I have made a particular argument for the Electoral College based on the realities of corruption in America today.

It all comes back to "one man, one vote", which you say you believe in.

The problem is that certain very large cities, for example Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago are political monocultures, with 85-90% registration in the Democratic Party. These cities are one-party places, and have been for the better part of a century. The political machines in those particular cities are very powerful, very organized, and very corrupt. Because law enforcement and election management in America are local affairs, corruption in the electoral process at the municipal level is reported and investigated by the local authorities. In these very large cities, the political machines control not only city hall and the city council and the mayor's office and the courts (judges are elected politicians), they also control the police department, the elections commission and the public prosecutor's office. Everybody is part of the same machine.

This assures political control of everything, but that is the will of the people of those cities at the local level to a very large extent. Democrats don't rule there because of voter fraud, they rule there because the are the overwhelming majority.

The problem is that when it comes to national elections, these urban political machines begin to operate at a fever pitch, and now the corruption DOES matter, because corrupt votes of nonexistent or dead people or illegal aliens, are all registered. "Vote early, vote often" is the old joke about Chicago Presidential election voting behavior. Unions bus groups of voters to the polls, and when they are tracked, from one polling station to the other.

There is a game that is played whereby the mechanical voting machines are found to be "defective" early in the day, and the vote has to go onto "paper ballots". At this point, the forces of corruption have an open field.

This is much more difficult to do in more rural or suburban areas, because the apparatus of government is smaller and the massive political machines and their union allies don't exist.

In the 2000 Presidential election the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania and the Democratic Mayor of Philadelphia promised to deliver that state to Al Gore. The political machine worked overtime in Pennsylvania. Indeed, it worked all too well. Once the voters were counted, Philadelphia registered votes that amounted to a 100% turnout. So, according to the votes counted, every registered voter in Philadelphia came out and voted. Every one. A truly astonishing result. And a truly corrupt one.

Now, the normal solution to that would be for the prosecutor's office to investigate. But they're part of the machine. Ditto for the governor. The corruption being absolute, the sham of 100% voter turnout (voting for Gore, naturally) was open for the world to see, and the federal structure of the United States with the strong ability of local and state governments to protect themselves against investigation was also visible.

THAT is the problem with taking down the Electoral College.

As things stand, Philadelphia could generate a million fraudulent votes. Maybe that might change a tight election in Pennsylvania, but thanks to the E.C., the corruption ends there. It cannot spill over and cancel out voters in states like Vermont and Nebraska and the Dakotas, where there are no large urban areas and little or no corruption.

Now consider the 2004 election. George Bush won by winning Ohio by a couple of hundred thousand votes. If America used a straight popular vote system, that one million fraudulent votes out of Philadelphia, aided by fraudulent votes out of Chicago and Detroit, would wipe out the REAL margin of REAL voters votes. You would not have one man one vote any more. You would have dead people cancelling out the votes of live voters in different states.

This favors the Democrats: they control all of the big urban machines.

The Electoral College puts solid firewalls down on state lines, making it such that the corruption in Philadelphia cannot cancel ANY votes in Indiana. Different state, different election.

Now, you've raised the issue over and over again of one man, one vote, but you've never once addressed the issue I have raised again and again in response. You've waved your hands around and called all arguments against the Electoral College "Bullshit", but what I have written here is NOT bullshit at all. It's the truth, and a moment's reflection on that truth will allow you to see the precise problem.

Indeed, the DEMOCRATS were fearful of this problem back in 2004 and 2008 over the alleged corruption in Diebold voting machines, produced by a company with a Republican owner, which "no doubt", in their perspective, would mean that the machines would be programmed to add votes to the Republican side. Democrats have perfected machine politics and urban voter corruption, so OF COURSE their leadership sees the threat coming the other way.

Whichever way it comes, the electoral college prevents ONE corrupt city or a handful of corrupt districts from generating fraudulent votes sufficient to overwhelm the real vote. Because of state lines, corruption is limited on a state-by-state basis. This actually PROTECTS one man, one vote, because it doesn't allow the dead or nonexistent voters of Chicago to cancel anybody's vote outside of Illinois.

This is the fourth time I have written about it.
I will be interesting to see if you totally ignore the argument again.
I predict that you will, and the reason you will is because the argument is decisive. Political theorizing aside, the Electoral College is effective in erecting 50 state firewalls against the REAL corruption in the REAL political process in America. There is no corresponding counter to it, and given the fact that prosecutors and judges are elected and police chiefs are political appointees, relying on the integrity of the government to police itself is a joke.

So, will you acknowlege this reality and admit that this is a VERY GOOD reason why the Electoral College needs to stay, and the possibility of a somewhat (though not very) undemocratic result may time to time result? My bet is no. My bet is you'll ignore it again. My bet is also that you very strongly favor the Democrats in American politics, want to see them win, and are perfectly content with an "ends justify the means" approach, so you'll ignore the reality of corruption over and over again, and continue to hammer away on the "one man, one vote" argument, even though corruption in fact denies people that all across the country, by letting a few corrupt city machines manufacture fraudulent votes to cancel out real ones.

Prove me wrong and respond.
The only possible response is to sadly admit that, yes, in the real world of real America, there is a lot of corruption, and that yes, the Electoral College is a firewall against the corruption in one place contaminating all of the rest of it.

To nwdave, club, americalex, windwalker. It doesn't matter if Canadians get it. Its six US states that have approved bypassing the electoral college. Go convince your fellow Americans what it means to be American. Alex, go ahead and ban those six failtard US states

to vic: i read the first paragraph and last paragraph and assume its the exact same thing you wrote before but longer.
1. I guess the six US states aren't as paranoid as you.
2. I don't think its an effective firewall at all. You describe a very silly case of corruption that no one would sit back and ignore it. Investigations and lawsuits would be filed, you make it sound like republicans or democrats wouldn't invest money in exposing corruption thats working against them. The kind you mention is easily exposed. Secondly, more subtle corruption wouldn't result in any kind of firewall result. In fact cities have more sway in EC as they will take a full 100% take of their state EC points instead of a proportional amount of their EC state points.

I made a big mistake. I did not meant to imply the 3 branches were the house, senate and presidency. The judicial branch is equal and separate. But i do not see house and senate as equal houses of power, and i don't see the legislative and executive branches as separate. The executive is extremely involved in the powers you describe for the legislative.

But didn't you in the past agree with me that proportional representation in the national assembly is a retarded socialist ploy to hi-jack the communities and allow fringe extremist groups to get members elected? Isn't it the same logic here? Sundering the electoral process from the communities represented by the collection of states and going with a national proportional socialist approach?

Destroying American limited government in order to oppress it's people by transforming said system into a dumbed down democracy where policy is totally disconnected from the communities that have to live with those decisions?

Numerical quantity does not define power in a constitutional federation. The very undeniable thing that we should never forget is that the communities exist empirically as geographical units. Why Lester would you side against the very logic you used to oppose proportional representation?

Which six states are they? Democrat-dominated states, no doubt.

I describe a factual state of corruption that we do, as a nation, ignore. The Democrats ignore the corruption because it works to their favor, and the Republicans have never been able to penetrate the corruption because the political machines of the most corrupt areas are closed shops.

Cities are not the issue. Huge cities with corrupt political machines - there are only a few of those - are the issue.

Its not the same thing. We elect people to seats in parliament on a plurality. I'm saying the president ought to be elected the same as his peers in government, with a plurality. This is giving the seat to the winner, the other candidates get nothing. This is not PR, what PR does is give seats to the losers.


My opposition to PR had nothing to do with opposition to numerical quantity. USA already has a body of government for geographical state units. USA as whole is a geographic unit too. Arguing that states should decide the president is like arguing states should decide the house. Just assign all Californian house members as dem or republican? Why not, since USA is made of states? States trump everything else, amiright?

Canada doesn't even have a national vote for anything. No elected president, no elected senate for that matter. I've expressed before I like that the lower house has all the power. Its direct and simple. I never want a president and I would consider only some changes to the senate. It is better we represent the people geographically but I never supported your idea of geographic equality. I don't think PEI should have equal say (just as many seats) as Quebec. I am for population equality, and we change and alter our geographic boundaries to better equal our portions of per population representation. (Like adding new seats)

We could have a democracy that isn't broken down geographically. I've read about ideas of representative democracy broken down by income. Reps would still represent the same number of people, just that the votes are pooled differently to decide the reps, it would still be FPTP. So instead of the bulk of parliament representing Ontario and Quebec, the bulk of parliament would represent lower income people. I think its fascinating but I do still think breaking down the seats geographically is best. But that the representation of those seats shouldn't vary too much.

Them being democrats I think has more to do with the bitterness of losing the 2000 election than being anymore corrupt than republicans. You seem to take it for granted that democrats cheat even though you admit there is no proof and their opponents don't even suspect it.

Okay now you're just making shit up, I guess this is what I get for attempting to talk with you. I never proposed any such bullshit concept. All I said is that in a free limited government society, communities need to have adequate representation, equitable representation. The distribution of power has to recognize their existence as real tangible geographical communities, regardless of their numerical differences.

What are you talking about? I'm differentiating between PR and geographic representation. Please I wrote alot and I don't want you to ignore it all because I got 1 thing wrong. I thought you support the equality of states in the senate. I thought thats what you were getting at. I don't understand why you are angry.

This should have been my initial response to your post; "LIES! ALL LIES!". I have not sided against the very logic I used to oppose PR. I should have stated it plainly instead of explaining the difference.

what you fail to see lester is the nefarius goals of the states who do this, you act like the people of those states agree with it, which I am sure if they knew about it they wouldn't (most people dont have the time or inclination to look into it) as far as your ideas on our seperate branches of goverment, you are far far off, as you have no doubt already brainwashed yourself into believing your bias (as many people on this site seem to have done, regardless of beliefs) I'm not going to get in anymore of an arguement with you over it, just to warn you, if you ever do happen to be around a group of well educated and Knowledgable Americans, its best you didn't open your mouth on this one, you'd have people laughing in your ignorant face all night.

Name one person in the world who doesn't believe their own bias?

How is wanting a straight up popular vote "nefarious"?

And I would like to see the powers of the president transferred to congress. Yes I am opposed to joining USA because I see little difference between a hereditary king and an elected king. Electoral college or not, I still wouldn't want to be apart of that process at all.

The better question is would having a straight popular vote even matter? Only four times has the results been different in Presidential elections. The funny thing is a popular vote has the potential to completely back fire on democrats as well. So why change the system? Their are several other things I can think of that are better ideas for amending the Constitution for balanced budget amendment, victims rights amendment, term limits, restricting eminent domain, etc, etc.

Your Prime Minister has more power than are President does for Christ sake.

That is not a fact, you can keep repeating it but you will never be able to demonstrate it. The prime minister cannot veto the will of parliament. The presidential veto powers alone make the president far more powerful than our prime minister.

Still not getting it lester, your PM= our speaker of the house.

your head of state (Quenn/governor general)= our president.

your PM has no veto, just like our speaker has no veto. the fact that you would like to see all power in congress just shows a complete lack of understanding and respect for our system of goverment. basicly you'd like to see america become just like Canada, though I don't see the benefits you think would come of it considering our sustem elected someone you like (Obama) while your system elected a PM you hate. I'm sure you wish Obama could veto some of the conservatives decisions don't you, carefull what you wish for, huh?

Alex, I was refering to the fact that unlike some political/debating sites I've seen, many people on here are so invested in their belief systems that they are "brainwashed" to the point of not even being able to acknowledge cold hard facts when presented to them, not that people aren't allowed their bias but that It doesn't matter what I or anyone else says to them, they are unable to change their belief.

No I do get it Dave. I wasn't the one that made the comparison of our PM to your president. Your explaination was unnecessary, or should have been directed at CWA.

Our queen = your president. And we've stripped her of all her power.

I don't wish for an elected dictator, no matter how benevolent, to veto the will of parliament. Thats what you will defend and respect, thats not what I will respect.

yet you still pay her and "worship" her, how odd....



or a congress of dictators who can override a presidents veto or a supreme court of dictators who can overrule both or 50 dictator states that can over rule them all.
or the population of states who are dictators because we can overrule statehouses with a referendum

everyones a dictator in america, we've got dictator birds and dictator fish my car is a dictator blah blah blah blah dictator blah blah dictator, dictator blah blah.

you obviosely dont get it dude, not only do you not understand what a dictator truely is, you obv dont get exactly how our system works, you keep claiming you do, but in your words, it's painfully obv you don't.

I love it when you're mad, Dave. (your level of anger is proportional to the amount of rolly eye smileys)

PS: we don't pay the Queen squat. and I don't worship anybody.


But I will indulge. A monarch, a president are individuals with alot of power but not necessarily a "dictator". I was using the power of analogy, of course they are different things, but that they aren't all too much different. Being elected is a minor difference.

Now your comparison to congress and dictator is severely flawed (even if meant to disparage my analogy, it doesn't). Congress is not an individual person, a dictator is. And here lies our key differences; I believe the most powerful body of any state ought to be the house of representatives, an entire group of people that represent the people. They should be at the top. Not a single individual.

who wouldn't?

I know Canada doesn't pay the queen with a paycheck, but anytime someone "bows" to another well, I don't want to hurt feelings.... but isn't it embarrassing to have all that "Royal" in front of everything when the queen isn't even of your country, and doesn't really give to shits about you?

but enough off topic, since I vote for the president ("dictator" ) every election, does that make me part of the ruling "junta"?