The Electoral College Is the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy

You keep saying the the United States has to be a true Democracy. No it doesn't. We are a Republic, not a Democracy. The word Democracy isn't even mentioned in our Declaration of Independence or our Constitution, which, essentially defends the individual against the majority. The goal of our government is to preserve individual liberty and our sovereignty in the world, not empower the majority or the worlds will. And it wasn't the majority, but only about a third of Americans who supported declaring independence from England and the Revolutionary war. Neither is the family, which is the foundation of civilization, a Democracy.

 

Things won't change.

The GOP could never win again without it.

 

You are the hundreth person to state the above falsehood on this Debate Forum. A habit that seems characteristic of a great many.

My response is always the same - I get it from the Oxford dictionary:
*Democracy - a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
*Republic - a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

If you can find a fundamental difference between those two definitions I'll promote you for a Nobel Prize in linguistics ... !

 

This from wiki: The key difference between a democracy and a republic lies in the limits placed on government by the law, which has implications for minority rights. Both forms of government tend to use a representational system — i.e., citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their interests and form the government. In a republic, a constitution or charter of rights protects certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government, even if it has been elected by a majority of voters. In a "pure democracy," the majority is not restrained in this way and can impose its will on the minority.

It is easy to see why so called progressives prefer to have a pure democracy, it allows the majority to step on the rights of the minority.

 

Consummate BS!

Between allowing the majority to step on the rights of the minority and IT ACTUALLY HAPPENING is a very wide chasm! The vote in the US is very clearly split varying around 50/50 depending upon the whimsy of the minority of the electorate that actually gets off its fat-asses and down to a polling booth!

Less than 50% at mid-terms and just at 60% for presidential elections.

And how does that rank internationally? Here's how! From Pew Research here, click down to the infographic "By international standards, U.S. voter turnout is low". You will find the US 10th from the bottom! Quote from the text:

Besides, what we have is a mixture of both - according to me, this "so-called progressive"! You wouldn't recognize a progressive if they bit you on the nose. Which is why you resort to childish "name-calling" to make an argument!

You Replicants are very good with name-calling but neither history nor factual understanding of existing political systems ... !

*VAP = Voting Age Population

 

The jump in the last midterm was just the product of fraudulent balloting
such as ballot harvesting third parties helping a private ballot to the ballot box,
registering persons not qualified to vote, along with lax voter ID security because we mustn't restrict anyone's right to vote.

Do we really know the magnitude of this "fraud" midterm?
How could we?
I do know there is no way "The O.C." could be totally "Blue" in a fair election!

In 1960, JFK's win was helped by certain efforts in Chicago and LBJ's Texas.
The voting deceased was a popular method at that time.

The last midterm jump was hardly real.
Too bad Trump didn't get us proper voter ID and security laws for elections of Federals when he had a GOP Congress.
If the States want to let non citizens vote for their offices, that's State business.


Moi

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Yes, the country needs both badly*. There has been so much wilful mismanagement of electoral outcomes that Uncle Sam has become the laughing stock of developed economies. And with Donald Dork prancing around Europe telling its leaders what they should be doing and not doing, the opinion of Uncle Sam's best-friend (the EU) is in a dark-dungeon.

There are some eastern-European leaders who are as thick as he is, but not many.

As I have suggested elsewhere, the country needs a national Identity Card, given at birth, that could also serve as a Social Security Card. It would help enormously to assure that only those with an American Identity-card OR a Green-card (for those awaiting citizenship but allowed to work) would reduce the number of aliens entering the country simply to work. Anyone or company allowing a non-documented individual to work would pay a high fine.

And THAT is a lot better idea than building a wall!!!

(C'est la vie! Aux Etats-unis.)

 

The people of each State elect their preferred representatives to Congress. The President is the only elected official that is chosen to represent all Americans and the EC is what gives the people of all the States a place at the table to elect that office. A popularity contest, pure democracy would give the coastal regions absolute control over who would be in that office. Enough people voted to elect Trump in spite of the preference of those living in California and New York City. A popularity contest would have given us a different outcome which is the whole point of your rant.

I don't care how other countries around the world run their elections, I don't live there. You're free to choose for yourself.

 

Having said that...
No western democracy popularly elects its head of government.

 

I can't imagine where you dreamed up that pile of BS.

The system has been warped by ingrained manipulations of the voting process, and you pretend it's still fair and honest as a democracy.

You get and "F" in Civics ... !

PS: Trump lost the popular-vote and never ever should have been elected PotUS. The guy is sick in the head!

 

No one has ever been elected president by popular vote.
Don't you ever get tired of banging your head against the wall? And you call Trump sick.

 

Not one.
Bill Clinton was elected, twice, exactly the same way Trump was.

 

False.

Examples:
1. The President of France is elected by popular vote.
2. The President of Finland is elected by popular vote.

However, besides the U.S., no western democracy with a presidential system elects its head of government with something akin to the electoral college.

 

These are heads of state, not heads of government.

Correct -- they aren't elected at all.

 

Please do explain the difference between "heads of state" and "heads of government."

France and Finland both elect their president with a normal popular vote election.

 

Example:
UK:
Head of state: Queen Elizabeth II
Head of Government: Theresa May
In fact, QE2 is the head of state of 13 countries, including Canada.

Their President is the head of state, not government.

 

The President of France is both the head of state and shares the title of head of government. Sorry, you are just wrong. Your distinction is also silly because most European countries are parliamentary democracies, not presidential democracies. No other presidential democracy has something like the electoral college.

 

Great point.

In fact, if the USA had a Parliamentary System, Trump would've been voted out before he lasted a year.

 

That's what Hillarycrats have been trying to do since his first day.

 

319 square miles.
"In their infinite wisdom, the United States ' Founders created the Electoral
College to ensure the STATES were fairly represented. Why should one or two densely
populated areas speak for the whole of the nation?

The following list of statistics has been making the rounds on the Internet.
It should finally put an end to the argument as to why the Electoral College
makes sense.
There are 3,141 counties in the United States.
Trump won 3,084 of them.
Clinton won 57.
There are 62 counties in New York State.>
Trump won 46 of them.
Clinton won 16.
Clinton won the popular vote by approx. 2.5 million votes.
In the 5 counties that encompass NYC, (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond
& Queens) Clinton received well over 2 million more votes than Trump.
( Clinton only won 4 of these counties; Trump won Richmond )
Therefore these 5 counties alone, more than accounted for Clinton winning the
popular vote of the entire country.
These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles.
The United States is comprised of 3,797,000 square miles.
When you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of
territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those who
inhabit a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national
election.
Large, densely populated Democrat cities (NYC, Chicago , LA , etc.) DO NOT and
SHOULD NOT speak for the rest of our country!
And...it's been verified and documented that those aforementioned 319 square
miles are where the majority of our nation's problems foment."

 

There are a good many "presidents" in Europe, but they do not have the legal power of a US president as stipulated in the American Constitution ...

 

Two more years of Donald Dork, and he's cooked ...

 

That's a wild exaggeration of the comparative vote amongst states. It is population that give larger states more of a "say" in the election of a president and in the HofR - but their "say" is just as strongly heard in the Senate as any other state. Which is why the Senate exists as a statewise mechanism to balance the power of the HofR!

The truth is that the smaller states have their say as a smaller group in the HofR, but they are heard just as loudly in the Senate as the larger states. (The president has only the right to veto laws, or sign them.)

 

Sadly the value of American geographic representation
blended with popular representation can never be
understood by feigners.

Just as Moi can not conceive Parliamentary gov't with a
chief executive limited to the most senior, bought member of
this or that party is "Democracy" .
No General Eisenhower.
No Governor Franklin Roosevelt.
What Moi terms, UnFree!
Ferigners do not seem to understand the value of
geographic representation blended with popular representation.


Yo, ferigners
Please Search: The Madison Compromise.
Beware ferigners
YOU will be tested on it should a ferigner reply again.


Moi
Should all of France
be ruled via Paris Sprawl?
If it so happened!

Lord Bless the Electoral College system!
And geographic representation blended with popular vote.

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