And how exactly do you surmise they will charge their mobile device once their battery runs low? You are showing your ignorance. As if every voter has access to or knows how to use the internet. There are many reasons why the electoral college is needed. The potential for natural disasters to disenfranchise large numbers of voters in affected areas is just one of them.
1) You charge with your car. Or on a generator. Ask how the people of Lower Manhattan how they have managed. 2) If you can't use technology you shoudn't be allowed to vote.
Right, and in a natural disaster, a car or generator may not be available. The sheer logistical difficulties during a natural disaster could dissuade large numbers from voting altogether. Wow.
Sorry, but people will find a way to get their vote in if they want to. Election day is on a Tuesday because it would take some people a full day to travel back in the olden days and a journey on a Sunday was a sin. We are so lazy it's unbelievable. I want lazy votes dissuaded. ******** em. Well sorry but if you don't wish to keep up to date with how our society works why should we value your opinion on which direction it should move in the future?
One more point against the EC. You cite this storm as evidence but do you really think that if NYC was shut down that the state would still go for Obama? That's goose level silly. Same with PA without Philly or NJ without the northern cities. A blunt action in any city is an automatic plus for team red in most of this country. But instead of losing NYC's potential 5M Obama votes (assuming a safe 75%) in a popular vote election with 130M voting or +/-3% you end up losing 31 EV's or +/- 8%. That is a big difference.
I didn't say it was a question. It doesn't have to be a question for someone to answer. And you clearly have no answer because you know full well your assertion is ridiculous. That stated assertion is that those unfamiliar with technology somehow do not deserve to vote. Good luck with that.
Stick to this point of obviously over the top opinion instead of addressing how I owned your argument a mere seven posts ago. Go ahead.
Oh, so it's "obviously over the top" now that you've been called out on it. And your "ownage" seven posts ago was anything but. It's obvious natural disasters don't confine themselves to metropolitan areas. Don't waste my time.
It always has been. You obviously don't deal with me very often A natural disaster in a rural area doesn't effect results worth a damn, popular or electorally. In a metro area it would effect an election always to the benefit of the conservatives. How giving team red an overall agregate advantage justifies the EC as shown by this disaster, is just plain silly. It's just a happy benefit for your guys.
Natural disasters in rural areas wouldn't affect the results as much, but they certainly would in the suburbs. Both Republicans and Democrats live in the suburbs and the cities, and natural disasters could hit either or both. The EC favored Republicans in the past. There's a decent chance it will favor the Democrats this year. There's a reason the EC has been around for over 200 years, because it's fair and it works. Give it up, it ain't changing.
Colorado and New Mexico are going have 4 Democratic Senators this upcoming Congress. Show some respect.
It's also constitutionally impossible to get rid of. Which is why my modification of a truly proportional House of Representitives, which works within the constitution, is a less bad system. But to say it is fair is an opinion I just can't share.
For your amusement, Brummie: Early in the campaign, Heather Wilson rather relentlessly aired an ad accusing Martin Heinrich of (gasp) supporting the Wall Street bailout. About two weeks or ten days ago Heinrich started airing an ad accusing Wilson of --- yep-- supporting the Wall Street bailout. (As far as I know, both assertions are true, and in equal measure.) But the real fun is-- after flailing around with new ads every couple of weeks, looking for any wedge that might work (she dredged out poor Pete Dominici, looking like something from "The Mummy Returns," to endorse her in a spot-- and she also tried out positioning herself as the outsider taking on Beltway Martin who voted for all those evil Bush initiatives in another) she has finally in desperation cut a couple of ads featuring herself--- playing the banjo. Not even a five string-- she's apparently after either the string-band demographic, or the dixieland demographic... can't be minstrel show, 'cause she's not in blackface. (Now the US Chamber of Commerce has started huge buys claiming that Heinrich's reelection will put an end to all jobs in New Mexico...)
Porportional representation of electors within states (as opposed to winner takes all) would be a good thing, IMHO. It might for example have made it worth Kerry's time to at least try for, say, the Boise elector even if the rest of Idaho was out of reach; as it was there were people who voted in the city who never even saw a Kerry bumper sticker the whole campaign... But eliminating the Electoral college at this point is a poor idea, simple because of 2000. If an election is razor thin, we don't want to be trying to recount the entire country. Some sort of a precinct system is needed to localize the problem or problems. As powerful as our IT structures have become, they are simply not reliable enough to count on in an unstaged assessment of that size yet. At least that's my opinion as one who works daily with a system similar to any which would be used to account a nationwide popular election. Mine is central to one of the biggest organizations in the world and it has weird fits on a semi regular basis. It is easy enough to get those fits fixed, given that everybody working on it and everyone waiting on the correction has the same interest in getting it right. But in our political climate, I can't imagine proper function being achieved at all, what with opposing sides trying to bribe and bully the folks working on the corrections in hopes of getting them to get it wrong. And they would be bullied and some of them would take bribes...
Trade ya...I've got Connie Mack accusing Bill Nelson of supporting a Muslim and Bill Nelson accusing Connie Mack of being a playboy.
Hey dude, I agree with everything in your post but this paragraph. If I remember right in 2000 you guys wouldnt even had to have to recount all the country cause without the electoral college Gore clearly would have won that thing. He had 500.000 more in the popular vote. Florida was about a few hundred votes that never would have made the difference in the popular vote. But lets say it would be razor thin up to a few hundred votes countrywide, isnt recounting to get the most accurate result just what a modern democracy is about?
I imagine a margin of .005 in the popular vote would have required a recount. There were for example several thousand votes in New Mexico at issue as Bernalillo lived up to its reputation once again. They went unchallenged because our electoral votes would make no difference; but in a national recount... There were complaints in Ohio, Illinois, Oregon, California and Texas as well IIRC. Just not enough to justify a recount in precincts decided by larger margins, or controlling electoral votes already on the short end.