letting my voice be heard

[Tage]

Speaking of politics, a friend of mine told me about this site last night:
http://www.votepair.org/
Basically, it's a semi-formal way of "vote swapping" between people in different states. One of the huge frustrations of being a non-Bush supporter in Utah is that I know my vote will count for nothing here. However, there are strong supporters of third-party candidates in swing states who simply want their man to get a certain percent of the popular vote. So we vote swap, and I vote for their guy, and they vote for my guy, and we both get our voices heard.

So anyway, I don't know how many others are in heavy right-wing states and want their vote to count for something, but I thought I'd share this just in case.

[fuzzyoctopus]

*blink*

That's really cool.

*Registers*

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

so... how does swapping votes INCREASE the votes their candidate receives?

[House of Mustard]

It doesn't, but theoretically it increases their chances.

For example, in Utah, Bush will win by a landslide, so voting for Kerry is pointless.  However, voting for Nader is still worthwhile in Utah, because Nader is only trying to get 5% of the vote (and thus government funds for next election), not trying to win.

In a battleground state, such as Florida, voting for Nader will hurt Kerry's chances to win.  So, someone in Florida who wants to vote for Nader will swap with someone in Utah who wants to vote for Kerry.  The Floridian will vote for Kerry, which will help Kerry, and the Utahn will vote for Nader, which will help Nader.

So, theoretically, it's good.

Of course, that said, I find this to be one of the most unethical slaps in the face to the American governmental system I've ever heard.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

is it 5% of the electoral college then? Or 5% in each state? or what?

[House of Mustard]

5% of the total votes.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Than it doesn't help the third-party candidate at all. Unless he's a liar too. Someone else is jsut making the vote that's made at all.

[House of Mustard]

After several years of navigating this forum, I've come to pride myself on my ability to understand incoherency.  But:

Someone else is jsut making the vote that's made at all.

Wha??

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I blame the children. Let me try coherancy for a change:

It should read "Someone else is just going to be casting a vote that was going to be cast anyway."

In other words, if there are 50 million registered voters, and Nader needs 5% of those 50 million votes to get funs, then he needs 2.5 million votes, regardless of where those votes come from. It's irrelevant whether (as in the case you mentioned above) the person in Florida votes for him or the person in Utah votes for him. He still just gets one vote out of the deal. Seems like the person voting for Kerry gets the advantage, and the person in Florida just has to trust the Kerry-fan will vote as he says. Unless of course the Nader-fan is dishonest, in which case the Green Party gets one extra vote.

Which is the biggest practical problem with this set up. There's no way to prove that someone is doing what they say they'll do.  I *hope* that there's some measure to make sure someone isn't selling his vote TWICE, but even that has major potential fears for it.

[House of Mustard]

The whole premise of the swap is that it doesn't matter where the Nader votes come from--it only matters where the Kerry votes come from.  So, this doesn't help Nader much--except that people don't have to abandon voting for Nader so they can vote for Kerry.

Yeah -- there are a lot of practical problems with this setup.  Like I said, I think it's horrendous.

[Tage]

Well, seeing as how I think the electoral college is nothing more than a way to drown true democracy and one of the real "unethical slaps in the face to the American governmental system," I think this is a great idea. Seriously, why should my vote be utterly ignored by our electoral process just because I live in a state where I'm out-numbered by people who think otherwise?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

"True democracy" heh

uhm... the Constitution doesn't do anything CLOSE to trying to establish a true democracy. This is a REPRESENTATIVE democracy. We don't vote on every issue, we vote on representatives who vote on issues.

I don't want true democracy, it'd make a mess of things. The representative democracy is better. I don't think the Electoral College is the best solution, but it's hardly a slap in the face of a system it was a part of at conception.

NOte that at no time in this little rant did I say that I do, or do not, like the electoral college. The EC was designed to represent a confederation: so individual STATES had representation, not the people, because 230 years ago, the states were the "nations" while the US was more of an alliance in a lot of people's minds. That's a big result of the civil war: that perception was changing, and the war forced that change on to the people (and yes, I know slavery was a major factor in it, but look at major figures like General Lee, who fought for Virginia because he was a Virginian, and not because he believed slavery was right).

Anyway, I'm still not expressing my opinion on it, but it IS worth noting that few people think of themselves primarily as a state citizen first and a US citizen second.

[House of Mustard]

To put it simply: because we live in a republic, not a democracy.  And in reality, the only way that anyone living outside of a major urban area would receive any recognition from the government is because of a representative government, and the electoral college.

I'm heading into a meeting for a few hours, but let me say a few quick things, and I'll write more later:

1) Your vote does count.  The notion that your vote is somehow void, just because you're in the minority, really bugs me.

2) The governmental system revolves around the balance between state rights and federal rights.  If there were no representative government, and only pure nation-wide democracy, then the concerns of the minorities would be ignored.  

Like I said...I have to run.  I'll write more soon.

[42]

I actually agree with HoM for once.

For one, I'm fed up with places like Utah being governed by places like New York and California.

Mostly however, it because I can see how easily the populat vote gets swayed in the wrong direction. Not that I'm one to  always doubt the wisdom of heards, after having dealt with the "high art" society for a couple of years, some herds can be really stupid.

Plus, there is no way that things like Momonism would have been allowed to thrive if it had been left up to a popular vote.

So votepair.org seems like nothing more than a place for sore losers.

[stacer]

1) Your vote does count.  The notion that your vote is somehow void, just because you're in the minority, really bugs me.

It doesn't seem to affect my local representative here in Brookline. We were all asked to write our local reps during that big thing with gay marriage, so many of us did. Everyone got back a form letter saying, "Thank you for your support of gay marriage. I'm glad you agree with me," etc.--obviously that rep didn't read the letters, and is not bothering to listen to the minority of voters in his district. Yet there's no way we'll be able to vote him out, because the majority of voters here do agree with him. So being in the minority is really frustrating.

I have no solutions. I'm just venting.