windmill noise cancer

[jp1]

It also ensures that the rights and concerns of all citizens are protected by a federal system of government rather than the pure democracies preferred by the elites.

There's a whole lot of republicans in California who probably disagree with you. More, in fact, than there are in the smallest dozen "solidly republican" states. The system, as it exists, ensures that the handful of residents who happen to live in "swing states" get all the attention of presidential candidates. Something like 12 states actually got visits from presidential candidates during the last 3 months of our last presidential election. The other 38 were of no concern to either of them. This isn't "giving concern to people with minority status". This is just a few random states who happen to have an almost equal number of republicans and democrats being the only ones that matter in a presidential election.

If we used a system of popular vote suddenly those 14 million republicans in california would matter. They'd be courted by the candidates, and they'd probably turn up to vote in significantly higher numbers. After all, why should any of us in the 38 currently unimportant states bother to show up other than some high school civics class that lied to us and told us "your vote matters." Like the lady from Parkland High School, I call BS. My vote, as a resident of California, matters not one whit.

[jp1]

In a word: slave owners.

At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.

I remembered it was all about slavery, but had to look it up. Here's the original reference:
http://time.com/4558510/electoral-co...story-slavery/

+ 5000. It was never about some obscure idea that the southern states had less population. It was that they had less eligible voters. And today, thanks to Lincoln's Hotel Californication of the country every state has the same concerns. Yes those concerns are different for rural people vs. urban people or for brown people vs. white people, or LGBT people vs. straight people or any other divide one may come up with. But at the end of the day it's not that one group of states has different needs/concerns than other states. That's just a charade that gets put out there to encourage us to stick with the stupid status quo.

[catherine]

If your reasoning is correct, jp1, then if we abandoned the electoral college, candidates would spend all their time campaigning in East and West Coast cities and ever even visit Alan or iris lilies or my old friend Jay in Kentucky.

I am against the primary system, whereby the outcome of the national conventions is driven by Iowa, New Hampsire and a few other early primary states (being almost last on the list in NJ, this REALLY bothers me), but I still think that giving some "weighting" to people in flyover country seems fair.

[jp1]

I doubt that a candidate would think they could win just by focusing on NYC and LA. There are 11 million people in the small state of Ohio, which is more than the San Francisco metropolitan area. The Chicago metropolitan area is about the same size as San Francisco. There's almost 3 million people in the St. Louis metro area. Dallas and Houston combined have over 10 million residents. Denver 2.5 million. I could go on, but the point is, there are too many people in flyover country to ignore. Sure, urban areas will get more attention. They already do. That's where the votes are no matter the system we use. The current system generated these results in 2016:

Data from the 2016 campaign indicate that 53 percent of campaign events for Trump, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pence and Tim Kaine in the two months before the November election were in only four states: Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio. During that time, 87 percent of campaign visits by the four candidates were in 12 battleground states, and none of the four candidates ever went to 27 states, which includes almost all of rural America.

https://theconversation.com/three-co...re-wrong-68546

In the last two months NONE of the candidates went to 27 states. 87% of campaign visits were to 12 "battleground" states. It's not about large or small states. Or rural vs. urban states. It's about whether the candidates should care about all states or only those states with equal numbers of republicans and democrats. The current system disenfranchises residents of a significant majority of the states when it comes to presidential elections.

On the topic of primaries I agree. Hopefully CA being part of a very early super Tuesday this time around will change things, at least somewhat.

[Alan]

I don't care if the candidates visit my state, I care about whether or not they share my republican values. I care about whether or not they value my personal sovereignty or if they consider me a pocketbook to raid in order to purchase your vote. Other than that I'm pretty much a low maintenance consumer of politicians.

[JaneV2.0]

And, of course, we can't discount the interference of other entities like Russia and voter suppression, and vote tampering, and gerrymandering in the mix.

Property rights? The South considered slaves property, but they were counted as people. So yeah...

[Alan]

Property rights? The South considered slaves property, but they were counted as people. So yeah...

Yeah, that was bad. I wonder if we'll ever get over the guilt of other's actions?

[frugal-one]

Do you understand why the electoral college exists?

Took a course recently on the subject. So, YES!

[iris lilies]

Took a course recently on the subject. So, YES!

Oh excellent!

[JaneV2.0]

Yeah, that was bad. I wonder if we'll ever get over the guilt of other's actions?

Like the bloody, prolonged, and pointless war on Iraq, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed and many more injured, for nothing at all. My taxes helped pay for that carnage; I demonstrated against it, to no avail, of course. I would certainly be forgiven for feeling guilt for that. And for the ongoing border cruelty, and many other outrages.