I've never asked anyone from US about this before but what is really surprising to someone from outside is that there is this indirect form of the election. Wikipedia says that but in my opinion this is just the worst compromise. Ok, there are countries where presidents are elected indirectly but I would say that the role of a president in these countries is just representative. On the other hand, the US president is probably the most powerful person in the world (or at least one of the few). And yet, while it is clearly possible to perform a direct elections where the one with most votes just wins (while having the two with most votes in the second round), there is this awkward model with electors which makes it possible to actually get most votes and still lose the elections. So the question is not quite about the model but how do you people feel about it. Is it generally accepted or still considered controversial/unfair?
I can't say that I'm a fan of the electoral college system, but people have generally accepted it. It mostly becomes an issue in very close elections like the one in 2000. I'd say the major criticism is that it gives backwater, middle of nowhere states with no one living in them too much political power, and those places are full of ignorant yokels who always vote Republican. California, Texas, New York, and Florida are the states with the most electors, as that's where most of the population of the country now lives. California and New York always go to the Democrats, Texas always goes to the Republicans, and Florida is a swing state that's up for grabs. Florida usually determines the presidential election.
I wrote-in Jill Stein and feel pretty good about it. We use a rather peculiar voting machine, but you do fill out a paper ballot and load it into those things. At least there's a paper trail. I do not want to go all digital with no way to hand count anything. I'd be curious to know how many votes each of the third party candidates get here. It has to be incredibly small, which clearly demonstrates that I'm right and everyone else in this state is wrong.
Oregon is incredibly lefty so lefty it's scary. my local newspaper is the democrat. We don't have to write in Jill Stein. I was so gung ho about voting for Gary Johnson given that political quiz AKS linked to and stuff (yes I am just 100% sheep on this xD) but the voters pamphlet scared me shitless on these two candidates. Stein especially the tree huggin hippy I wouldn't have her anywhere NEAR my childs school she SCARES me! Their both so aggressive that's most of it. Doesn't matter cuz with a bipartisan congress they won't get anything done anyway, but yeah. They are a danger to themselves and should be locked up IMO. The guy running as the Green (Jill Stein party) party candidate fcr Oregon Sec of State is pretty cool I voted for him just because he looks like Linus Torvaldis (He might actually BE Linus Torvaldis since afaik, Linus lives in Portland) and he has a background in IT xD. Nerds will rule the world!!
I always thought it was weird how Omaha, Nebraska is like an individual state to itself... for a while I didn't even know Omaha was just a city!!
What's this looking like then? Any early indications? And when's the earliest we're likely to find out the result? I reckon Obama will win, 2-1 in overtime. I'll wager 3 dollars on it.
damn, you noticed this? i thought i could could ninja my way around the forums all these years and no one would know better. my system works like so.. click on thread mainly to have it marked as read, but i skim super quick through the page just to make sure some crazy gripper style personal attacks aren't going on.
Looks like Romney is CLOBBERING Obama! Popular Vote Mitt Romney 63.3% Barack Obama 35.0% http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results
Yeah. I don't know why they aren't giving him cali and ny yet. We all know those are done deals. That takes him to ~200. He is gonna take PA and MI for 38. So FL would seal it shut.
yeah I didn't really care I just thought the 'direction' Romney would lead to would be less scary than Obama at least no Republican ever passed a bill like the NDAA. But whatevers both futures are rather bleak IMO, Obama's is some kind of confused utopia-land while Romney would lead us to religious obscurity it was hard to decide which I'd prefer.