Across the American West, fire wardens create firebreaks—vegetation-free swaths gouged through forests and fields to slow and limit the spread of wildfires. In U.S. presidential elections, the Electoral College serves the same purpose—limiting the spread of one state’s malfeasance, manipulation, ineptitude, and/or operational failure to other states. For all the trauma and bitterness that emerged from Florida in 2000, the catastrophe was limited to one state.
For years, a choir of voices has demanded that we eliminate the Electoral College and elect presidents via national popular vote (NPV)—an idea that is appealing in theory, but treacherous in execution. NPV is the electoral equivalent of filling firebreaks with pampas grass, scrub oaks, dead brush, bails of hay, and discarded chemicals. Eliminating the Electoral College could turn virtually every presidential election, every four years, into a 50-state Florida-2000-style conflagration—with a partisan arms race of electoral machinations in the years between elections.
If they ever developed a similar system in Canada it would be rigged to limit Saskatchewan’s influence.
Which only goes to show that Canada was set up to make life easier for the wealthy and influential. Winner takes all, no constitutional restrictions, simple majority rules.
The only thing we have left still (maybe) working for us is paper ballots.
According to some guy named John A McDonald, Canada’s senate was put in to protect the minority wealthy from the large voting block of the poor majority…….
uhuh. aaaaand given the times perhaps, juuuuuust perhaps the alternative was no senate because no nation UNTIL he weighs the pros and cons of getting the best he can and thats the start of this nation on its path from atlantic to pacific.
l fault ALL polllllitiSHUNS more so the more recent who FAILED to adjust fine to improve and reform what he HAD TO accept.
Not to worry ant more about the US – they are for all intents and purposes done!
The media down south has done just a masterful job of sowing immense and intense hate and thereby dividing a once great nation.
In a few short days, we and they shall all see what they have initiated!
I don’t think the Electoral College will be able to secure any so called ‘democracy’ in this vote, what with the 12+ million illegals and their ‘ballot’ inputs. (Note that there were as many as 10 million some years back, that had gained access, prior to the start of the border wall.)
I am left to wonder how we north of the border are going to access all of the necessities that we have come to depend on.
Democracy never works. This was always designed to benefit the ruling oligrachic nobility, to enable them to overthrow Monarchism, and embed themselves permanently into the ruling structure. The endstate of democracy is what is occurring now in the West. It was the same in ancient Athens: the splitting of the electorate into two irreconcilable factions. Sorry but a one-seat “majority” in parliament with a 0.5% “majority” in the popular vote is NOT a mandate for ANYTHING. Period. No way to make that math work. And the “minority” who have been effectively disenfranchised and removed from having any influence over catastrophic decisions that will ruin their lives, will only put up with that state of affairs for so long before they decide that the current framework is not working for them, and they begin to remove their consent and cooperation. The end result is collapse or separation.
In a monarchy, there was a non-tribal non-sectarian final arbiter (the King/Queen) who could provide the centre-point and rallying point for what were still “nations under God”.
Democracy fails utterly to.provide national unity in the face of atheism, christianity, islam, etc. All it can (and will) provide is chaos and death.
Western elites know this, which is why they are increasingly terrified of a transition to autocratic democracy, Putin-style. A system where you vote, but the ruling sovereign has a veto for when extreme dumbassery or degeneracy (homosexual “marriage”) starts rearing its ugly head.
If you apply this to Canada, where Justin Trudeau finished second in the popular vote in the last two elections, the system “protected” us from the Conservative candidates becoming leader, when they actually won the popular vote.
Are we better off since we have had Trudeau instead of what the majority wanted? Or is the Laurentian elite better off? Choose one.
its tough. because in hindsight, reason fairness and
logic may pop up and it might not.
alas put a TURDeau in the equation and anything goes. including Canaduh’s
international reputation, it ‘went’ in the shitter
Canada has a somewhat similar mechanism.
PEI has four ridings and elects four MPs for a population of about 150,000.
There are ridings elsewhere in Canada with 150,000.
Is it fair?
Would PEI have joined Canada without that?
PEIs four ridings come from the proportioning from the senate – 25 to the Atlantic provinces, with Newfoundland added later, 25 to Lower Canada, 25 to Uppidy Canada. Later the “west” was added with another 25 seats. This keeps the regions in balance so that no one region would dominate. At that time populations were more in balance but PEI now has 180000 people or about 45000 per riding or slightly above the Territories’ population per riding.
And we regard it as Canada joining PEI!
As an aside, the Atlantic provinces were once the wealthiest colonies in early Canada and are now the poorest provinces/states in the US and Canada. I have often thought that the Atlantic and the west would be better off cooperating to balance the Ontario/ Quebec axis.
be sure and point out dear disenfranchised, if the vote isnt quite right,
do what herr adolph did and arrest all the opposition.
aaaaand just like the TURDeau calling emergency act, the ‘corrective action’
comes long long long after the desired effect.
The implementation of the Electoral College was absolutely brilliant! It makes ALL states important.
Without it, federal politicians would ONLY concerns themselves with a few large metropolises and completely forget about the rest of the country.
Whenever you meet someone pushing to abolish the electoral college, ask them to be a devil’s advocate for a moment and defend it. When they can’t, you’ll gain great insight into their low intelligence.
“It makes ALL states important.”
It literally does the exact opposite.
“Without it, federal politicians would ONLY concerns themselves with a few large metropolises”
Those large metropolises essentially are America. That’s the country.
Same argument could be made for abolishing the Senate.
Yes! The senate is bad and there is no evidence that it improves governance and good reason to believe it worsens governance.
perhaps not ‘important’ on an *individual basis* but COLLECTIVELY in the presence of the electoral college, the counterbalancing effect it has with so many of a multitude of possible college vote configurations its easy to argue the opposite, that is very beneficial.
also onionme, the metropolises in case you are unable to read an atlas are spread out albeit not exactly proportionate but nowhere the concetration you imply.
so the pro-college position wins again.
Please explain, in detail, how the EC makes States LESS important. I’ll wait … dum dum de dum dum dum …
“For all the trauma and bitterness that emerged from Florida in 2000, the catastrophe was limited to one state”
No it wasn’t. The ruinous presidency of Boosh damaged all of America. Likewise, Trump.
We’ve heard all these arguments before and they aren’t even arguments they’re just desperate rationalizations for a system created to appease slaver states. Lots of polities make do without a electoral college or any equivalent and are better off than America for it. The EC doesn’t prevent any gaming of the system, it is the game and it will be destroyed one day…but maybe not before it destroys America.
No worse than the ruinous presidencies of JFK and LBJ.
soooooo the electoral college thats been there right from the start, in a nation that grew to be the richest and most powerful in all history, must now discard it because onionme disagrees.
gawd you are so fcuking full of yourself opinionme.
Congrats on making an utterly ridiculous racist connection to The Electoral Collage. Pure fantasy.
Firebreaks are racist and we are therefore no longer permitted to create them. It’s all about saving nature and the trees from the white man.