Bush opens double digit lead

[muert0]

That'sfunny I  thought the electoral college was develpoed because half the people in the country were illeterate back then and they figured the people couldn't make the right decision on their own.
The way I understand it you vote for an electorate and he votes for the president, right? So how does this help in stopping mob rule as you put it? Couldn't we just take the middle man out? Most everyone is literate now and can make their own decisions.
Our government was based on a system that was made to be changed. Or that was made with the insight that agovernment will have to change to stay with the times and the people.

[Arta]

Gallup has it at 47% Kerry, 50% Bush. That AOL thing is clearly bogus - if it's an online poll, some fool's probably messing with it.

BTW, re Gore vs Bush: nonsense about 'hanging chads' & some (mostly black) voters being prevented from voting, and postal votes being accepted after the deadline, and soforth is clearly grounds for a manual recount. The fact that the recount was stopped before the outcome was known is CLEARLY fishy. Anyone who thinks that absolutely nothing weird went on in florida 4 years ago really just has their head up their arse.

&& Gore got 0.5% more votes, so yes, the college probably screwed him.

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

Screaming liberals will just never give up.

[Kp]

That'sfunny I  thought the electoral college was develpoed because half the people in the country were illeterate back then and they figured the people couldn't make the right decision on their own.
The way I understand it you vote for an electorate and he votes for the president, right? So how does this help in stopping mob rule as you put it? Couldn't we just take the middle man out? Most everyone is literate now and can make their own decisions.

It interferes with mob rule in the same general way that the Senate interferes with mob rule: California has a much larger population than states in the northeast (possibly more than several combined states, but I haven't checked the figures, so it's just a guess), but the electoral college reduces California's ability to drive the nation.  Look at it this way: suppose there are 6 states; 5 tiny ones that like Kerry, and one huge one that likes Bush, and that the size of the population in the pro-Bush state outnumbers Kerry's states by 5%.  With this (completely fictitious) example, the single pro-Bush state can decide the election, without any regard to what the other 5 states do.  This is the "mob rule" that was referred to earlier -- that one state can decide the entire election, without any regard for the activities of the other states in the nation.

Going to a slightly more realistic argument, even though Florida was the key state in the 2000 election, it was key because of the close balance of electoral votes in all the other states.  If all states except Florida had gone one way and Florida went the other, nobody would've cared what Florida thought, since it had been collectively voted down by the other 49 states.  Since the other 49 were closely locked, Florida mattered.

Screaming liberals will just never give up.

and it's really funny when they can't even vote here (like Arta)!

[quasi-modo]

That'sfunny I  thought the electoral college was develpoed because half the people in the country were illeterate back then and they figured the people couldn't make the right decision on their own.
The way I understand it you vote for an electorate and he votes for the president, right? So how does this help in stopping mob rule as you put it? Couldn't we just take the middle man out? Most everyone is literate now and can make their own decisions.
Our government was based on a system that was made to be changed. Or that was made with the insight that agovernment will have to change to stay with the times and the people.

The electors themselves are more or less figure heads now, but the fact that states have different weight to them is important. But I have never heard anything about the electoral college being made because people are illiterate in any of my government or history classes, it has always been to keep the populated parts of the country from governing the rest of it, and we still cannot remove it.

[quasi-modo]

Gallup has it at 47% Kerry, 50% Bush. That AOL thing is clearly bogus - if it's an online poll, some fool's probably messing with it.

BTW, re Gore vs Bush: nonsense about 'hanging chads' & some (mostly black) voters being prevented from voting, and postal votes being accepted after the deadline, and soforth is clearly grounds for a manual recount. The fact that the recount was stopped before the outcome was known is CLEARLY fishy. Anyone who thinks that absolutely nothing weird went on in florida 4 years ago really just has their head up their arse.

&& Gore got 0.5% more votes, so yes, the college probably screwed him.

Uhhh its happened before, popular vote != electoral vote. It makes sence too.

About blacks being prevented from voteing, I live in this state, I have never ever heard about that. Where did you hear that? This is 2004, we no longer have jim crow laws here in the deep south.  

[hismajesty]

They're saying that they kept blacks from voting because they were convicted felons (and aren't able to vote.) I don't know if they were felons or not, but that's what I've been hearing from liberal sources.

[quasi-modo]

They're saying that they kept blacks from voting because they were convicted felons (and aren't able to vote.) I don't know if they were felons or not, but that's what I've been hearing from liberal sources.

How many blacks were really effected? I know there is the stereotype that all blacks will steal your vcr, but I am sure the % of blacks that are convicted felons is rather small. I bet it is comperable to the % of whites that are convicted felons.

[hismajesty]

Got this from wikipedia:

57,746 voters were listed as felons on a "scrub list" and removed from the voting rolls, but later analysis shows that many were incorrectly listed. (For instance, many had names similar to actual felons, and some erroneously listed felonies were dated years in the future.See bullet 2 on this screenshot (http://www.gregpalast.com/Harpers_img.htm)) These persons were disproportionately Democrats of African-American and Hispanic descent. In some cases, those on the scrub list were given several months to appeal, and many successfully reregistered and were allowed to vote. However, in many cases no effort was made to contact them before the election.
'"I don't think that it's up to us to tell them they're a convicted felon," [Volusia County Department of Elections spokeswoman Etta] Rosado said. "If he's on our rolls, we make a notation on there. If they show up at a polling place, we'll say, 'Wait a minute, you're a convicted felon, you can't vote. Nine out of 10 times when we repeat that to the person, they say 'Thank you' and walk away. They don't put up arguments." Rosado doesn't know how many people in Volusia were dropped from the list as a result of being identified as felons.' [2] (http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/print.html)
However, in balance an additional 8,000 non-felons had been supplied by the state of Texas, via Database Technologies, and these people were added to the list in May 2000. Several months after the election, the Palm Beach Post revealed this story. These 8,000 were later removed from the list following a story by the Palm Beach Post. 714 Illinoisans and 990 Ohioans were added in the same fashion and not removed. Because of the awareness of the incorrect names on the scrub list, twenty counties opted to discard the entire list of felons, resulting in many thousands of felons being permitted to vote. [3] (http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/main.htm) (See also: Florida Central Voting File)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election%2C_2000

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

I have a theory as to why that is, but it's not politically correct. So instead, I'll say the politcally correct answer.

IT'S A REPUBLICAN CONSPIRACY!

[Sargera]

I just find it funny how pissed off people get for just saying something like that...I hope you realize I wasn't being pro-Gore or pro-Bush in my statement...

Also, AFAIK, the number of votes each state receives in the electorial college is based on its population, so highly-populated states such as California still have more votes than smaller states like Rhode Island.  Also, last time I checked, people in a state still vote differently from other people in the same state, so it's not like if one person votes for Republican, the rest will.  My family had some people voting for Bush and others for Gore, and I even heard the arguments between the two at schools how some were voting for Gore and others Bush.

[quasi-modo]

I just find it funny how pissed off people get for just saying something like that...I hope you realize I wasn't being pro-Gore or pro-Bush in my statement...

Also, AFAIK, the number of votes each state receives in the electorial college is based on its population, so highly-populated states such as California still have more votes than smaller states like Rhode Island.  Also, last time I checked, people in a state still vote differently from other people in the same state, so it's not like if one person votes for Republican, the rest will.  My family had some people voting for Bush and others for Gore, and I even heard the arguments between the two at schools how some were voting for Gore and others Bush.

Yes, but there is a minimum number of votes you get too, so the big states do not hav eabsolute power. Also when you win the state you win all of its electoral voters, so as far as we are concerned wisconsin is a republican state and california is a democrat state.

[hismajesty]

I just find it funny how pissed off people get for just saying something like that...I hope you realize I wasn't being pro-Gore or pro-Bush in my statement...

I don't see how debating your post classifies us as "pissed."

[muert0]

They're saying that they kept blacks from voting because they were convicted felons (and aren't able to vote.) I don't know if they were felons or not, but that's what I've been hearing from liberal sources.

How many blacks were really effected? I know there is the stereotype that all blacks will steal your vcr, but I am sure the % of blacks that are convicted felons is rather small. I bet it is comperable to the % of whites that are convicted felons.

Yeah rather small my ass. You ever been to jail? It sucks being a cracker in prison. Here are some numbers and it pretty nuch explains why there are so many blacks in jail.  
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/racepris.htm
And here's an article I thought was pretty good. It's about convicted felons not having a right to vote.
http://speakout.com/activism/issue_briefs/1289b-1.html
It sucks not having any rights as a citizen but being expected to pay taxes and the like.

[hismajesty]

I don't think convicted felons should be able to vote.