Globally, Broad Support for Representative and Direct Democracy

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(10-17-2017, 01:55 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I understand the point you're making, and that's true, and I'll explain how I intended for this to come across.

As it stands, swing states, many of which being regional (midwest or rust belt), decide the outcome of the election. As you have correctly pointed out, they don't tend to be heavily in favor of one candidate, minimally swinging back and forth on between election cycles. This is the regional trend I am referring to. 

Either we give power to this or we just say that the plurality rules, even if they are in higher centers of population. I personally prefer to the latter because it means all voices are equal, all votes count, and it encourages third options. 

Likewise, I'd prefer to see a Senate that represented non regional/state choices. A system, possibly, where we use a ranked choice voting system where we can vote for candidates across the country. I think Matt has advocated for these in the past. 

If you tackle gerrymandering at the same time, it'll mean less echo chambers are states don't come into play for the Senate or the President and congressional districts are less extreme. 

The problem being that we're not America, but The United STATES of America. You're taking the ability for each State to make a decision out of their hands. While the electoral college weighs each state according to their population, it doesn't make it so that they completely negate each other's opinion, which a straight popular vote would do.

The reason each state has their own separate popular votes is because each state has their own interests. Say a candidate is running on an idea of a huge Mississippi River project that would be a huge economical boon for the states on the Mississippi. The states affected vote to a reasonable, but still clearly majority 55-45 split for that candidate. Then California comes in and says "That isn't the party we vote for." and they go extremist party tactics and go 80-20 split (which is how San Francisco County votes). The sheer population difference just made California crush the other 6-8 or whatever states in a popular vote.

There's a reason every state has their own government, their own national guard, their own constitution, their own senate, etc. We're a collection of united but separate territories. A straight populous vote would wreck that by promoting insular tribal (party) extremism. That would not be healthy for the country because then you're silencing large swaths of states' voices because they're not extreme enough to one side or the other.

The last thing we need is changing things to promote MORE extremism political opinions rather than less. Even fixing Gerrymandering wouldn't change the trend of creating more and stronger echo chambers in that case. Gerrymandering is a Congress problem not a Presidential Election problem, because in the end, the State totals up the votes.

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Keep in mind there's nothing preventing a state from splitting it's electoral votes if it wanted to. Each state decides if it wanted to in their constitutions. For instance, Trump got 1 vote from Maine out of their 4 electoral votes. Most states just chose an all-or-nothing stance. Nebraska is the other state that can split their votes.

(10-17-2017, 02:20 PM)Benton Wrote: Ohio and California represent a pretty good piece to the problem: gerrymandering. If you take gerrymandering out of the equation, states like Texas aren't really so Republican, and Democrat strongholds like California are. It's largely irrelevant in some of those states to get 3-5% to show up if the district is already a non-factor due to mapping. And it eliminates the chances of a third party in most instances.

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2017/09/what_ohio_could_learn_from_cal.html
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-gerrymander-20170711-story.html

Representative democracies are the way to go, but elections should be direct. If you've got 10 people, four shouldn't have a bigger say than six.

Sure, Gerrymandering is a problem for Congress, but I was only arguing Presidential Election-wise with Bmore. I believe States need to each have their own say on that. If you've got 10 people in California and 8 say Ohio shouldn't be allowed to chew bubblegum and walk at the same time, and Ohio has 4 people and 0 of them say Ohio shouldn't be allowed to chew bubblegum and walk at the same time, the 8:2 for:against votes in California shouldn't negate the 0:4 for:against votes in Ohio and decide what happens to them.

But yes, as for Congress, something probably needs done.