Sinquefield $50 Million Donation

[billiken_roy]

21 minutes ago, ACE said:

Imagine having basketball games where the team that scores more points doesn't actually win. Games would be decided by something like bench scoring or which team makes more free throws.

however the basketball players on a team represent evenly the entire team.   i am not sure if san francisco cares about southern illinois well being i know chicago doesnt.  

[willie]

9 minutes ago, Pistol said:

It's not equal, though, and that's exactly the problem. Or, put another way, it is equal except that 20% of the population in rural areas gets as much attention as 80% of the population in urban areas. Or, even another way, national candidates only focus on the states seen as up for grabs and ignore the rest of the country. The smallest states get 3 no matter what, even if Wyoming wouldn't be given 3 proportionally. It makes no sense to have all of a state's available EC votes to go to a single candidate. It's not representative for any state. There are many, many other reasons that it's a terrible system but I'll let those go untouched because we're already so far off the rails from Sinquefeld's donation to SLU.

Call me crazy, but I think human beings deserve more voting power than land does. The EC is a non-functional relic of a flawed system from two centuries ago. It's nonsense.

Under or current breakdown presidential elections are decided by 5 or 6 states. So where do you campaign and what do you promise. I am tired of the people in Florida and Ohio determining who our president is going to be. I feel the same way if Hillary won the EC and Trump the popular vote. 

[SShoe]

3 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

however the basketball players on a team represent evenly the entire team.   i am not sure if san francisco cares about southern illinois well being i know chicago doesnt.  

Oh yeah? You think George Hill represented the same for the Cleveland Cavs as Lebron James?   

  

[Pistol]

23 minutes ago, ACE said:

Imagine having basketball games where the team that scores more points doesn't actually win. Games would be decided by something like bench scoring or which team makes more free throws.

^This analogy works. (The EC is like going to a bad tiebreaker system when the game isn't tied.)

4 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

however the basketball players on a team represent evenly the entire team.   i am not sure if san francisco cares about southern illinois well being i know chicago doesnt.  

^This one does not.

Roy, you seem very concerned whether people in big cities care about people in small towns. But it wouldn't matter if people were represented proportionately and their votes counted the same. Right now the system is tilted heavily in favor of rural and exurban voters, who have shown repeatedly that they don't care about people in urban areas (even though there are more of us). I don't see why this is better.

[SShoe]

2 minutes ago, willie said:

Under or current breakdown presidential elections are decided by 5 or 6 states. So where do you campaign and what do you promise. I am tired of the people in Florida and Ohio determining who our president is going to be. I feel the same way if Hillary won the EC and Trump the popular vote. 

And this goes beyond winning elections.  Policy decisions often get made because politicians only become concerned about how that'll play in certain states.  

[billiken_roy]

i dont see it as tilted.   i see it as making it fair.   i know that if the electoral college goes away the city votes will ALWAYS carry the president.   

[Pistol]

3 minutes ago, willie said:

Under or current breakdown presidential elections are decided by 5 or 6 states. So where do you campaign and what do you promise. I am tired of the people in Florida and Ohio determining who our president is going to be. I feel the same way if Hillary won the EC and Trump the popular vote. 

Man, I'm also really tired of people in Ohio.

But yes, I would love to see this system change and see national candidates forced to run a 50-state campaign instead of pandering to a few specific states with disproportionate power.

[Old guy]

This is exactly the type of reasoning that the NCAA could use to determine a game was won by the team that scored less points. It is the way it should be, because it is expected that the power schools should win or something or the other like that.

[willie]

2 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

i dont see it as tilted.   i see it as making it fair.   i know that if the electoral college goes away the city votes will ALWAYS carry the president.   

Roy you are saying you don't wanted it tilted towards the cities. So that means you want it tilted rural. 

[billiken_roy]

5 minutes ago, Pistol said:

Man, I'm also really tired of people in Ohio.

But yes, I would love to see this system change and see national candidates forced to run a 50-state campaign instead of pandering to a few specific states with disproportionate power.

but that is exactly opposite of what would happen for the presidency.  without the electoral college the candidates for the most part would campaign in maybe the 10 biggest cities and that would likely carry the popular vote for them if the other candidate campaigned nationwide.   thus both candidates would never be seen or care about the outer population.   

[billiken_roy]

4 minutes ago, willie said:

Roy you are saying you don't wanted it tilted towards the cities. So that means you want it tilted rural. 

it's not now.  what there has been like 5 elections in history where the electoral college didnt agree with the popular vote?   i dont see that as title towards anything.   and i think it forces the candidates to concern themselves with all areas of the country.   take the electoral college away i dont see that being the case.   

[Pistol]

3 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

but that is exactly opposite of what would happen for the presidency.  without the electoral college the candidates for the most part would campaign in maybe the 10 biggest cities and that would likely carry the popular vote for them if the other candidate campaigned nationwide.   thus both candidates would never be seen or care about the outer population.   

 

Just now, billiken_roy said:

it's not now.  what there has been like 5 elections in history where the electoral college didnt agree with the popular vote?   i dont see that as title towards anything.   and i think it forces the candidates to concern themselves with all areas of the country.   take the electoral college away i dont see that being the case.   

Roy, this is the literal opposite of what's happening now. We all know they campaign in a few strategic places and that's it. Removing the Electoral College would force them to have a broader, more nationwide strategy because every vote would matter, not just those in swing states.

Based on where you live and what you believe, this would be helpful, right? Instead of all of Illinois' 20 votes going blue, maybe 5 or 6 of them could become red, right? (Or whatever the proportion would be if those go away completely.) So it would behoove a candidate to make a stop in downstate Illinois and pay attention to those voters like you, because right now, no one running for president is going to stop in Illinois for anything other than a private fundraiser.

[willie]

4 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

it's not now.  what there has been like 5 elections in history where the electoral college didnt agree with the popular vote?   i dont see that as title towards anything.   and i think it forces the candidates to concern themselves with all areas of the country.   take the electoral college away i dont see that being the case.   

Five elections where the person with the most voted didn't win. How is that fair? And how does that reconcile with One Man One Vote? 

[SShoe]

Just now, billiken_roy said:

but that is exactly opposite of what would happen for the presidency.  without the electoral college the candidates for the most part would campaign in maybe the 10 biggest cities and that would likely carry the popular vote for them if the other candidate campaigned nationwide.   thus both candidates would never be seen or care about the outer population.   

Except, as the last election has shown, one cannot only rely on urban areas on the coasts to win an election.  You still need to pull in suburban voters, blue collar workers, etc. I also think it'd moderate the parties.  Instead of Republican candidates spending all their time pandering to coal miners, farmers, and the religious sect, they'll soften their tones to appeal to more city residents.  And vice versa.  

 

5 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

it's not now.  what there has been like 5 elections in history where the electoral college didnt agree with the popular vote?   i dont see that as title towards anything.   and i think it forces the candidates to concern themselves with all areas of the country.   take the electoral college away i dont see that being the case.   

  And two of those have been within the past 5 elections suggesting it's already tilted.  

[RiseAndGrind]

This is going pretty good without anyone getting mad.

i give it 10 more posts 

[billiken_roy]

6 minutes ago, willie said:

Five elections where the person with the most voted didn't win. How is that fair? And how does that reconcile with One Man One Vote? 

five elections where the urban vote far outpaced the outer area vote.   again, i dont want to be san francisco or chicago.  i am convinced that the country would evolve to control and likeness of the big urban areas and all concern of our government would go to those focuses.  

[billiken_roy]

7 minutes ago, SShoe said:

  And two of those have been within the past 5 elections suggesting it's already tilted.  

thank god in those two instances.   might have saved the united states.  

[ACE]

8 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

it's not now.  what there has been like 5 elections in history where the electoral college didnt agree with the popular vote?   i dont see that as title towards anything.   and i think it forces the candidates to concern themselves with all areas of the country.   take the electoral college away i dont see that being the case.   

Congress is a big part of the equation to represent the citizens across the various regional geographic areas, including rural concerns. 

You keep talking about folks from the big city not caring about rural areas. Conversely, rural folks tend not to care about urban concerns.

[Banks]

The Electoral College was put in by the framers so that the large states at the time (Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania) didn't elect the President. James Madison was the framer who was fearful of pure majority or mob rule.

If you want to get rid of the Electoral College you also want to get rid of the Senate. The makeup of Congress was instituted so the large states didn't rule the legislature. It was a compromise having one body of equal representation and one body based upon population.

So if James Madison were alive today he would say in two of the five past elections the Electoral College worked exactly as it should have.

 

 

[SShoe]

1 minute ago, billiken_roy said:

five elections where the urban vote far outpaced the outer area vote.   again, i dont want to be san francisco or chicago.  i am convinced that the country would evolve to control and likeness of the big urban areas and all concern of our government would go to those focuses.  

We are only talking about the presidency, right?  didn't realize they had so much power that they could influence the entire senate, house of reps, all 50 governors, state legislatures, and local governments.  

Unless global warming causes sea levels to rise 1,000 feet, Southern Illinois ain't becoming San Francisco or Chicago.  Not now, not ever.  

[billiken_roy]

5 minutes ago, Banks said:

The Electoral College was put in by the framers so that the large states at the time (Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania) didn't elect the President. James Madison was the framer who was fearful of pure majority or mob rule.

If you want to get rid of the Electoral College you also want to get rid of the Senate. The makeup of Congress was instituted so the large states didn't rule the legislature. It was a compromise having one body of equal representation and one body based upon population.

So if James Madison were alive today he would say in two of the five past elections the Electoral College worked exactly as it should have.

 

 

it pains me to agree with banks.   but i am.  thanks.  

[SShoe]

2 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

thank god in those two instances.   might have saved the united states.  

Nice.  We had a good discussion going and then that.  

[billiken_roy]

4 minutes ago, SShoe said:

We are only talking about the presidency, right?  didn't realize they had so much power that they could influence the entire senate, house of reps, all 50 governors, state legislatures, and local governments.  

Unless global warming causes sea levels to rise 1,000 feet, Southern Illinois ain't becoming San Francisco or Chicago.  Not now, not ever.  

we in southern illinois already feel the complete state control of chicago.   and deleting the electoral college would only take that to the next level as well.

[ACE]

3 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

thank god in those two instances.   might have saved the united states.  

And so much for the good debate - 

[willie]

2 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

thank god in those two instances.   might have saved the united states.  

Now you are putting your beliefs into this argument. I am sure others on this board violently disagree. How do you feel that your presidential vote is useless since you live in a Democratic state?