Barack Obama Is One Step Closer To Being President 601
At 3:00 Eastern time on Monday Dec. 15, 538 electors in state capitols across the US cast the votes that actually elected Barack Obama the 44th President. Obama received, unofficially, 365 electoral votes (with 270 needed to win). The exact total will not be official — or Obama officially elected — until Congress certifies the count of electoral votes in a joint session on Jan. 6, 2009. The Electoral College was established in its present form in 1804 by the Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution. Electors are not required to vote for the candidate who won their state — in fact, 24 states make it a criminal offense to vote otherwise, but no "faithless elector" has ever been charged with a crime. "On 158 occasions, electors have cast their votes for President or Vice President in a manner different from that prescribed by the legislature of the state they represented. Of those, 71 votes were changed because the original candidate died before the elector was able to cast a vote. Two votes were not cast at all when electors chose to abstain from casting their electoral vote for any candidate. The remaining 85 were changed by the elector's personal interest, or perhaps by accident. Usually, the faithless electors act alone. An exception was in 1836 when 23 Virginia electors changed their vote together. ... To date, faithless electors have never changed the otherwise expected outcome of the election."
for all the founding fathers did right (Score:1, Insightful)
they still had a little aristocratic doubt in the back of their minds, and put this ridiculous electoral college system in place. an arostocratic hedge. a little doubt in the power of democracy. a fuck up
al gore should have rightfully been president of the united states in 2000, and for all that you can accuse al gore of potentially screwing up (what, too much environmental regulation?), there's nothing he could have done to the usa as bad as what gw bush did. our economy, our international image, our own faith in our govt to protect our freedoms, torture, preemptive war, etc
of course, i understand in reality the chance of getting rid of the ec is incredibly difficult, its too entrenched. but maybe at least we can, on a state by state basis, convince the states that ec votes should be awarded proportional to popular vote, like maine and nebraska do now (i think). so texas will suddenly cough up a bunch of democratic votes, but so will new york suddenly cough up some republican votes. isn't it necessary that we star thinking less partisan? is it fair to people in austin that texas is viewed as a republican block? is it fair to people in upstate new york that new york is viewed as a democratic block? don't these people's voices deserve equal share in the vote for president?
of course, if texas passed such a law, but not new york, or new york passed such a law, but not texas, this obviously skews results for republicans or democrats. in which case, you'd still need to make sure the key swing states that traditionally, now, deliver breadbaskets of electoral votes for one party or another, all start delivering proportionally on the same presidential election, so it would have ot happen in one 4 year span
incredibly difficult still, but doable. and do we another gw bush presidency to convince you it needs to be done?
Re:And this is news because? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is news for nerds because the difference between the way things are expected to work and the way they are actually implemented is a nerd interest.
The fact that this something that happens regularly every four years doesn't mean it isn't news. If that were the case, then we would not see stories with titles like "The worst/best/most/least ____ of 2008" in the upcoming weeks.
Re:Why on Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is crap, but you got the reasons reversed. It definitely matters, but it's not news. The leader of one of the largest and most influential countries in the world is being replaced, and that matters. If something strange had happened it would be news, as it is we're just seeing the electoral system do the same thing it always does.
And this is news...why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, could we get any more fawning over President-elect Obama? I don't recall Slashdot carrying this level of minutiae for either of the prior Bush terms.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertisements (Score:5, Insightful)
The real reason:
By the end of the day, you'll see hundreds of posts to this thread. Many rants about Bush. Comments about the evangelical Christians and their agenda. Comments about bailouts. Etc...
This will draw many many eyeballs to advertisements and clicks. The end of the quarter is coming up and they need try to make the numbers. Even then, I'm sure there's going to be layoffs at Slashdot next year, too. Then, we'll really see the dupes!
dude, you're spastically way off target (Score:1, Insightful)
we're talking about the presidential vote, the electoral college. hello?
we're not talking about execution by vote. this isn't a science fiction convention
can you keep your emotional propaganda in your pants please?
Re:Hypothetical, what if a terrorist got the pair (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:for all the founding fathers did right (Score:1, Insightful)
they still had a little aristocratic doubt in the back of their minds, and put this ridiculous electoral college system in place. an arostocratic hedge. a little doubt in the power of democracy. a fuck up
al gore should have rightfully been president of the united states in 2000,
Okay. But it's important to note that Bill Clinton didn't get an absolute majority of the popular vote either. In fact, Barack Obama is the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win a majority of the popular vote.
So by your logic, Clinton shouldn't have president either. Neither should have JFK, Nixon or Truman.
Re:Where do the editors lean? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but on Digg 99% of the comments consist of something along the lines of "LOL PWNED!" That's not really the audience of users I trust to decide what is important and what isn't.
The most popular story on Digg right now isn't even a story. It's some asshole's comic, entitled "Stupid TV! Be more helpful!"
Re:So much for "Hope and Change!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Hopey Changey is filling his cabinet with storied Washington insiders.
Why not? That's what I'd do, if I wanted to get anything done. The last president to fill most of his staff with Washington outsiders was Jimmy Carter; while he is underrated as a President, this decision cost him a lot of effectiveness. The last major initiative headed by a Washington outsider was the Clinton's health plan. Not knowing how national politics worked wasn't exactly an asset.
Ronald Reagan was, in terms of getting his policy initiatives acted upon, one of the most successful presidents in modern history. His administration was staffed largely by Nixon admiinstration veterans, former congressmen, and scions of old political families. The few outsiders in his administration were either at departments he wanted to fail (Education). The only exception was Attorney General, a position he preferred to fill with old, loyal California cronies.
Re:And this is news because? (Score:5, Insightful)
The structure of a government body or an electoral process is a technology. These are artifacts that are designed to meet certain requirements. There are rich fields of mathematics describing what it and is not possible, and various designs (such as proportional representation or approval voting) which represent different tradeoffs between incompatible ends.
The electoral college is a case in point. The original idea was to moderate public passions by filtering them through elected representatives from each state. However once you do that, you are presented with a problem: under such a system, residents of less populous states would, in effect, have no say in an election that was entirely determined by a few large states. So they tweaked the weight of each state's vote to provide what, at the time, amounted to an equalization of power between residents of different states (as well as ensuring that no drastic measures were taken at the Federal level which would damage economies dependent on slave importation).
Of course, this leads to the "old lady who swallowed the fly" scenario: while ensuring equalization of influence between states of different sizes, it creates severe imbalances of influence between safe states and battleground states.
And that's a hallmark of an engineering problem: you can't have everything because fixes in one place create problems in other places.
Let's make it interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people, who have not carefully pondered the elctoral college system consider it an anachronism.
And it's true some of it's purposes, such as not requiringing candidates to make the perilous journey to all the states and to prevent religious institutions from swaying direct democratic vote have lost their original purposes. And indeed those aspects are gone. The electors are bound democraticly not by the legislative branch as was the norm.
But it's remaining features are of great interest to nerds. It's a very clever optimization problem with a very clever robust solution.
Some people think that the president should be chosen by a popular vote. But instead the design of the college is intended to optimize a different criteria. It's purpose is to choose the person who is best able to govern and is the most broadly representative, not the most popular.
here's the three central challenges it is addressing.
1) Whenever two candidates are sufficiently close in the popular vote as to both be highly popular, the best choice is not the one that eeks out a few extra votes, but rather the one that gathers the votes from the most geographically diverse base. The states form an excellent proxy for diversity.
2) the president is the man who must follow the will of the legislative branch. Like it or not we have a union formed around a senate which has a large small state bias. If you dislike the small state bias, then you should complain about the senate not the electoral college. The president has to work with the senate after he's elected so it makes a lot of sense to give the presidentially election a minor small state bias.
this 2=extra elector bias is quite small but insures that desiderata 1 and 2 are carried out.
3) the third function of the EC system is population normalization. The president is president of all the people, not just the ones that voted or even the ones that voted for for him. He's even the president of the ones that can't vote. (felons, children, women, and slaves all counted towards the population count since the begining). Thus no matter how many people cast votes, the total effect of tose votes is viewed as a sampling of the TOTAL population of the state. So the vote's effect is renormalized to the total state population by the EC system. Even if one person voted in CA, they get 45 electors.
As an example, in the last election, the turnout in Alaska was quite small for whatever reason. but they still get the full electoral count.
The real problem with the EC system is not that it does not perfectly track the popular vote--it's not trying to be an approximation of that criteria. It's really trying to bias the choice to someone who is both popular and diversely popular.
the real reason the EC system has some difficulties is the silly winner-take-all process.
instead of eliminating it here's a suggestion. remove the winner take-all division of electors. instead, take the top-two vote-getters and approtion the electors between them in each state according to the state's popular votes. Award a 2-elector bonus to the overall vote-getter.
this preserves the renormalization, the small state bias, and the diversity bonus. But it removes all the problems.
Re:News? (Score:1, Insightful)
No, what we need is over 1000 trained ninjas attacking in concert in the middle of the night to attack the members of the electoral college as well as all the members of Congress in DC, so that we can start fresh with this whole democracy thing. Funny how we're supposed to be fighting regimes that block citizens of other countries from having a democracy but we don't have anything more than a sham here...
Two parties? Are you serious? Aren't we just about the only two-party democracy in the western world? I have co-workers that didn't know there were other candidates for president besides McCain and Obama...
Re:people like you are one of the reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Conceal-carry states are relatively poorer than their neighbors and have relatively lower crime rates than states with more restrictive gun rights. You don't pay attention to what works and what doesn't in gun control. You ignore the matter that gun owners - particularly those with conceal-carry permits - don't commit crimes and want to punish them for something they aren't doing.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you seriously think that discussing how the electoral college works makes someone a democratic party hack, you are the single most butthurt partisan I've ever seen. So what, for the next 4-8 years, every time someone mentions anything having to do with the office of the president, they're a Democratic party hack? Waaaaaaa!!!!!!
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how everyone insists that THEIR version of Authoritarianism is really the One and True Freedom.
Freeedom is great! Just don't be doing anything that I don't like.
Re:for all the founding fathers did right (Score:3, Insightful)
I like what you're getting at, I really do, but the big problem with it is that it's been (almost) doen like that before, with horrid results.
Here's the thing; whenever you posit a change of laws, how the law will have positive effects should be your SECONDARY (not primary) point of interest. Your PRIMARY point of interest needs to be "how could this law be abused", and under THAT standard, your testing turns out to be a REALLY BAD idea. It's not that the principle isn't sound, it's that the possible (likely?) implementation of that principle is damaging to the civil rights of our citizens.
Re:So all that is left. (Score:4, Insightful)
SCOTUS refused to hear the because they agreed that the lower court's ruling that the plaintiff lacked standing was correct. They did not rule on the merits of the case.
Again, just clarifying, not agreeing with the nutjobs ;)
Re:Let's make it interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
take the top-two vote-getters and approtion the electors between them in each state according to the state's popular votes. Award a 2-elector bonus to the overall vote-getter.
Why only the top two?
If you get to change the electoral college, why not change it in a way that would encourage the formation of more political parties?
Re:because its not the outback (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, Pudge is a moron then.
Re:A criminal offense? (Score:4, Insightful)
Electors are not required to vote for the candidate who won their state -- in fact, 24 states make it a criminal offense to vote otherwise
Someone please explain that sentence to me, because to me it sounds like: "In the US, driving you car on the sidewalks is allowed -- in fact you'll go to jail in most states if you do so."
It's a painfully horrible sentence. I think this is what it's trying (unsuccessfully) to say:
"In 26 states, electors are not required to vote for the candidate who won their state, while the other 24 states make it a criminal offense to vote otherwise."
Re:So all that is left. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have evidence to cast reasonable doubt on the State Department and the State of Hawaii?
If you do not, why can't you convince yourself of the weakness of your position?
What rule do you assert has not been "followed to the letter?"
The constructive argument at work here is quite simple:
Obama is a U.S. Citizen.
There is no evidence that this citizenship was conferred artificially.
Therefore Obama is a Natural-Born U.S. Citizen.
The sole authority for these two premises is the State Department, which didn't argue on Berg's behalf. This means there was never anything that Berg could question.
In order to believe that Obama was born in Kenya, one must accept a conspiracy theory that almost rivals anything in the JFK world. State and Federal agencies in on the fraud starting in '61. An ordinary housewife leaving the country and re-entering, with the efficiency and secrecy of the best spies. Several newspapers. The U.S. Senate. The Bush Administration. The RNC *AND* the DNC, and the McCain campaign, several courts and even the U.S. Supreme Court, all in on a coverup to protect the forgers of Obama's birth certificate.
There are people who still believe this, but I wonder why none has gone so far as to accuse the perpetrators of the fraud by bringing a criminal case. Start with the Notary Public whose name appears on the back of the COLB that was posted. Also, right from the beginning, you can name at least two state officials in Hawaii, and probably should name the Governor of Hawaii and possibly the Secretary of State, since all of these people would be actively involved in the fraud.
But I don't see Berg making any criminal accusations, where he would have to go under oath personally and face potentially serious consequences if he has no evidence on which to base the accusations.
Donofrio, on the other hand, claims that Obama was born in Hawaii. It's amusing that some people supported both Berg and Donofrio, even though they make contradictory claims. Then it becomes clear that we are dealing with people who simply oppose Obama, and any vehicle that allows them to voice that opposition is accepted by them.
Or maybe the whole thing is a sham and there is a gigantic conspiracy inside and outside the government to keep it covered up.
Your call. Unless you are in the military, there is no law that says you personally are obligated to "consider the President legally elected." Basically, any action the government takes is subject to redress by you. Good luck.
Re:News? (Score:2, Insightful)
We all lost, I will not get over it.
In a little over 30 days from now...
Things will continue as per the agenda, the war(s) will escalate, you will still not have health care and the new administration will begin to chip away at the freedoms of the citizens of the United States of America where their predecessors left off.
Cheers!
Re:So all that is left. (Score:3, Insightful)
Precisely. I can't believe Snopes made such an obvious mistake.
I can. Read some of their articles on a subject where you know a bit. It can be painful. My main complaint is that they present themselves as authoritative, as though they've done all the research so that you don't have to. At least Wikipedia is honest about its incompleteness.
USA not a democracy, but still reflective of peopl (Score:5, Insightful)
That has far more to do with a corrupt and dishonest media than it does with democracy or our electoral system (or even the two parties). If the media actually covered the other candidates, or allowed them to participate in the media moderated and sponsored debates, people would know about them.
Actually, we don't have a true democracy here (thank goodness). We have a federal republic with checks and balances. And that's very fortunate, because democracy in its pure form is simply mob rule. We have some checks on the majority to keep it from just running rampant over minorities, which does technically break with pure democracy but is a very good idea. Ultimately, of course, at the end of the day super-majorities do have the ultimate say, because that's better than a king, but fortunately we do not have a pure democracy.
Now, if you are trying to claim that the will of the people is not properly represented within the system we currently have, I call bull and demand that you provide some evidence. Yes, our government is pretty terrible at the moment (and I think will be even worse when the new congress and administration come in), but it isn't because the government isn't reflecting us. Rather, it is because the government reflects us that it is so terrible. We as a society are becoming a bunch of lazy, uneducated, entitlement people who think we have a right to everything without actually working hard at learning and producing. We, as a society, don't bother to learn anything about economics, government (especially how ours is supposed to work), foreign affairs or anything else. Then we go to the polls and vote based on our ignorance (usually for whoever "looks presidential" or "will fix our lives" or "promised us X").
No, the sad fact is, our government is a VERY good reflection of what we are becoming as a society and a nation. Does congress look like a whiny, clueless island of misfit toys? Yes, but so do we.
Re:News? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let's make it interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
You make it sound awfully high-minded and artfully constructed. It looks to me more like a crude political compromise to get Rhode Island, Delaware and Georgia to sign on to this Constitution thing without feeling like Virginia and New York were going to completely trample them. It's tempting to see everything the founding fathers did as wonderfully wise and perfect. But while they were quite amazingly far-sighted, they were also politicians cutting deals to get things done within the partisan realities of the day.
Since roughly the election of Andrew Jackson, quite a few people have felt that the President ought to be a direct representative of the People, which would argue for a popular vote.
But even if you think of the President as a representative of state legislatures, as the founders might, the electoral college is lame. The modern effect is to give citizens of smaller states a disproportionate say in selecting the President. While this is hailed as protecting the rights of smaller states, if that's the goal it's ridiculously inadequate. The demographics of state populations today just aren't comparable to when the Constitution was adopted. It's hard to imagine a polarizing big-state-vs-little state issue today, but if there was one and it drove a presidential election, the big states would roll over the little ones without difficulty. 51% of the votes in the biggest eleven states wins all by itself.
The modern effect of the Electoral college is that only battlegound states matter. Nobody campaigns in California, nor in Wyoming; it's all about Ohio and Florida. It doesn't ensure popularity in a wide area; it ensures that the concerns of most voters are irrelevant. In the last election, there was no point in either candidate courting voters in either the biggest or smallest state, because everyone knew how their votes were going to go, and everywhere but Nebraska and Maine is winner-take all.
It doesn't ensure the President is "representative of a diverse electorate" - it encourages the opposite; a President who can appeal to a few very narrow key demographics to push them over the top in a handful of states.
Re:So.. (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, (and I will be modded down for stating this fact)
Except you weren't modded down. You were, as you knew perfectly well you would be, modded up. Because you couldn't just say what you had to say, you had to try to impress us with how tough and brave and individualistic you are, standing up speaking truth to power, whatever the risk.
Whatever. Next time try punching your statement up by leading with, "This may not be very politically correct of me, but ..." Because that also shows what a tough, brave individualist you are, and it adds a little variety. A bold rebel in the battle for truth, that's you!
Re:Roger MacBride/Tonie Nathan (Score:3, Insightful)
Can one yearn for the good old days even if they happened before one was born?
Indeed, one can. It is almost always a mistake.
Re:Let's make it interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
You make it sound awfully high-minded and artfully constructed. It looks to me more like a crude political compromise to get Rhode Island, Delaware and Georgia to sign on to this Constitution thing without feeling like Virginia and New York were going to completely trample them.
That's the mostly revisionist version of the nature of the compromise. It wasn't strictly speaking an issue of small population states vs big states. It was an issue of slave states vs non-slave states. Yes, the southern states tended to have lower populations than the northern states, certainly in aggregate, and they were worried about being trampled by the populous states like New York due to the population difference. But the line was slave vs non-slave*.
That's not the only compromise in the Constitution regarding slavery. More obvious than the electoral college is the compromise that only three fifths of slaves would count for purposes of determining representatives and taxes. The slave states, having such large populations of slaves, wanted them to count fully (even though those people could not vote and were clearly not represented by the Representatives of their states), while the free states wanted them not to count at all. Also Congress was also prohibited by the Constitution from passing laws prohibiting the importation of slaves until the year 1808, and practically this meant there could be no debate over the issue in Congress until that time.
These compromised postponed the issue and allowed the United States to be formed and to survive, but didn't erase the issue which ultimately culminated in the Civil War. Whether these were good or bad compromises isn't really the issue, here. My point is that these really are nothing more than a political compromise for an issue that doesn't even exist anymore. A compromise that no longer works, for anything.
Your observations on the practical realities of the college vis-a-vis the ret-conned "rural vs urban" states purpose are correct. In addition, the college actually does much more harm than good in granting power to the rural areas. Sure Wyoming has slightly more influence than they might without an extra two electors. On the other hand, rural California, rural New York, even rural Illinois are all more populous than Wyoming yet still almost completely irrelevant. Their votes aren't just drowned out by more populous areas, their votes don't matter at all, their portion of the electors actually goes towards whoever the metropolitan centers in their states votes towards, even if it's a different candidate. How can we argue in favor of a system on the basis of giving the under-represented a greater voice, when the reality is it completely takes away representation from many, many more?
It's a broken system, it was a passable political compromise in the day it was created, it serves no function any more. We need an Amendment.
* That's really a misnomer, since all of the states had slaves in them at the time of the Constitutional Convention, but the trend was apparent.
Re:So.. (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, (and I should be modded down for stating this lie), he hasn't actually completed a term in the last two offices he has held.
Fixed that for you. Obama served two and a half terms [wikipedia.org] in the Illinois state legislature before being elected to the U.S. Senate.
I would also like to know where all these conservative Concern Trolls were in 2000, when Al Gore (30 years public service) was running against George W. Bush, who's resume consisted of drinking, skipping out on his Air Guard commitments, driving companies into the ground, and serving for five years as the 5th most powerful politician in Texas (TX Constitution gives little power to the governor).
Re:"Hero of dumb fat fucks" (Score:3, Insightful)
Bush was a two term governor of a large state before he was elected.
5 years as the 5th most powerful politician in the state of Texas (Texas constitution gives little power to the state governor). Prior to that, his resume consisted of drinking, skipping out on his Air Guard commitments, and driving companies into the ground in positions he was given by friends of his father. Every accomplishment in Bush's life has come from his last name. If he were George W. Smith, right now he'd be taking orders from a 17 year old assistant manager at a Burger King.
As opposed to Obama, who served 4 years in the U.S. Senate (from the 5th most populous state) and 8 years in the Illinois state senate (from a district with a higher population than the state of Alaska). Prior to that, he went to Columbia, was head of the Harvard law review, graduated magna cum laude, spent 3 years as a community organizer and taught Constitutional law for ten years. Obama earned all his accomplishments through intelligence, skill, and hard work - not based on his last name. Not even Bahgdad Bob would try to claim that Obama has less experience than Bush, much less Sarah Palin. But you do find Republicans doing this on a regular basis - like their wingnut merit badges will be revoked if they stop engaging in eye-popping double standards and situational ethics.
Who is the dumb fat fuck now?
Do you really want me to answer this question?