mail in voting

[hollodero]

(06-12-2020, 10:47 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Oh yeah. This is why I am often advocating for a new constitution.Even our founding fathers only expected us to get about 20 years out of the document. This September we'll be at 231 years and 28 years since the most recent amendment.

Oh boy. Yeah at least some serious amendmends would be in order. But good luck with advocating that, I guess most will see that as some form of treason.

(06-12-2020, 10:47 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: The two-party system affected the electoral college, not the other way around. The intention of the popularly elected electoral college worked where local districts would vote for their electors to make the decision for their behalf. The federal government told the states they could choose electors however they saw fit, so the two-party system that existed in state governments said "let's make it so it's winner take all" in all but a couple of states. So the two-party system corrupted the electoral college rather than the electoral college creating the problematic two-party system.

OK, I'd just say the one would not exist without the other. The EC was corruptable in that sense, in a way a different system would not have been.

(06-12-2020, 10:47 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Oh, I'm definitely not advocating for that many representatives, but there is a lot of middle ground between 435 and 6858. I have lots of thoughts on congressional district reform that could create a more representative and democratic system that could also break the stranglehold the two-party system has on us. But making things more democratic is too radical for most people and the people currently in power definitely want nothing to do with it.

But isn't there a danger that if you have 1000+ representatives, they would choose some big dogs among themselves to lead the way? You'd have some kind of second informal EC in congress...
...I'm aware you already have caucuses, which does point in that direction.

As for reform, sure the US system gets a lot of fun made out of and it probably starts with the congressional districts that are gerrymandered in an extremely bizarre way. Politicians choosing their voters instead of the other way round, they say.
They would probably need to get abandoned as a whole, merged into big district where a 10%, or 15 0r 20% hurdle represents one congressman. You might get some third parties that way. And so on and so on, I guess we already talked about that before as well, in reality I guess nothing will change, for nothing is as bipartisan as keeping the two-party system alive and well. (Except that many dream of an effective one-party system and hope even the one alternative goes away, I guess.)

Didn't you tell me about some states that at least want to get rid of the winner takes all system in presidential elections? I guess Maine does that, that at least would be something. If California or other states had that, it at least would make sense to go vote there again.