Globally, Broad Support for Representative and Direct Democracy

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(10-17-2017, 03:16 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: I'm representing these ideas as changes in a new constitution, playing off a thread Matt made a few weeks ago. The idea being that concept is antiquated. 


This is a bit of anachronism. The system was designed so that states could pick a way to assign electors or educated people to go to Congress and vote for the President. The idea of a popular vote for candidates isn't uniformly established for decades. Same with the allocation of electors within the state. 

The analogy also ignores the fact that with California's larger size and population comes greater diversity in demographics and needs. The issue is still rooted in your wanting to place importance in the idea of a state as a whole. Putting less importance on the idea of California as a state provides for more voices in California to be heard and their unique needs addressed, like the 1 in every 14 Trump voters who live in California.

Again, this is a hypothetical change and I'm only suggesting these changes occur within the Senate and in the Presidential election. It won't affect the representation of regions in addressing their needs, it just takes away the uneven voice given to small population states smaller than large cities. 

If anything there will be less extremism. The 4.5 million Trump voters in California would have their voices heard in both the Presidential election and the senatorial elections. You'll likely see more moderate candidates. 


I know. The issue isn't allocation, it's the fact that we use electoral votes. Why should a voter in Wyoming count the same as 3.5 voters in California?

Ah, see that is where we are split right from the get-go. I thought the whole "new Constitution" thing was silly. We don't need a new Constitution, we just need to enforce the current one once more. Not to mention if I am remembering correctly the whole premise of that thread was "but don't redo it while Republicans are in power", aka.. wait until Democrats take over, and then redo it. Lol... which would just be the same problem, but for the opposite side. There's no way that either party or even a mythical bipartisan effort could redo the Constitution in any kind of fair and impartial way that would make it better than it currently is written up.

Of course I want to place importance on the State as a whole. It's why we have States. When you join the National Guard, you join your State's military. When you get a driver's license, you get your State's license. You are protected by your State's Constitution. We're The United States of America, not the United Counties of America, or United Townships of America. Lol

You say that it's an uneven voice given to small population states, but that's not true. It's an importance placed on non-extremist/non-single-party population states. The current "Swing States" (US population ranking):
-Colorado (21st)
-Florida (3rd)
-Iowa (30th)
-Michigan (10th)
-Minnesota (22nd)
-Ohio (7th)
-Nevada (34th)
-New Hampshire (41st)
-North Carolina (9th)
-Pennsylvania (6th)
-Virginia (12th)
-Wisconsin (20th)

That's a pretty good sample of states from high-mid population.

If I have to choose between giving a larger voice to political extremist echo chambers, and giving a larger voice to the people who are open to choosing from both sides, I choose the latter. Mostly because I don't care that much for either party, so I don't want to be wedded to being extreme for one or the other.

A direct vote is just simply too much like mob mentality rule.

(10-17-2017, 03:44 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yeah, I'd also get rid of that "only one seat" principle with all that gerrymandered voting districts. I would solve that by just abandoning those. Instead you'd get statewide lists, and all seats going to that states are filled according to that lists and the votes parties get in one state-wide election.
As soon as you vote for each seat individually, you have the two-party system, meaning a third party cannot win anything essential (like a seat). If all 12 Georgia seats were filled by one statewide election, roughly 8.5% of votes would constitute a seat, and the state's electorals' wishes would be represented way more accurately. And new powers would stand a chance, have a path to relevance. At least that's how I feel, but of course I'm accustomed to just that.


Oh sure, that needs to be done first and foremost. I do not see a political will though, including the public. I loudly wonder about this here every other week.


Point taken.
Is it so different now though? I get you're not quite the fan of Californian policy proposals, and fair enough, the example is valid in itself. But I could also understand a Californian saying his vote is downgraded by the system, as in an Ohio vote is way more valuable than their own vote (the Ohion vote actually is way more decisive in a tradtional swing state). And thinking about it, this is hard to refute. You're not the European Union, that doesn't have anything like a president and a parliament with legislative power the way America has.
Plus, you still have the Senate. And that this system favours states over electorates is obvious. California gets two Senators, the two Dakotas get four, there's nothing more to say to underline that point. The fairness of that is hard to grasp, unless you emphasize on a strong federalist alignment. But I feel the existence of the current Senate takes that into account and kind of uses up this aspect. Congress could very well be more for all people and not so much for all states without the states losing too much power (through the Senate and the Constitution).

Also, I think directly voting for a president is a bad idea to begin with. Congress should vote for one after big Congress elections. That way, a president can always work with a majority and get things passed (unless the majority is a republican one and the president is Trump, of course. But even though current events seem to contradict me, I still think that is a valid point).

Hollo, the main reason why they don't have just a single state-wide election for seats is because I think you forget how big our states are sometimes.
Austria is ~84k square km and ~8.6m people.
Ohio is ~116k square km and ~11.6m people.
And Ohio is only the 31st largest and 7th most populous state out of the 50.

So the people in Cleveland, 400km away from Cincinnati, might be in the same state, but they have different needs/motivations/weather/economy. So it wouldn't make sense for people in Cleveland to be voting on who would represent Cincinnati's interests. It would be like Vienna voting on who should represent Lienz, being roughly the same distance apart. That's hardly a unique example, either. Tallahassee, FL to Miami, FL is 770km, but they're in the same state. That's why the Senators are two per state, but House is based off population and split.

So you're right that your idea would solve gerrymandering issues, but it'd create a lot of new issues in it's place. There needs to be a way of solving gerrymandering problems without removing the idea that each region of a state choosing their own House Reps.


Here is a map of Europe with an outline of the Continental US overlaid on it. So no Hawaii (16.6k sq km), and no Alaska (1.7m sq km).



PS: You better appreciate me using all your commie measurements of "kilometers".