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Author Topic: First Bay Twelve Symposium on Constitutional Rewriting  (Read 14885 times)

Cthulhu

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Re: First Bay Twelve Symposium on Constitutional Rewriting
« Reply #90 on: November 02, 2012, 09:34:52 am »

Quote
Besides, this circular debate is getting boring.

So comment on my stuff instead of going on about it. :P

But seriously, does anyone think it is an absolutely terrible/mindbogglingly great idea? Or anything, really? Most of the constitutional stuff discussed in this thread so far has been barely constitutional and mostly focused on trivial surface level things, I'd love to go into some deeper level structure stuff, since that's the primary purpose of our current constitution anyway.
Yeah, Electoral whatever you call it isn't a terrible system. It's current implementation is though. If you'd remove the winner takes it all state system, you'd have the possibility that a coalition of smaller parties springs up, resulting in an independent president.

Also, you might want to rebalance the numbers to accurately reflect population.

Problem is, how are you going to make the change?  The party favored to win in a state is naturally going to support winner-takes-all, and they're gonna end up being the ones deciding these things.  As an Ohioan, I can say from experience that there is an unseemly amount of money being poured into my state by both candidates right now.  Battleground states basically get an economic stimulus every four years and they're naturally not going to want to change things. 

Don't get me wrong, I think electoral reform is a good thing for the sake of fairness and for the sake of not being fucking inundated by campaign ads every two god damn seconds, but winner-takes-all has a lot of inertia.
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10ebbor10

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Re: First Bay Twelve Symposium on Constitutional Rewriting
« Reply #91 on: November 02, 2012, 09:37:20 am »

Quote
Besides, this circular debate is getting boring.

So comment on my stuff instead of going on about it. :P

But seriously, does anyone think it is an absolutely terrible/mindbogglingly great idea? Or anything, really? Most of the constitutional stuff discussed in this thread so far has been barely constitutional and mostly focused on trivial surface level things, I'd love to go into some deeper level structure stuff, since that's the primary purpose of our current constitution anyway.
Yeah, Electoral whatever you call it isn't a terrible system. It's current implementation is though. If you'd remove the winner takes it all state system, you'd have the possibility that a coalition of smaller parties springs up, resulting in an independent president.

Also, you might want to rebalance the numbers to accurately reflect population.

Problem is, how are you going to make the change?  The party favored to win in a state is naturally going to support winner-takes-all, and they're gonna end up being the ones deciding these things.  As an Ohioan, I can say from experience that there is an unseemly amount of money being poured into my state by both candidates right now.  Battleground states basically get an economic stimulus every four years and they're naturally not going to want to change things. 

Don't get me wrong, I think electoral reform is a good thing for the sake of fairness and for the sake of not being fucking inundated by campaign ads every two god damn seconds, but winner-takes-all has a lot of inertia.
Which is the main problem with it. Winner-takes-all often results in a 2 party state, as system that is very hard to get out from.

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Leafsnail

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Re: First Bay Twelve Symposium on Constitutional Rewriting
« Reply #92 on: November 02, 2012, 10:03:05 am »

Don't get me wrong, I think electoral reform is a good thing for the sake of fairness and for the sake of not being fucking inundated by campaign ads every two god damn seconds, but winner-takes-all has a lot of inertia.
This is true for pretty much every kind of voting reform, incidentally.  Whoever's currently benefiting will continue voting in their own interests.
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