Obama v McCain Polling

[idaworldbeaters]

Will this election be on a straight who gets the most votes , or on a state by state basis as with the Primaries?

[Universal_001]

Will this election be on a straight who gets the most votes , or on a state by state basis as with the Primaries?

Unfortunately for residents of Texas and California, the electoral college is still in place, so McCain or Obama can loose the popular vote and become president, they never got rid of that antiquated archaic structure after the 2000 disaster, and the federal election is still not run by the federal government, but done state by state, it's still a mess, we better hope it's not a close race.

[idaworldbeaters]

Amazing how the worlds guardian of democracy not to mention the wealthiest and most technologically advanced has such a ridiculous electoral system. Perhaps they just like its eccentricity?

[Universal_001]

Amazing how the worlds guardian of democracy not to mention the wealthiest and most technologically advanced has such a ridiculous electoral system. Perhaps they just like its eccentricity?

The main argument to keep it is that its abolition would allow candidates to focus on major population centres on the east and west coast and ignore the rest of the country.
I dont' buy that argument, as it is, 80% of the countries vote does not count, because the candidates focus on "swing states".
If Im a democrat in Texas or a Republican in California I may as well not bother voting because the state is locked in as a winner take all blue or red.
Every vote in every little town would count if they abolished it, they'd have to hoover up votes everywhere.

Less than 600 votes swung the 2000 election, every vote matters.

Hillary Clinton was in favour of abolishing the electoral college, I don't know what Obama and McCains stances are.

[Squire Allworthy]

They could also do with introducing run off voting and perhaps encourage a bit more diversity by doing so.

[gendjinn]

Obama has a convention too, you know. Each candidate will get a short-lived bounce from their convention, before things settle back to approximately where they were within a couple of weeks.

Unless Bush stages a terror alert in Denver right after the Democratic convention, just like they did to NY the week following the Dem's convention there in 2004. Although, I doubt the Repugnicants would be so stupid as to go to that well twice in row but one can hope, hope, hope they would.

[Jason]

the map is turning blue...

Obama 344 McCain 194



http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/P ... n19-c.html

[adrem]

Amazing how the worlds guardian of democracy not to mention the wealthiest and most technologically advanced has such a ridiculous electoral system. Perhaps they just like its eccentricity?

The main argument to keep it is that its abolition would allow candidates to focus on major population centres on the east and west coast and ignore the rest of the country.
I dont' buy that argument, as it is, 80% of the countries vote does not count, because the candidates focus on "swing states".
If Im a democrat in Texas or a Republican in California I may as well not bother voting because the state is locked in as a winner take all blue or red.
Every vote in every little town would count if they abolished it, they'd have to hoover up votes everywhere.

Less than 600 votes swung the 2000 election, every vote matters.

Hillary Clinton was in favour of abolishing the electoral college, I don't know what Obama and McCains stances are.

I'm not sure that the electoral college system is really at fault for states being solidly blue or red. My understanding of the system isn't great (so apologies) but I thought the logic was that smaller states would struggle to see their own relevance in the Union if you didn't have some sort of mechanism to ensure that every state counted. Every vote still counts - just because California is a "safe" democratic state doesn't mean it's people are being prevented from voting republican. Would an open "popular" vote system not run the risk of allowing a half dozen states control the presidency because of their population? I think the traditional view that the pesky liberals live in the urban areas of high population will tend to make the more rural states very apprehensive about giving up the electoral college.

[Universal_001]

I don't think it would make small states loose their influence, large clusters of people all over the map will still be solid red/blue, only now it wont' be the entire state, and living in California and being a republican will not mean your vote is worthless, as it can be added to votes of Texas and even Alabama republicans instead of stopping at the California border.

Instant run off voting works very well here, I couldn't imagine voting without it, the first past the post system looks clunkey an award by comparison.

Mary Robinson won the 1990 Irish Presidential election by votes from the sparsely populated west and islands, not by focus on major population centres.

In any case, what diffrence does it make where the CAMPAGN, your vote counting is what matters.

[QuizMaster]

The only thing in favour of the electoral college is that it gives some weighting to smaller states.
We in the EU value that kind of thing very highly, so we should understand the small U.S. states wanting it.

Maybe if they distributed their electoral college votes according to each state's popular vote, instead of winner takes all? Then a Californian republican's vote would count after all, as would a Texan democrat.

I believe some states do that already.