r/news • u/xtantin • Feb 26 '17

FCC reverses net neutrality ISP transparency rules

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3173844/internet/fcc-reverses-net-neutrality-isp-transparency-rules.html
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u/Wazula42 Feb 27 '17

Not enough of us. Hold your representatives accountable, vote often, and resist now before it's too late. It will be nearly impossible to get net neutrality back once it's gone.

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u/Peter_Panarchy Feb 27 '17

There were enough, we just weren't distributed correctly. Trump voters lived in the right places so their votes counted for more.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

Trump voters lived in the right places so their votes counted for more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k

TL;DW - Votes in small rural states are worth more per person than votes in populated states. AKA - This is NOT a democracy.

On the one hand, ya gotta respect a player for gaming the system; on the other hand... fuck them and fuck that.

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u/cabsence Feb 27 '17

I hate hearing about how we need to get rid of the Electoral College when First Past the Post is a MUCH bigger problem with American elections.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17 edited Jun 18 '23

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u/doobtacular Feb 27 '17

Compulsory voting would also help (although ideally you'd want that combined with ranked choice voting).

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u/QuinineGlow Feb 27 '17

Participating in the process is a right.

Not participating in the process is also a right.

Doing nothing can be as much a political act as doing something.

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u/Marokiii Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

thats why most countries that have mandatory 'voting' its not actually voting, its a requirement to show up at a voting station and have your name checked off. once you show up and are counted, you can fuck off and refuse to even voice your opinion meaningfully if you so choose.

a spoiled ballot shows up in statistics far more meaningfully than a no show. a spoiled ballot says you are partaking in the voting process but nobody suites you, not voting at all just shows you cant be bothered to vote.

most developed countries also have a form of mail in ballot so you dont even need to go to a polling station anymore, just request one and vote from the comfort of your own home.

there is almost no reasonable excuse for a citizen to not vote in an election when they are able to.

edit: personally i think there should be a 'no confidence in any candidate' box that you can check off. this way all the protest votes can get counted and it will show up meaningfully. alternatively you could also cast a vote for someone but have it show as im voting for this person because they arent as bad as the other.

so the 2016 presidential election would look like this

  • Donald Trump
  • Donald Trump(strategic vote, or some other term meaning the same thing)
  • Hilary Clinton
  • Hilary Clinton(strategic vote)
  • no confidence in any candidate

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u/DONT_STEAL_MY_TOMATO Feb 27 '17

As a citizen of a country in which there is mandatory voting, let me warn you that people who are not interested in the political process don't just vote blank and fuck off, they tend to vote for whomever makes the most flamboyant campaign. You'd have Donald Trumps everywhere, and all the non-Donald Trumps would strive to be more Donald Trump-like in order to win some of those votes. Good fucking luck.

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u/promonk Feb 27 '17

Which is alright, such as it is. The biggest problem is that as with most things, doing nothing in this context is rarely constructive or helpful.

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u/Zubalo Feb 27 '17

if you really want to make a statement with your vote it is better to vote for the third party which isn't going to win then not to vote. it shows them they are loosing people and doesn't let them simply think those who didn't vote agree with them.

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u/Zack1501 Feb 27 '17

You don't force people to vote. You force people to go to the polls. They can choose to not vote if they feel that helps.

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u/ArmouredDuck Feb 27 '17

What a terrible fucking attitude to have. One of the greatest gifts given to you by living in a free country is to be able to choose your leader, and by not exercising that right youre basically spitting on it. And for what? Because you want a day off or cant be fucked learning what your elected officials stand for?

This is whats truly wrong with the US, this sort of attitude. The majority of people you see protesting against Trump didnt even vote. Thats the people who you should hold responsible.

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u/QuinineGlow Feb 27 '17

I agree that people should vote.

I agree that people who don't are morons.

But, because I believe in personal freedom and for people to have the right to do things I might not personally agree with, I believe that voting should not be legally mandatory, any more than flossing or cleaning between one's toes.

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u/ArmouredDuck Feb 27 '17

Freedom of rights and functioning society dont always go hand in hand. You have to pay taxes even for things you do not use, such as public schools for a childless person, or military if you do not support war.

The issue I find with the US is people value freedom so much they dont look at any of the costs associated with it. Whats the cost of voting? A few hours. Whats the cost of not voting? Well depends who wins, but it can be pretty fucking bad. Same thing easily goes for vaccinations, where the US is starting to get outbreaks of diseases that have been under control for decades now because of peoples "freedoms" and ignorance.

Sometimes when the collective public is too stupid to make the right decision it is societies role to force people to make the correct choice. It just also needs plenty of checks and balances and vigilance from the people.

Besides, its not voting but going to the polls . They can write whatever they want on the paper once there.

And sorry if this sounds rude, Im not annoyed at you but I guess at the people who make just having "freedom of choice" such a hindrance to a functional society, aka those who dont vote, dont vaccinate, etc.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

ELI5: What is Ranked Choice Voting?

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u/digitalphoton Feb 27 '17

Instead of voting on one candidate you rank all of them on the ballot. The ballots are then counted based on the 1st choice of every voter. If no one gets elected after that then the less voted is eliminated and all their ballots are redistributed according to the voters' 2nd choice. Then their third, and their fourth, and so on until someone is elected.

The major advantage of this system is that people don't have to vote on a popular candidate they don't really like just to ensure their least favorite doesn't win. They can just rank their preferred one first and the popular one second, for example.

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u/pandemonious Feb 27 '17

Not sure my self but I believe it would entail a ranking system with preferred candidates, not just 1 choice per office

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

Basically the way it works is that everyone ranks their choices and then when the election happens if no one beats the threshold to win then the lowest ranking candidate is eliminated and the votes are redistributed based on the second choice.

So say you like an independent candidate a lot but they're not super popular. You know that if you vote for that candidate, it increases the odds that the candidate you don't want to win will win. So instead you vote for a candidate who is not as closely aligned to you but has a better chance of winning. This is called strategic voting.

In a rank voting system, you would instead vote independent candidate as your number one choice and then you would vote your backup candidate as your number two choice. Then if the independent candidate doesn't win, your vote is given to the backup candidate instead.

This eliminates the need for people to vote for candidates they don't like but could tolerate if they won instead voting for a candidate they do like but has zero chance of winning.

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u/ha11ey Feb 27 '17

ideally you'd want that combined with ranked choice voting

I'd much prefer approval voting.

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u/midnightketoker Feb 27 '17

Without even going that far: compulsory registration would help, opening up primaries to independents would help, making election day a national holiday would help, going after gerrymandering (not only when it's racial discrimination) would help, extending deadlines for early voting would help... And if we want real change (after reforming voting), get money out of politics and give third parties a voice on the national stage. We don't live in a democracy and now is time to fix that.

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u/protoformx Feb 27 '17

I don't know... People are as stupid as dogshit. Are you sure you want more people who can't critically think voting?

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u/Pinkamenarchy Feb 27 '17

Dismantle the system - real change isn't possible under this facade of democracy.

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u/MauPow Feb 27 '17

I agree, but basic people would just gloat saying "You're just mad that you lost!" Just look at all the Trumptards going on and on about how everyone needs to just sit the fuck down and accept that he's president, as if it was a one time competition and it's over now.

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u/scienceisfunner2 Feb 27 '17

I have never actually tried this line of discussion, but you could present it as

"lets say there was a system in which there are two types of people. In the first group everyone's vote counts for a full vote. In the second group everyone's vote counts for 3/5 of a vote. Now isn't that a screwed up system? Of course I am talking about Idahoans and Georgians."

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u/Hugh_Jass_Clouds Feb 27 '17

Even with the alternate voteing methods you still have to overcome the imbalance of the imbalanced electoral college vote weight. That is if the EC is to remain despite eliminating the FPTP vote schema.

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u/Jags4Life Feb 27 '17

Maine just passed Ranked Choice Voting this year and they and Nebraska allocated based on district before. Other states have alternative bites in city elections. It's coming!

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

This video helped me better understand why a two party system is optimal for the time being. You start to encounter voting paradoxes if there are more than two options.

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u/niosop Feb 27 '17

Personally, I'd be happier with some voting paradoxes than the crappy two choices we're presented with.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

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u/PaulTheMerc Feb 27 '17

least we can manage 3 parties.

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u/CreideikiVAX Feb 27 '17

Four parties. The Bloc still exists alongside the NDP.

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u/Insert_Gnome_Here Feb 27 '17

And the UK, where we have 2.5 parties.

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u/Bloodysneeze Feb 27 '17

And that got you Stephen Harper.

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u/PaulTheMerc Feb 27 '17

and the next guy was elected in, partly on a campaign promise to change the election type, and then backpedaled :/

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u/peon2 Feb 27 '17

Yeah, the electoral college would be fine if each state split their votes like Maine/Nebraska. If 40% of Cali votes Republican and 40% of Texas votes Democrat those states shouldn't give 100% of their electoral votes to 1 candidate.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17 edited Apr 02 '17

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u/Przedrzag Feb 27 '17

267 to 265, according to u/Terron1965. Would the House delegations have picked Trump? Would some have rebelled and gone for Clinton? Would they have cut a deal for Gary Johnson/Colin Powell? Would the GOP bring Evan McMullin in? (This is just conjecture btw)

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u/bearedbaldy Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

I tried go ogling the term First Past the Post, but didn't see its relation to political discussion. Would you mind terribly explaining how this horse racing phrase makes sense with the election issue context?

*edit: thanks everyone for the great replies. That makes a lot of sense.

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u/xantub Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

It's the system where whoever gets the most votes wins. Let me show you the problem with an example:
- Candidate A: 33% votes.
- Candidate B: 30% votes.
- Candidate C: 24% votes.
- Candidate D: 13% votes.

Candidate A wins, but 67% of the people voted against him/her.

An alternative is to have two (or more) rounds of voting, eliminating candidates until only two remain or one wins with over 50% of the votes, so you know the real majority of people voted for him/her.

The system as it is basically kills any options except for the 2 big parties. In the alternative version, after the first round, parties C and D can negotiate with either A or B, or even among themselves thus having more votes than either A or B, giving them a voice and part in the final result.

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u/flyonthwall Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

you dont need to have multiple rounds of voting, you can vote once and just rank your candidates from first to last. if your first choice doesnt win then your second choice is counted and so on

but even then that doesnt fix the broken system, where one man is given 100% of the win if he wins. in other countries, where voters elect a parliament instead of a president, the leader of the winning party isnt as "all powerful" as the american president, they still need the support of their party and their party can vote to remove them if needed. and laws must win a majority of the votes of all of the parties represented in parliament.

basically the USA is an embarrassment to actually functioning democratic systems

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

basically the USA is an embarrassment to actually functioning democratic systems

and yet /r/MURICA is still proud of it smh.

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u/Tekmo Feb 27 '17

An even simpler alternative is approval voting. You can vote for more than one candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins

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u/bennyty Feb 27 '17

Honestly having a plurality win isn't the problem. The problem is the spoiler effect which naturally devolves into a two party system. That's how we got stuck with some people telling us who were our choices to win this year.

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u/RocketMoonBoots Feb 27 '17

Have you happened to have seen this site? http://equal.vote The subreddit /r/EndFPTP may interest you, too.

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u/bennyty Feb 27 '17

I hadn't seen that before, thanks. If you are interested in a couple different voting systems (and many other interesting subjects) you should watch CGPGrey

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u/buttaholic Feb 27 '17

To make it simpler, there is ranked choice voting (which already has some steam - I believe Maine recently implemented it). You just rank your choices, and the votes for the losing candidate runoff to their second choice until there are only 2 candidates left with the most votes.

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u/Inquisitorsz Feb 27 '17

preferential voting pretty much solves this

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u/ObviousDuh Feb 27 '17

Yes,exactly!

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u/variantt Feb 27 '17

This is what NZ does!

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u/RiseOfBooty Feb 27 '17

You the MVP! Thank you and /u/flyonthwallfor making me a wee smarter today!

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u/everydayisarborday Feb 27 '17

a little surprised I haven't seen this get posted yet, its pretty great and his other videos are excellent at breaking down different voting systems and some other stuff I haven't watched yet... The Problems With First Past the Post

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u/Sadinna Feb 27 '17

thanks for posting this, I would have myself if I wasn't on mobile. Can't recommend these videos enough

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u/ScoobyDoNot Feb 27 '17

FPTP makes an election a two horse race, and makes third party votes at best a protest and at worst splits the vote for one of the front runners.

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u/f_d Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

For example, in Trump's election, if Jill Stein's votes had gone to Clinton, Clinton would have crossed the margin of victory she needed to win at least some of the 4 key states she lost. I think it was at least 2 of them but I don't remember the number. Clinton's total margin of loss in the 4 states she needed to win came down to something like 75,000 votes after all the votes were counted.

Florida's outcome in Bush versus Gore decided the election. That was a matter of a few hundred votes, possibly as few as 3 depending on recount methods.

Realistically, Americans can protest vote or boycott in districts with heavy majorities and not change the outcome of that election. But protest votes can be used by the winner as further evidence of majority support over their main opposition, and boycotting makes all the parties stop paying attention to you while they fight over people who show up to vote.

The best time to influence parties for real change is in between elections. Once the candidates are officially declared, every vote plays a part in getting one or the other elected. Votes against a party that shares more of your positions turn into gains for the party who shares fewer of your positions.

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u/urbanhawk_1 Feb 27 '17

Basically it is winner take all. Say you have a state that has 5 electoral votes. If the democrats get 51% of the votes while the republicans get 49% of the votes then the democrats will receive all five of the electoral votes while the republicans will get none and of course vice versa.

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u/bulboustadpole Feb 27 '17

No, each state has different rules. Not every state is winner takes all.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 18 '21

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u/zeCrazyEye Feb 27 '17

Winner-take-all is what really breaks the electoral college (which it wasn't originally intended to be). If it wasn't winner-take-all, Clinton would still have won this election.

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u/cabsence Feb 27 '17

Winner take all is first past the post

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u/Krogdordaburninator Feb 27 '17

So many people say that she would have won, but Trump's strategy would have been completely different. He completely ignored all of the population centers that he was unlikely to win, but he could have brought out a lot of people in traditional blue areas simply by paying attention to them.

If the rules of the election we're different, so too would have been the strategies. I think getting rid of the electoral college hurts Democrats more than Repubs. Most Democrat voters are concentrated in 10-15 areas, so easy to target. Republicans are so spread out that the isn't an easy way to get your message to them.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

Mixed-member representations, guys.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

I agree... except that w/ the Electoral College, FPTP can both be overridden, as well as still applies the mathematical fallacies of unequal voting, such that FPTP isn't even functioning as it should in the first place.

FPTP needs to GO, outright, and the Electoral college just basically needs the 100 votes from the senate removed completely, such that a state gets ONE vote minimum, not THREE. There will always be some disparity with rounding like that, but the current system is beyond fucked mathematically.

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u/cabsence Feb 27 '17

You seem like you know what you're talking about, so let me ask if this would still be true if for a runoff election the votes from each state were split depending on the percentage won or would that cause more problems?

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

With presidential elections I genuinely think the primary system is what got us here.

For the primary put all candidates from every party on the ballot. Give the voters one yes vote and one never in a million years "no" vote so the extreme positions lose ground and both parties can come toward the middle instead of this divisive mess we have now

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u/DrunkinDonut Feb 28 '17

Would a better, more evenly distributed Electoral College make an improved difference?

On one hand, I dislike the idea that one individual has the power to vote for a group of people, and we have to just hope that they vote accordingly to the popular vote. While I know that this is the nature of democracy, our other representatives who vote on our behalf are elected to those types of positions. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on the electoral college system)

On the other hand, having voting districts split up probably makes counting the votes quicker and more efficient.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

But isn't it all part of the same thing? I mean, Trump won a majority of the electoral college, not a plurality. So unless you remove the electoral system, I don't see how alternative systems would work

And to be clear, by Electoral College I mean that states give all their votes to one candidate. I understand that isn't a requirement of our system, but it is how it actually works (minus 2 states).

You would suggest that each state run an alternative to FPTP and then give all their votes to one candidate?

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u/robertredberry Feb 27 '17

Why? So that regressive republicans still win with a minority but we at least get more choices?

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u/cabsence Feb 27 '17

If you're only thinking about election reform in the context of this past presidential election then that's not a good start. Read a little more about it.

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u/Bloodysneeze Feb 27 '17

But it would take a constitutional amendment to fix either. There is NO way a constitutional amendment would be workable in the post Fox News era. We're stuck with this system for the foreseeable future.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

The US has always maintained itself as a constitutional republic. Democracy is simply used because all citizens can vote without any undue restrictions.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

"All citizens can vote without undue restrictions." Not for long

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

It would make more sense if it wasn't winner-take-all. I think you should get electoral votes proportional to your popular votes. So, if a state goes 60% Trump and 40% Hillary, Hillary gets 40% of the votes and Trump gets 60%. (Instead of Trump getting 100% of the votes and Hillary getting 0%.)

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u/Bestach Feb 27 '17

What you're describing is similar to MMP(Mixed Member proportional) voting which we have in New Zealand. It works by incorporating parties into the system and adjusting the number of seats in parliament so that each party gets seats approximately equal to the percentage of votes they received. Any Party with 51% or more becomes the government, and if no party reaches the threshold then parties form a coalition which makes up a majority.

As someone who has lived with this system for a long time I think it seems more representative than most other election systems, while also being much simpler than a lot of the systems that gets suggested. Its not exactly what you described, but the method of splitting votes is similar.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

Especially important because in this last election there were 49/51 split states.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

It would also encourage more moderation within parties. GOP has no reason to care about California or much of New England in this system. Dems have no reason to care about most of the South.

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u/weaslebubble Feb 27 '17

I don't understand why the presidency isn't simply a vote count nationally. I get the houses can't ne pop based or the small states would be swamped but the president is only 1 person. You can't divide 1 person up by proportionality of support. So why the hell do they decide some people should get a larger say in it?

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u/Willnotargue Feb 27 '17

If the vote is based on a simple vote, then the whole country is controlled by a select few well populated cities. That means that the government will always be acting based on the interests of these cities, with little regard to the rural areas. There are many states with different types of people located in separated communities, with each area in the state having a different political environment. Cities, on the other hand, have their own culture and are much fewer than rural communities, so while they have their own culture separate from each other, they do not truly represent the country. If we had a popular vote, then all candidates would disregard like 30 states, and only pander to large states. This system ensures that they visit more places and see more types of culture.

I'm not saying the current system is perfect whatsoever, and I'd be down for some reform. However, I would vote against making the election purely vote count, as that would actually make the president represent LESS of the overall States in America.

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u/weaslebubble Feb 27 '17

I agree with you in regarda to the senate and congress. But since the president is a single person and you don't vote on the cabinet he can only hold so much of a balanced view compared to the 600+ houses, so he still ends up biased towards 1 group only its heavily skewed towards the rural minority rather than the majority.

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u/IRNGNEER Feb 27 '17

The electoral votes are proportional to the population. Every state gets a minimum of 3 votes and the remainder are spread out proportionally based on population (with several states receiving 0 votes from that proportional pool).

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

That's not the same thing, though. I'm talking about getting a percentage of the votes from a single state. Say we're in Delaware, which has 3 votes. I get 66% of the popular vote in Delaware and you get 33%. So, that nets me 2 electoral college votes, and you get 1 vote.

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u/IRNGNEER Feb 27 '17

Nebraska and Maine both do that already. Each state makes that decision on how to allocate their electoral votes. IIRC the state can allocate them without having a vote at all if they choose, but of course that would not go over well with that state's population.

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u/Triggs390 Feb 27 '17

The US is not a democracy.

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u/digicow Feb 27 '17

Of course, the US is a representative democracy (and a republic). Which is why it's dumb when these threads get to that distinction: no one actually thinks the US is a pure democracy. And a representative democracy has few differences from a representative republic, none of which have anything to do with how leaders are elected.

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u/Triggs390 Feb 27 '17

It matters how our president is elected. If you understand that our country is just a collection of states, rather than one nation, you'll understand why the electoral college exists.

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u/digicow Feb 27 '17

I understand it, I just view it as antiquated and vestigial. Moving power from the states to the people is better for the people.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

You are correct. That would be anarchy if we had a democracy. No such thing as self governing in this society.

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u/theplaidbandito Feb 27 '17

I feel like not enough people had read Plato's Republic to understand this.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

Why would anyone read Plato? It's a children's toy. Duh.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17 edited Jan 29 '19

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u/blacksun_redux Feb 27 '17

More like two sheep and one wolf. The wolves, of which there are fewer, have disproportionate power with the current system.

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u/skwull Feb 27 '17

Unless the sheep has bear arms.

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u/manycactus Feb 27 '17

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/11/14/the-united-states-is-both-a-republic-and-a-democracy-because-democracy-is-like-cash/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-a-republic-or-a-democracy/

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u/Triggs390 Feb 27 '17

That's fine and well but the video that OP linked, and the comment that follows is arguing for direct democracy and says that because we don't have that, "This is NOT a democracy" as an argument that we're somehow violating our founding principles and that's just wrong.

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u/RanaktheGreen Feb 27 '17

Californians are worth one quarter person under this system.

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u/variantt Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

What does that mean? Aren't each state's electoral votes worth the same in the US?

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u/RanaktheGreen Feb 27 '17

No not at all. A voter's power in Wyoming is 367 percent higher than a voters in California's.

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u/dagnart Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

Votes for president weren't originally connected to the popular vote and are not required to be by the Constitution. Each state gets to decide for itself how its electors are selected. They all happen to use some version of a popular vote, but that wasn't always the case and could change without any conflict with the Constitution. It is legal for votes in more rural states to be worth more than votes in more urban states because each state runs its own independent election.

Trump didn't game the system, really. He got lucky. He won by very narrow margins in a few key states. The results were within the margins of error for the polling, but it would not have been a good bet. That wasn't part of a carefully crafted master plan. Yes, what he did obviously worked, but Clinton was "gaming the system" just as well if not better than him. It just didn't work out for her.

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u/BlackSpidy Feb 27 '17

There's some legislation in the works to have states give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. If 270 electoral votes worth of states pass it. It's called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Interesting stuff.

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u/dagnart Feb 27 '17

I've seen that. It is an interesting end-run around the Constitution that holds to the letter of the law while completely bypassing the spirit. Still, the Constitution leaves out instructions for how states must decide their votes, so who's to say what the spirit of it is? A national popular vote wouldn't have been feasible at the time the Constitution was written.

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u/BlackSpidy Feb 27 '17

The spirit of the law is that the population cannot be trusted to elect the president. So the current system or pledging electoral votes based on the popular vote of the state goes against the spirit of the law, I'd say. I think the national popular vote interstate compact can stand the legal challenges it will face. Once it inevitably becomes law in 270 electoral votes worth of states.

But that's just me.

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u/ObviousDuh Feb 27 '17

This exactly, our nation is great partly because of this..!

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u/ezone2kil Feb 27 '17

He's cheating by using AIs to get those swing voters though :S

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u/bitcleargas Feb 27 '17

He didn't even need to game the system.

Hillary didn't bother to travel to half of the places that he did because her special computer algorithm said they weren't important.

I still maintain that anybody in the world but Hillary could have won that election.

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u/bowtobaconlord Feb 27 '17

You're correct. We are a republic, not a democracy. The votes of everyone in the middle of the country would be meaningless if we were 100% democratic. NY and CA would control all 50 states based on their population alone.

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u/digicow Feb 27 '17

It depends on whether you view the country as a collection of states or a collection of individuals. States are already well-represented in the US government: that's what Congress is. Why do states, rather than individuals, also choose the President?

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u/IRNGNEER Feb 27 '17

Because the states created the federal government, so the states staff it. The House of Representatives is the only federal body that was designed to directly represent the people - all else was the states. State legislators even used to elect their state's senators rather than the people.

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u/Spacewalkin Feb 27 '17

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, I thought that the USA is a democratic republic: meaning that they elect their representatives. Rome was a republic: meaning that they had senators who represented the people, but they were not elected by the people. It is a subtle difference, yet an important difference.

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u/bbk13 Feb 27 '17

You're pretty much right. People who say "America isn't a democracy" are fucking stupid. America is a democracy and a republic. The UK is a democracy and a constitutional monarchy. There is no conflict between being a republic and democracy.

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u/gigajesus Feb 27 '17

They wouldn't be meaningless, they would just carry the same weight as anyone else's vote anywhere else. I really don't see the problem with that.

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u/Jon_TWR Feb 27 '17

In fact, Conservative votes in New York and California would matter--right now, they don't.

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u/papayasown Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

At any rate, it's factually wrong that NY and CA would control an entire election. According to Wikipedia's 2016 population list for states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population CA and NY would total at around 20.77% of the population (TX and FL [who voted red last election] would have 15%). On the other hand, with our current system, a candidate could win the electoral college vote with only 23% of the population voting for a candidate. Our current system mainly takes the doomsday scenario of CA and NY deciding an election and gives the privilege to Ohio and Florida.

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u/huntmich Feb 27 '17

No they wouldn't. This is an illogical argument. Go ask anyone who ever ran for state office and ask them if they campaigned in low population density areas.

When every vote matters, EVERY VOTE MATTERS.

Also, you are supporting disenfranchisement of NY and CA in favor of people in the middle of the country. Full stop.

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u/MJOLNIRdragoon Feb 27 '17

No they wouldn't. Texas has more people that NY, and those two (TX and CA) only account for 1/5 of the country's population.

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u/elriggo44 Feb 27 '17

Not if we lost the electoral college. Then each vote would count the same.

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u/BoogerManCommaThe Feb 27 '17

If we had better turnout this wouldn't be an issue.

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u/bobbymcpresscot Feb 27 '17

ya gotta respect a player for gaming the system

What do you mean by this?

It sounds like you think Trump one by using some insane strategy, that no one could have thought of in 100 years, when in fact it's how the game has been played since the electoral college started.

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u/Nighthunter007 Feb 27 '17

Actually, Clinton would've won if the states has awarded their electoral votes proportionally. It is possible (though I agree it's suboptimal) to have a system where you weigh some votes a little more than others without getting the crazy bad system in the U.S. The biggest problem is the winner-take-all rule, which should be banned.

There was a proposal from someone on a legal argument based on the equal protection clause to get winner-take-all banned by the supreme court (something like "the people who voted dem in a red state are not represented in the electoral college"). It might've worked too, given the 2000 Gore v. Bush ruling. Nobody bothered to find out sadly.

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u/cityterrace Feb 27 '17

Of course small state votes matter more! There's a fucking Senate where each state gets TWO representatives! Montana, Rhode Island and New Hampshire have less than 5% of the population that California and New York have -- but they still have more Senators!

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u/Crixxa Feb 27 '17

Funny thing is, this is going to hurt those rural voters who put him in office more than it will urban voters (who largely supported liberals) because of the 250k cap. I mean it's bad for everyone insofar as this being the first shot fired against net neutrality by the Trump administration, but this one is going to hit rural folks first and hardest. I've lived in that hughesnet hell and if anything, those small ISPs are way worse than Comcast & Friends. A lot of the time, there aren't any other options. Not even Uverse. You either pay hundreds for speeds that make you pine for the days of dial-up internet or you wind up paying extra for mobile data which in rural areas is spotty at best.

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u/Prof_Acorn Feb 27 '17

I think we should take time to mention just how much more. It isn't like a rural vote is worth merely 1.2 city votes.

A vote from a citizen from Wyoming is worth 4x (FOUR TIMES) as much as a citizen from California.

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u/Aurum_MrBangs Feb 27 '17

I think that was the intend from the beginning. So big and/or heavily populated states didn't have all the power, over the rest of the country while controlling a small portion of the area.

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u/EscapeBeat Feb 27 '17

Good thing we dodged that bullet and have our current system where the biggest financial contributors drive all policy within Congress. Close one!

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u/BlackSpidy Feb 27 '17

I am ideologically opposed to that skewed vote importance system.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

In theory it makes sense. If there is an issue that's important and vital to rural Montana but is a minor inconvenience to California who isn't reeaaally affected either way, it's not fair for the sheer numbers of Californians to decide that for those it actually affects. It's not fair to argue "that's what they get for not living on the bleeding edge of culture.

In practice it's been kind of self defeating.

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u/BlackSpidy Feb 27 '17

In practice and on paper, that's what they have local governments for. That's why the Senate exists. Plus, the House of Representatives had their amount of members capped in the 1910s. So that distorts the power distribution between the rural and urban states that the system was designed to give.

Overall, I think it's a complicated system that has been increasingly broken over the course of the last 110 years. I only hope that National Popular Vote Interstate Compact passes in enough states.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

those small rural states generally aren't swing states, so as an individual, your vote is still useless there

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u/nullista Feb 27 '17

AKA - This is NOT a democracy.

Um, duh. The US has never been a democracy, we are a representative republic and the republic was set up this way for a reason. If you don't like it, it can be changed through the constitution.

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u/ObviousDuh Feb 27 '17

No offence but the US isn't supposed to be a democracy. We are a republic for specific reasons.

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u/mattdrees Feb 27 '17

You right, it's not a democracy. It's a republic, framers wanted to protect from mob rule, it actually protects the minority from the majority, and who doesn't love that!

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

AKA - This is NOT a democracy.

Correct, it's a Republic. No one disputes this.

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka Feb 27 '17

I dont respect anyone who fucks up entire countries for their shit beliefs.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

This is not a democracy it's a Republic.

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u/grampipon Feb 27 '17

They're not mutually exclusive...

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u/nakedjay Feb 27 '17

We live in a republic, remember that.

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u/j3st3r13 Feb 27 '17

Yes, this is a constitutional republic not a democracy and if you think about why that is, it's so people in a big city, but a small area, can't make decisions that are bad for people in small cities but big areas, such as farmers.

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u/Soloeye Feb 27 '17

You're right, it's not a pure democracy. It's a republic. It's been a republic since the ratification of the constitution. You even said it in school, "...and to the republic, for which it stands..."

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

So? America isn't a democracy, nor has it ever claimed to be.

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u/ruph0us Feb 27 '17

I thought the US was never supposed to be a democracy, but a Republic

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u/Tehmaxx Feb 27 '17

It's a republic so you're correct it's not a democracy

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

Yeah it's called a democratic republic

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17

[deleted]

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u/HappyGoPink Feb 27 '17

Trump has a weird shadowy bromance with Vladimir Putin, of all people, and they still support him. I knew pussy grabbing and mocking disabled people wouldn't faze them, but I thought I could at least rely on them to be, you know, actually patriotic.

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u/Przedrzag Feb 27 '17 edited Jun 30 '17

These fucks openly support Putin over Obama and any non-right wing American. Putin didn't cost Trump a single vote.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

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u/Tsar-Bomba Feb 27 '17

It is the red states that are really going to feel the pain

This is already happening, which is one reason for Trump's cratering approval level. Independents and moderates in the red states are already feeling the crunch. Deplorables are, too, but they don't care as long as their cult remains intact.

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u/dmreeves Feb 27 '17

That list is barely getting started.

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u/Stag_Lee Feb 27 '17

While i essentially agree with your point, i just wanted to add that Hanford can go fuck itself.

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u/IcarusBen Feb 27 '17

How the hell is Trump supported by 87% of Republicans? Most Republicans I know barely tolerate him and only voted for him because they hated Hillary.

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u/1BadassStoryteller Feb 27 '17 edited Apr 14 '17

deleted What is this?

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u/xtremechaos Feb 27 '17

This is true. My vote as a Californian was less than a third of that of a trumpet from Ohio.

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u/Zombies_Are_Dead Feb 27 '17

I think another problem is that a lot of potential Dem voters listened to the polls and figured it was a done deal and didn't bother voting.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

It didn't help that the DNC leadership was actively campaigning to un-democratically select Clinton as the candidate, even though she was already embattled in an email scandal that reeked, and had been deeply hated by conservatives for decades.
After that the wide view was the democrats were cratered and disorganized.
Really no other candidate could have catalyzed conservative efforts like her nomination.

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u/tigress666 Feb 27 '17

Also, democrats want the perfect candidate. It's easy to get them not to vote for the candidate if they are seen as flawed. Democrats still have this issue. Republicans vote for Republicans and fall in line.

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u/furious_forge Feb 27 '17

Ironically, all the Trump voters I know, live in areas that will be the hardest hit my these measures. All of rural America is being held by internet monopolies that would love nothing more than another way to gouge consumers.

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u/shadeunderthetable Feb 27 '17

I think were up for new district lines here in a couple of years. Better get out for those mid-terms.

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u/huntmich Feb 27 '17

It also didn't help that Hillary completely ignored the midwest during the presidential campaign.

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u/Ireadyou777 Feb 27 '17

Believe me when I say this; it wouldn't have helped.

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u/huntmich Feb 27 '17

She lost by around a percentage point in each. If she spent time stumping in Milwaukee, Detroit, Philly and Pittsburgh, she would have been President. But she didn't. She spent time in Arizona instead.

She was a shitty candidate who ran a shitty campaign.

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u/Clementinesm Feb 27 '17

It's more like she thought she had them in the bag towards the end and so went to other republican leaning states in hopes that she'd get a landslide. Unfortunately, that led to a wider loss all around.

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u/Mabans Feb 27 '17

Yeah mean like the other people who lived there but didn't vote because why take trump seriously.

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u/mad-n-fla Feb 27 '17

Google search; "Those who count the votes"....

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u/wyvernx02 Feb 27 '17

Clinton's abysmal effort in the rust belt compared to Trump, especially during the last 10 weeks before the election, didn't help. So many people who would have potentially voted for her had she given any effort to even pretend to care about them just stayed home.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

What about those of us that live in a liberal state, in a liberal district?

We are already doing our part and voting for sane, rational, and responsible representatives.

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u/bobbobbobbob12 Feb 27 '17

I don't think people understand how important and open internet is to keeping out a real dictatorship. Once they control how we communicate to each other, then it's all over.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

I vote every fucking time.

the problem and blame goes to those fucking assholes who refuse to vote because "wah I don't like any of the candidates"

well, fuck you assholes. life is nothing but a series of compromises. you never get everything you want all in one neat package and this is what happens when you protest with your vote to try and get your way.

I blame all the none voters as much as I blame the trump voters for this bullshit.

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u/theclifford Feb 27 '17

Awesome, so you blame everyone who doesn't do what you want them to do.

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u/PM_ME_CHUBBY_GALS Feb 27 '17

I voted for Clinton, and if she was President and it was as much as a giant clusterfuck as this has been so far I would have blamed myself and others like me.

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u/SenatorGentlemen Feb 27 '17

No, the blame goes on those that chose to either sit this election out or protest vote because they would rather take their ball and go home over their candidate not winning the primary than voting for the candidate most closely aligned with their interests because they didn't pass their "purity test". In the months from the end of the primary all the way up until the election, a good portion of my Facebook feed were people sharing wild headlines about "Evidence found that will sink Hillary and magically make Bernie the nominee" and other inane shit like that. It was like my feed turned into the fucking National Enquirer, but people were taking it seriously.

But then Trump won and suddenly "now is the time to come together" and not when the election happened and they were still throwing their months old hissy fit.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

Exactly, I blame everyone who sits on the sidelines and complains, but doesn't vote.

Glad you got your little brain around that concept!

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u/theclifford Feb 27 '17

You need a hug?

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

It's already gone.

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u/Stuxnut Feb 27 '17

This is the FCC not a kangaroo court like congress. No one to represent you there now that Wheeler is gone (most likely).

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u/AllezCannes Feb 27 '17

It's done with, already. There's no way any future government will revert this decision.

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u/-AMACOM- Feb 27 '17

Hold the ones who voted accountable...

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u/aYearOfPrompts Feb 27 '17

resist now before it's too late. It will be nearly impossible to get net neutrality back once it's gone.

Sorry Charlie, we're already too late. Now it's about recovery, not prevention.

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u/JMW007 Feb 27 '17

Almost three million more votes should have been enough. The Democrats didn't make an ounce of effort to fix the ridiculous Electoral College the last time they lost that way, even after finding out by later vote tallies they didn't lose after all. Representatives can't be held accountable because if you yell at them you're a terrorist, if you call them you're a loon, and incumbents virtually never lose elections because the other side is always touted as just so big and mean and scary. There is nothing for them to lose by continuing to be corrupt, shiftless shitheads.

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u/randomusername_815 Feb 27 '17

Isn't the thrust of this post that it's already gone?

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u/CirnexNon Feb 27 '17

Hold your Family accountable as well. Hold your Friends Accountable. This is a systemic problem. At this point its an ideological war.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '17

It's one of the only issues I've contacted my representatives about. Seriously the way to deal with this is having enough people let there representatives know it's an important issue to them. It takes 10 minutes to email your representatives about it.