it fits right into that useless system.

I do not have a better solution in mind, however.

>>323
Rage-in-a-cage matches with jello cannons.
Except that all the candidates would be represented by busty women.

Against. It was a good idea when it was implemented, but with modern technology, it's pointless.

>>322
Giving small states a boost has nothing to do with the electoral college. You're thinking of the Virginia Compromise (if I remember my high school US history). The electoral college is, specifically, the group who votes based on what the state's voters selected. More generally, it is the system wherein that operates.

>>333
The electoral college uses the same number of votes per state as representatives + senators. Having that boost for the smaller states is very much a part of its design. That aspect I don't care about much. The other main point of it, having actual members that theoretically can override the public, is useless but harmless. As long as it's not causing trouble we should focus on more important things, like maybe a system that better represents what the people want than plurality voting.

>>348
That's something which the American electoral college features. It is not inherent to an electoral college in general. Getting rid of

Electoral college - or just splitting the votes according to base's voting percentages - would theoretically help induce plurality. In practice though, the two parties have a very complete diopoly going on, and would likely remain functionally unfazed for the foreseeable future even if such a situation became ubiquitous.

It's the most retarded voting system I know of.

It made sense back before mass media. Choose a smart guy to make the decision for you. It has no place in modern times. Should have been axed in 1900.

The two-party system is fucking stupid too. It always boils down to choosing the lesser of two evils.

The US government is like a Rube Goldburg machine except all it does is kick you in the nuts.

It's non-proportional, which I oppose on the grounds that every vote should be equal or it isn't a vote - it's half a vote, or 10% of a vote, or 5 votes.

It's also explicitly weighted toward states with smaller populations, which tend to be more rural, with less educated voters.

The result of this has been that, compared to other countries, the US political scene has been dominated not merely by conservatives, but by the stupid kind of conservatives, the kind who don't mind being lied to and don't get angry when their representatives are caught doing it, because hell, least they ain't librills.

I'm not saying this as unqualified support for the Democrats or the left in general, stupid people wielding power are always dangerous no matter what their political ideology.

Electoral college is pretty bullshit, and so is the plurality voting system.
It was fine and dandy back when it was made, but change happens far more rapidly now, and people are more educated.
We should get rid of the electoral college and use approval voting or something along those lines instead of a simple plurality vote. Wasted votes and the fear of wasted votes are a significant issue with the current U.S. voting system.

There is a good reason that no other country in the world has adopted the electoral college. It is an ass-backwards system of determining voting, and should not be used by any reasonable country.

That said, it's in our constitution and no one has cared enough to amend it out of the constitution.

>>322
This is what I'd like.

Or else at least if every state were to adopt the Maine-Nebraska method. Then again, that'd work better if we had more congressional districts like we're supposed to. Although admittedly that would make the electoral college system basically pointless, as three electoral votes would basically be a drop in a bucket.

(Also apparently it almost got abolished with bipartisan support following the 1968 election but got filibustered, also with bipartisan support, in the Senate about 13 votes short of the necessary margin. The More You Know?)

The electoral college is an excellent system if it does what it's supposed to do- namely, mostly ignore the will of the people, who are idiots and shouldn't be governing themselves, and instead have the leader of the executive be determined by the best that each state has to offer, people who have spent their lives studying politics, social systems, and proper governance.

As implemented in the modern world, the electoral college is basically pointless. The media circus, corrupt joke, and salesmanship of modern politics in America render our entire political system essentially moot.

>>8113
>The media circus, corrupt joke, and salesmanship of modern politics in America render our entire political system essentially moot.
Eurofag here. You take the words out of my mouth. I feel like it's exactly like that over here.

Against, it's incredibly stupid.

>>8113
>>8121
I think the same could be said of almost all first-world countries.

There are exceptions, though. I live in California, and enjoy a direct democracy wherein people stay off the TV and there's an informational pamphlet with statements from each candidate, a summary of each proposition, and the full text thereof. People mostly refrain from voting on things they don't know or care about, and the results of elections generally reflect the will of the people.

European countries should theoretically be able to operate under the same system. I don't know enough about sociopolitical history over there to accurately say why they don't.

Federal stuff is just as shit here as elsewhere, though. There's plenty that could be done to fix that, but I think that the media circus will always exist at that level, simply because of scale.

>>8138
I don't know what your state-level districts are like, but your congressional districts are and have been for some time some of the most blatantly politically drawn in the entire country --- a situation that can be blamed squarely on your state legislature.

>>8138
>European countries should theoretically be able to operate under the same system. I don't know enough about sociopolitical history over there to accurately say why they don't.

Many of them do, and more so.

For example in the UK TV media are required to be impartial in elections, and every party gets a limited amount of free time to broadcast its message on TV.

The newspapers will still shamelessly endorse candidates, but fuck 'em, at least we don't have to listen to "I am a mendacious cunt and I approved this message" on the TV.

>>8140
Yep. There are essentially no political TV adverts, and the last time a party tried a billboard campaign, throughout the country the billboards were defaced in various and humorous manners.

However, we still have the pants-on-head-retarded 'First Past the Post' voting system. Hopefully the upcoming referendum will actually do something other than bugger-all, but AV isn't all that much better (though combined with the constituency reshuffle it might bring us a little closer to proper proportional representation).

>>8140
>For example in the UK TV media are required to be impartial in elections,
That means basically nothing with regard to the media circus, and is merely removing the right of broadcasters to broadcast what they want.
>and every party gets a limited amount of free time to broadcast its message on TV.
That's kind of dumb. The government is paying so that parties can advance their own agendas? Not even the candidates, but the parties? Yeah, I wouldn't consider that positive at all. It reinforces partisanism, and funds the sort of thing that's causing the problem we were talking about.
>at least we don't have to listen to "I am a mendacious cunt and I approved this message" on the TV.
Hearing what the candidates support is not bad, assuming you want to make an educated choice on voting day.

>>8153
>However, we still have the pants-on-head-retarded 'First Past the Post' voting system. Hopefully the upcoming referendum will actually do something other than bugger-all, but AV isn't all that much better (though combined with the constituency reshuffle it might bring us a little closer to proper proportional representation).
I don't know what the hell that stuff means. I think you guys use "post" when you mean "mail"? That doesn't make sense in context, though. I don't know what referendums you guys have going now, and I doubt anyone knows stuff like that outside of their own state (Although I think damn near everyone's heard of the marijuana legalization thing going on the ballot here) I don't know what AV is. I assume a constituency reshuffle is the same as a redistricting, in which case yeah, that should help, as long as it's done in a sane manner, which is not really a given considering the country in question.

I have a question for anyone willing to answer (hopefully, with plenty of thought behind it):
What if instead of the Electoral College we have today, each state is divided into regions or voting areas based on population and the majority of that area gives one vote to the candidate, and the only way that these areas change in size is because of the official census issue by the government. Would this work? If not, why? Or how would you do it?

>>8173
This is, essentially, the Maine-Nebraska method minus the electoral votes for Senators.

The problem is that many US congressional districts are politically drawn.

>>8158
>First Past the Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post?useskin=monobook
>AV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Vote?useskin=monobook

>>8158
>Bitching about informed voting
>Doesn't even know the First Past The Post system
:V

>>8179
As it turns out, I did know of that, I'd just never heard it referred to as such. Turns out it's just the same thing as a vote using a plurality.
The AV method seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice it looks like all it will do is reinforce strong parties by diverting to them the votes of weaker parties.

>>8195
It actually does the opposite because it makes people far more likely to vote for a third party as their "first choice" instead of not doing so because they feel their vote will be "wasted" if they don't vote for one of the majorities.

The reason the Maine-Nebraska voters have separate votes for the senators, and the reason it sort of should be like that is because of the purpose of our divided congress - the districts/population represent the will of the people living in an area, whereas the senate is supposed to represent the state as sovereign. That is why senators are not based on population, but congressmen are. It is designed to balance the will of the people against tyranny by the majority.