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The Straits Times, Published on Nov 06, 2012

No true democracy with [antiquated] US Electoral College system

TODAY'S presidential election in the United States raises the question of whether the country is really a democracy with the Electoral College system.

Does every vote count?

The US uses the Electoral College, which consists of 538 state electors to elect its president. So it is not individual Americans who vote to pick the president, but the 538 electors of the Electoral College.

In the 2000 US presidential election, Democrat Al Gore received the popular vote, but lost in the Electoral College vote count to Republican George W. Bush. Technically, Mr Gore won that election as more Americans voted for him than for Mr Bush.

This has happened three other times in past US presidential elections.

Will it happen again this time? Will the candidate with the popular vote not become the next US president?

There cannot be true democracy with the Electoral College system.

Cho Yan Fatt

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Is not that dissimilar to westminster style democracy that we work under (don't need to talk GRC at all)

 

Consider a country with 5 parliamentary seats and 2 parties parties are X and Y, seats are A, B, C, D and E - each has 100 constituents

Seat A - 99 vote X, 1 votes Y

Seat B - 99 vote X, 1 votes Y

Seat C - 49 vote x, 51 vote Y

Seat D - 49 vote X, 51 vote Y

Seat E - 49 vote X, 51 vote Y

 

In total, X gets 345 votes

In total Y Gets 155 votes

 

Y forms the govt (and elects the Prime Minister)

 

Is this also not democracy?

 

Where the "Electoral College" argument falls down, is that each person in the state still gets to vote for who that states votes go to, this is still democracy

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isnt it same like singapore GRC system?

 

popular votes do not win seats..

Think problem with SG's GRC system of elections is that of gerrymandering. The US one it seems could be worst than the SG one bc although the number of MPs currently in parliament in SG is not proportionate to the votes cast, the PM normally has at least 50% of the popular votes cast.

 

That the USA President can get by with merely 22% of the popular votes cast is indeed a very shocking revelation.

Anyhow, about gerrymandering:

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Think problem with SG's GRC system of elections is that of gerrymandering. The US one it seems could be worst than the SG one bc although the number of MPs currently in parliament in SG is not proportionate to the votes cast, the PM normally has at least 50% of the popular votes cast.That the USA President can get by with merely 22% of the popular votes cast is indeed a very shocking revelation.

Anyhow, about gerrymandering:

 

Not true,

 

Reference what I say above.

 

In this case the PM has less than 33% of the votes cast -

 

In the Case of a GRC system, the systemic problems could make this much much worse.

 

 

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Not true,

 

Reference what I say above.

 

In this case the PM has less than 33% of the votes cast -

 

In the Case of a GRC system, the systemic problems could make this much much worse.

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the

University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the

Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always

temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent

form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until

the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous

gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority

always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from

the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally

collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a

dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the

beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200

years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage."

The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2016 (Democracy born and died)

 

It doesn't hurt to read this several times.

 

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in

St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning

the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Obama: 19 Romney: 29

Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 Romney: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million Romney: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:

Obama: 13.2 Romney: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory

Romney win was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low

income tenements and living off various forms of government

welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the

"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of

democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population

already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase..

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million

criminal invaders called illegal’s - and they vote - then we can say

goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

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