No Dirty Tricks - Join With Courage Campaign!

[swamimans]

dont raise my taxes for the state employees. my income has gone down by 50 percent. so why cant state employees share the pain. fuck campaign courage.

[TyredUvBS]

Open primary states are closing, closed primary states are requiring declaration of party affiliation earlier than ever in the history of US elections. There needs to be true election reform to bring about fairness and votes that count in EVERY state, not just a few.

[BastardJack]

Giving small counties the same number of votes as large counties is ridiculous. Should 5,000 voters from one county count for the same number of votes as a country with 5,000,000 votes? Its not about republicans or democrates its about bad administrative planning. Its a bad idea that doesn't reflect the majority of voters in a state period.

[Emjay711]

That's what I thought at first, but that is not the case. The electoral votes are divided by Congressional District, NOT by county. Each Congressional District has about the same population. Each district gets 1 electoral vote and the candidate that wins the state overall, gets 2 more electoral votes which accounts for all of the states votes in the Electoral College.

[BastardJack]

You know I'd like to see the actual proposal, I wasn't able to find a copy on the website. I'm definatly pro liberal, but I'd really prefer to make my own assesments.

[greenbean1984]

just vote for ron paul anyway

[Emjay711]

Who is that?

[greenbean1984]

i dont want to be rude but are joking? "who is ron paul?" just type his name in here on youtube. he's running for president in 2008.

[Emjay711]

I was being sarcastic. I looked in every poll I could find and RP wasn't even making a bump. Regardless of how nice or how effective of a leader he might be, he stands NO CHANCE of getting the nomination next year. Well, maybe if the top 5 candidates died in a plane crash.

[paxout]

I lived in Florida in 2000. I saw what happened. Ballot boxes disappearing, polls in black areas closing early, the people accused of being felons, and of course hurricane Chad.

[Emjay711]

I saw the same thing happen in Philadelphia, but it was Democrats intimidating voters and having more people vote than were registered. Somehow there was 115% voter turnout in democrat wards in Philly. It didn't just happen one time either. And then there is Chicago, which is notorious for voting irregularities year after year.

[ddayen]

actually, in the sense that it is selectively administered and greatly increases the possibility for the winner of the popular vote to lose the election, I'd go ahead with yes, it is undemocratic. Then again, so is the electoral college, in that it's a gross violation of one person, one vote. But certainly this is not reform.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled recess.

[Emjay711]

Undemocratic? Unfair? I'm NOT in favor of the change either, but the proposal certainly is not undemocratic. All votes count. Everyone still gets to vote. Electoral votes are tied to counties instead of the entire state. Unfair? what is this, 3rd grade recess?

[cvsvpp]

Your not living in the real world with that kind of thinking.

[Emjay711]

Could you be specific, and tell me how I am seeing this wrong? Please don't throw insults at me. I'd like to understand your point. Name calling doesn't help dialogue.

[18oroldermyass]

No one called you a name.

But the reason you're wrong is because it disproportionally awards electoral votes to a single party by dividing the electoral votes based on land area (counties) rather than combining them all into a representation of the total population. Counties with large populations would get the same representation as counties with very small populations so their elecotoral "vote" is diminished.

[Emjay711]

Someone said "you're not living in the real world." That was insulting and inappropriate.

If your version is true, it does indeed sound like the Republican plan is a bad one. Are you certain that each Calif. county would receive the SAME number of electoral votes?

L.A. county with over 10 million residents would have the same number of electoral votes as Alpine County with less than 2 thousand residents?

That is a ridiculous proposal. I cannot believe anyone takes that seriously.

[mcj3691]

Emjay711, you are seeing it wrong because the ONLY state the republicans are trying to get this passed in is California, which is a democratic leaning state. If they truly wanted reform, they would propose it nationally in every state. But you'll never see them do that. If every state had this, the odds of there ever being another republican president would go way way down.

[Emjay711]

I looked it up. If the whole country switched to district based electoral votes, the Republicans would benefit: read on...

In 2004 Bush had 286 electoral votes; Kerry 252. Under the district by district method, Bush would have gotten 323; Kerry 213.

And in 2000, Bush had 271 electoral votes; Gore 266. A district by district count would have given Bush 291 votes; Gore 244.

Why? Because of states like Illinois.

[Praiosrondra]

If the GOP really wanted to reform the current election system and "make it fair", they would suggest:

a) to change it in EVERY state of the USA, not only California!

b) to throw the "electoral vote system" into the trash and replace it with a simple counting and summing up of all the votes in the entire country: The candiate with the most votes wins the presidency.

THAT would be fair! (and simple too)

[Emjay711]

I looked it up. If the whole country switched to district based electoral votes, the Republicans would benefit: read on...

In 2004 Bush had 286 electoral votes; Kerry 252. Under the district by district method, Bush would have gotten 323; Kerry 213.

And in 2000, Bush had 271 electoral votes; Gore 266. A district by district count would have given Bush 291 votes; Gore 244.

[12patriot12]

I think this illustrates the flawed logic of tying electoral votes to Congressional districts. Congressional districts are gerrymandered based on the most recent census, which is taken every ten years. Is it appropriate to allow our Presidential electios to be decided by politically skewed Congressional redistricting, based on a census taken years ago?

[jkrjuls]

to: joanneleon. oh hell no!

[Malacandra]

You've got to hand it to the GOP: they never stop thinking of new ways of stacking the deck.

[joanneleon]

Great job, netroots. Great job, courage campaign.  Are we going to let another election be stolen? Hell no.