> I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong > with a popular vote, but our country is structured > as 50 separate states with a common federal government. > The nature of that structure dictates a presidential > vote based on individual votes in each state, not > based on overall vote count. The system works just > like the Senate works. It allows small states to > ensure they have a say in what happens in the country, > and prevents them from being railroaded by larger states.
Except, they _should_ be "railroaded" by states with greater population. This argument essentially says: if all the richest people in the US get together and buy off a small section of Kentucky to live in and declare it a new state, their 10,000 people should have the same voting power as the 10,000,000 people in Texas. Or in other words, each one of them should be allowed 1,000 votes to everyone else's 1 vote because they've chosen to live within some arbitrary, self-defined border. > If we went to a popular vote, candidates would figure > out that they could stop going to Iowa, New Hampshire, > and all the other small states, and just focus on > California, Texas, New York, Florida, Ohio, and a > few others. If you are fortunate to live in one of > those states, you would get a lot of attention (and > money, because it all comes down to money) from the > Federal government as the sitting president tried to > woo your votes. It would completely fuck up our system > of government. Just my 2 cents. I find that doubtful. They already ignore states for other reasons, this would just be a new different reason, and I suspect they would focus on cities rather than on states. Given a focus of cities, an individual state may have only one city worth visiting (Demoines, Omaha), while other states may have a couple (LA, San Francisco). The majority of states would have no more than 2, which is probably very much as it is now. Moreover it might encourage more awareness campaigns about the state of our agricultural regions in an effort to encourage voting decisions which seek to improve the quality of life in those regions. Moreover, the advent of electronic media between radio, TV and internet really obviates much of the need to actually travel to these cities to speak. Any issue which is liable to sway the vote is liable to become a vote-swaying issue regardless of when or where it's voiced, so I doubt that voicing it at a public speach in Chicago is much different than writing a blog about it (for example). That being the case, then all the farmers have all the access they need (or should) to invormation to make their votes, and as they make up such a small part of the puplation, they can band together to make themselves heard, just the same way that other people need to band together to be heard. I realize that in some cases this may place more demand on them, as they might need to drive to town to use the internet or may have some difficulty overcoming the learning challenge the internet poses to those in extreme rural areas, but that's an issue that will need to be tackled one way or another. Just as they fairly well all have telephones now (or access to phones within driving distance), they'll eventually have to adopt other newer technologies. (And they already drive to town for other things, so you can't say it takes too much time away from their work.) I could be wrong, but those are my thoughts. s. isaac dealey 434.293.6201 new epoch : isn't it time for a change? add features without fixtures with the onTap open source framework http://www.fusiontap.com http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/author/4806Dealey.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:203987 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
