How Democratic is democracy really?

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Can anyone explain to me what a Electoral college is and the purpose?
 
Rozellelily said:
Can anyone explain to me what a Electoral college is and the purpose?
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The United States doesn’t elect its President via popular vote. It elects the President based on a candidate having a majority of votes from the Electoral College. What happens is that when a state votes in the Presidential election, that state gets so many votes in the Electoral College based on population. Wikipedia has a nice image:

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Some states give the winner all of their votes. Others split them based on how much each candidate got. Ths majority give all their votes to the winner though. The College exists so that large cities, such as New York City, don’t basically determine every election. It allows smaller states more say in the election.
 
Majority rule is where the majority of people decide.
What we have now is a minority deciding for the majority.
And that is not democracy.
 
Yeah, I have visited California a few times. The people there have a pretty nice place to live. It would be nice if the other 49 states could share in that prosperity.
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
What we have now is a minority deciding for the majority.
And that is not democracy.
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Again, we’re not a democracy. The system is set up to prevent the majority from being tyrannical. Hillary Clinton has been a politician for years and the wife of a President. Do you think she was ignorant of how the country elects its President?
 
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I guess it makes sense to a degree,especially if there is a wide gap in the living standards between people of different states and if there are big population differences.
Otherwise the politicians could just “market” themselves towards the wants of the states with the biggest populations.
 
Rozellelily said:
I guess it makes sense to a degree,especially if there is a wide gap in the living standards between people of different states and if there are big population differences.
Otherwise the politicians could just “market” themselves towards the wants of the states with the biggest populations.
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That is precisely it. There are already some states that are pretty much guaranteed to vote for a certain candidate because of his/her political party. Those candidates hardly ever visit those states because of it. They instead spend all their time in “battleground states” that can flip and give them the edge on votes in the electoral college. Having the President be elected by the popular vote would be like this, only worse. They would then basically spend their entire campaigns in a handful of cities: going out to people in less populated areas would be a waste of their time and money. That’s not how someone wanting to be President of more than a few cities should campaign.

I live in a rural town where the biggest shop is Walmart. It’s in one of the poorest counties in my state, especially compared to the major city an hour away from us which is more well-developed, well-educated, etc. Life here is not the same as life there, so our concerns are different.
 
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JoeShlabotnik said:
Majority rule is where the majority of people decide.
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Also sometimes referred to as “mob rule”, which the Framers specifically tried to avoid.
JoeShlabotnik said:
What we have now is a minority deciding for the majority.
And that is not democracy.
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The Constitution requires the Federal government to guarantee to each State a “republican form of government”. So no, the United States is not and was never intended to be a pure Democracy.
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
And that is not democracy.
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we are not a democracy, we were not set up as a democracy

if we were a democracy, the politicians would only have to campaign in around 20 states to win the election. the rest of the states would not matter. their low vote totals would not make it cost-effective or necessary to go to those states and campaign. look at the map (several post) above, if you are a single-digit state your opinion will not count.

have you heard of the expression “fly-over-states”? they would have very little say in how the country is run. the religious people would have very little say in how the country is run.
JoeShlabotnik said:
It serves one purpose. To pervert the will of the people.
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it allows every state to have a say in how it is governed, the big and small. we are a collection of states.

The Federal government should be limited in size and the state should be controlling more of its own destiny. the local people can live as they want without forcing their will on other states. if California wants a law, let them. if Alabama doesn’t want that law, let them. the people can move to where they feel they belong.
JoeShlabotnik said:
Yeah, I have visited California a few times. The people there have a pretty nice place to live. It would be nice if the other 49 states could share in that prosperity.
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you have rose-colored glasses on. to start everything is more expensive in California. the social breakdown going on right now is horrendous. polls show a majority of the people want to leave.
According to a new survey by Edelman Intelligence, 53 percent of Californians are considering moving out of state due to the high cost of living Millennials are even more likely to flee the Golden State — 63 percent of them said they want to. (SFgate)
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The gerrymandeing of districts and things like the electoral college are there to subvert to will of the people. In actuality, it is cheating.
One person, one vote is what democracy is all about.
But because the majority of voters may not vote for particular issue or for a particular Presidential candidate, one party has to cheat. That is the only way they can win.
In two of the last three Presidential elections, the winner has not received a majority of the popular vote. That is anti-democracy.
We should have a primary election. If one candidate receives 50 percent, plus one voter, that candidate is elected.
If not, the two top vote-getters go into a runoff, a secondary election, with the winner of that vote elected.
This electoral college thing is a joke!
 
I am stirring nothing.
The United States of America is a democratic republic. We elect our officials on a one-person, one vote basis.
Democracy is supposed to be about one person, one vote.
I am not sure where you live, but the USA is a democracy.
But to make it work, everyone needs to participate. But instead of making it easy for people to participate, they make it hard in this country. Why should a person need to register ahead of time. So long as they can prove they are a citizen, they should be able to vote without registering.
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
The gerrymandeing of districts and things like the electoral college are there to subvert to will of the people. In actuality, it is cheating.
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No, the Electoral College is decidedly NOT cheating, it was set up as it is by the Framers for the specific purpose of limiting the possibility of mob rule and to ensure that all states had a voice. Gerrymandering is cheating, and there have been numerous court cases establishing just that, and reversing it when shown. You keep repeating that things are not democratic as if they were supposed to be from the beginning. Pure democracy was never the intent of the Framers. The Electoral College “thing” is the method by which the President and Vice President are selected according to the Constitution of the United States.
 
And I am saying that the selection process should be changed to reflect the WILL of the people.
The preamble of the U.S. Constitution begins with “We, the people of the United States…
It does not start with “We, the people who are lucking enough to get an opportunity to vote…”
 
When anyone can donate as much money as they want to any party or candidate, and that party or candidate does not have to disclose where the money came from, it is going to be a bad thing. Massive amounts of money can pervert just about anything.
 
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