The Silent Majority

[Morgan]

voters per square mile? How unusual.

How about we just abolish the stupid elector college which disenfranchises the voter and renders the votes of many voters as worthless? 1 man, 1 vote... for real.

[KC5AV]

Doing away with the electoral college would simply result in the major population centers in the US determining POTUS every time. Think about where those population centers are. New York City and Chicago have more people than some states.

[KBCraig]

Doing away with the electoral college would simply result in the major population centers in the US determining POTUS every time. Think about where those population centers are. New York City and Chicago have more people than some states.

Or to put it in a Texas context: do you want the people who elected Laura Miller and John Wiley Price to determine the election's outcome?

[nitrogen]

The map tells me that the Republican party is (hopelessly?) lost and needs help.

I hope they learn from this, and fix what's wrong with it and become a true conservative party.

[casingpoint]

voters per square mile? How unusual

I never have understood the reason for that Electoral College thing.

Not sure how it should be done mathematically, but something along the lines of the majority votes cast within each square mile represent one collective vote. This way, some guy who is the only inhabitant living on a section of old family homestead land grazing goats in NW Nevada isn't adversely impacted by the politics of voters in more heavily populated states. Federal and state lands would have no "vote".

[Morgan]

Doing away with the electoral college would simply result in the major population centers in the US determining POTUS every time. Think about where those population centers are. New York City and Chicago have more people than some states.

No, no it would not. Let's use a big city and a small state as examples. I'm going to use totally made up numbers. I'll use New York City and North Dakota.

Let's say 5 million people in NYC vote and 300,000 in ND vote. Under your supposition, NY is "more" important than ND. But what if the race in NYC is 49/51%. So Candidate A gets 2,450,000 votes and B gets 2,550,000 votes. A difference of 100,000 votes. Let's say ND is 70-30 in the other direction. That's 210,000 for A and 70,000 for B. A wins, even tho A lost NYC.

A few hundred of the right votes in the right states can win the election. If these ELEVEN states are won, the election is won:

CA 55
TX 34
NY 31
FL 27
IL 21
PA 21
OH 20
MI 17
NC 15
NJ 15
GA 15

271

The electoral college renders the vote of an individual pretty well worthless UNLESS they live in a contested state. Then it makes it worth gold... See Florida in 2000.

At a minimum, we need to stop giving ALL electoral votes to ONE candidate. That's the true "evil" of the electoral college. Apportioned awarding of the electoral votes would at least mean that an Obama supporter in TX would feel like his vote might mean something, and a McCain voter in NYC might feel the same.

[NcongruNt]

I was thinking about this concept today as I visited the polls. while we have loud Obama supporters aplenty here in Austin, there are still plenty of McCain supporters. The difference is, you don't hear them making big noises. I fully expect Travis County to vote for Obama, but I'm not convinced that there's going to be some huge landslide in the election results in the country as a whole, as Obama supporters like to think. If the election goes to McCain, there's going to be a lot of folks yelling fraud. How can all the support they've seen and felt in polls and advertisements be wrong? It's going to be an interesting night.

Personally, I haven't voiced my position on the candidates to anyone, including my family. I keep my mouth shut and keep my choice between myself and the ballot box. That will do all the talking I need.

[casingpoint]

loud Obama supporters aplenty

Dennys had the problem too.

[Venus Pax]

Texas wasn't far from pulling a 1992-Clinton-maneuver.
McCain took TX, but not by as much as projected.

[casingpoint]

It looks like McCain may have trumped Obama by the square mile, At least it was very close on that basis. But the majority rules again in the traditional election process.The East Coast states, upper MidWest, the Left Coast, liberal and Colorado and hispanic New Mexico carried Obama. Go figure.