response 109 of 406:

Sep 27 18:09 UTC 2000

er, behavior *of* bureaucrats.

response 111 of 406:

Sep 27 21:27 UTC 2000

  I wouldn't worry about it.

response 113 of 406:

Sep 27 22:17 UTC 2000

Clinton got pluralities each time.

The last time a presidential candidate won the electoral vote and lost the
popular vote was Harrison (over Cleveland) in 1888. Harrisson lost by 90,596
votes (he was 0.8% behind Cleveland), but received 58.1% of the electoral
vote.

Source: http://uselectionatlas.org/poltextj.html

response 115 of 406:

Sep 28 00:58 UTC 2000

clinton wonthe popular voteboth times, he just didnt get over 50%.  I 
think if I was Gore and I won the electoral vote but lostthepopular
vote, I might feel ethically bound to ask my electors to vote for Bush.
They really should do away with the electoral collegeanyway.

response 117 of 406:

Sep 28 02:39 UTC 2000

Okay, if you are interested, Ralph Nader's runningmate is Winona LaDuke,
a half-jewish/half-native american activist.  Her pet causeis to forcethe
american government to give back land stolen from the Anishinabeg tribe
and make reparations.  She is also a practicing jewjust like Leiberman, so
shewouldnt work on Rosh Hashana either.

response 119 of 406:

Sep 28 04:49 UTC 2000

I'd go out and say it wouldn't even be much of a political crisis, but if Gore
wins electorally and loses popularly, you just know the Republicans will gripe
about it.  Ah well.  I don't think it's too big of a deal.  Everyone is taught
in high school that this is a possibility.

Since we're never told anything about the actual electoral college, i'm not
sure how much of a check that is, but it's nice that some states can't
completely run roughshod over others.

response 121 of 406:

Sep 28 12:42 UTC 2000

I rather like the idea of a parliamentary system. As for it creating upheaval,
well what's wrong with a little upheaval now and then? Keeps fat cats on their
toes. As for being less stable, all I can say is that the parliamentary system
is in place in many countries, such as the UK and Canada, which seem pretty
stable to me.

response 123 of 406:

Sep 28 13:58 UTC 2000

Okay, could someone please explain the electoral college to me?  
Because I really don't understand what the point of it is.  Why do we 
really need it?  I think a vote should be a vote, each individual 
person counting and whoever gets the most wins.  This is my rather 
uneducated opinion on it (I know the electoral college was explained to 
me when I was in high school but I didn't understand it then and I 
don't understand it now.)

response 125 of 406:

Sep 28 14:28 UTC 2000

I'd been taught that the point of the electoral college was to reinforce that
we're the United State*S*, not the United State. To do this, the President
is determined by the popular vote in each STATE, rather than the popular vote
in the the whole country. Win the popular vote in enough states, you win.

I'm confused as to why something that's happened at least twice in history
(someone who lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote became
president) would consistute a modern "problem." Regardless of who wins, it's
almost a guarantee that they'll receive a larger percentage of the popular
vote than Clinton did in '88 (when Perot got 18%, I beleive -- Nader won't
even come close to that). So they'll receive more of the popular vote than
Clinton (even if they don't win it), they'll have support of a larger
percentage of Americans, and it's already happened twice... big deal.

I'm more concerned that, yet again, the winner of the election will have less
than 50% of the vote (Nader probably WILL be that much of a spoiler). We keep
putting in leaders that the majority of us don't even agree on.

response 127 of 406:

Sep 28 17:07 UTC 2000

I'm not sure what a coalition government is.

response 129 of 406:

Sep 28 19:40 UTC 2000

I think it's still important to have the policy that the presidential
candidate selected by the popular vote in the most states win (as opposed to
the candidate selected by the national popular vote). Whether the "Electoral
college" continues to be the means to that end, I'm indifferent.

Note that the Electoral College is weighted -- it's the number of senators
+ the number of representatives, so that if state A has twice the population
of state B, it won't have twice the votes, but rather less than that (but more
than the same number of votes, usually). I believe this mechanism was put in
to keep the larger states from feeling threatened by a collusion of smaller
states (the purpose of the Senate's two-per-state) and to keep the smaller
states from feeling threatened by single huge states being bullies (the
purpose of the House's reps-per-population). (And reverse those parenthetical,
I got 'em backwards. =} ... the Senate makes all the states equal, the House
makesthe larger states more powerful).

response 131 of 406:

Sep 29 01:38 UTC 2000

It's pretty much a given whichever candidate wins won't have received
votes from the majority.  I believe in recent presidential elections,
the # of eligible people who vote is about 60% - effectively, 40% voted
for "none of the above", & a candidate would have to receive over 80% of
the remaining votes in order to receive a true majority of the votes.
This has been true for ages and hasn't bothered the politicians any.

Someone above thought the electoral college was good protection against
demagogues.  I don't think so, if anything, I think it makes the system
weaker against such folks.  Certainly a Hitler or a S. Hussein would
have no trouble using the electoral college to his own ends.  600 people
are a lot easier to control than 250,000,000.  If I remember right,
Hitler just burned down the legislative building.  The people who were
left got the message loud & clear.  There is, in existance, a video of
some Iraq legislative body, in session as Hussein was consolidating his
power.  Every so often, he'd point to someone, and his soldiers would
hustle that person out of the chamber, and a short while later, a shot
would be heard.  Sorry, but I still think the electoral college is
obselete and should be replaced.  Either a straight popular vote, or a
popular vote weighted in part by state & population.

I think it was Larry, above, who was talking about how a parliamentary
system might impact OSHA or other gov't agencies.  While I probably
ought to go visit that URL to entirely appreciate what he said, I do
have to say right away that it sounds like he's talking about the evils
that the civil service was created to address.
      [ Once upon a time, in *this* country, every time the
        administration changed party hands, that meant a complete
        turnover affecting practically everyone in gov't office as
        well, down to the county rat catcher (bubonic plague was
        still fresh on people's minds.)  This was back in the 19th
        century, before the days of big gov't, but even so, people
        were quick to notice that the plum jobs always went to the
        party faithfuls, who often weren't very competent, and there
        was a big learning process every changeover, as the new guys
        learned the little they could without help from the old
        guys.  The civil service was invented to correct this
        problem; now there is a civil service examination, which
        guarantees at least a minimal level of competency, and only
        the top level executive jobs change with the new party.  As
        everybody knows the peter principle guarantees they'd be
        incompetent anyways, this doesn't bother anyone. ]