US Presidential Election 2012

You ain't gonna like the answer.....

What a charmingly simple question!

In Washington state I don't get to go to a polling booth. We abolished them after the whole hanging chad debacle. We vote by US Postal Service instead.

Number of votes? Hmm..

Remember that the good ole US of A is the oldest continually functioning democracy. This is important.

Okay, imagine it's around 1800: no internet, telephone, telegraph, stage coaches only run along the main roads....chances are good you know next to nothing about the candidates, all you know is that you tend to side with a particular political party. So you go into the voting booth, and for each elected position you see a list of candidate names, each with the party clearly listed next to it because the parties are more important than the names. You get one vote per vacancy. So far, so good and all the backstory doesn't seem to matter up to this point.

But once you cast your vote, the parties take over. The votes are tallied and sent to some central point not too far away because travel is tough. Up to this point everything can be carefully monitored because it's all within walking distance and eagle eyes are watching every move. But now the voting results have to be transferred to higher levels with no possibility of tampering or bribery. So whatever party wins on the local level, they get the full vote to be transmitted by a sworn representative who will vote in the 'electoral college': each district getting one vote by their one party representative.

You see the cleverness of it: tallies of votes on paper can be tampered with, but a single party representative either arrives or doesn't. Human digitalization.

So it comes down to your vote contributing to which way your entire congressional district swings. Then states can decide whether the entire state swings the same way of the majority of congressional districts.

It gets more complicated: for each state has two representatives in the senate, these count for the presidential vote, and the states can also decide whether to divide up these counts proportionally or winner takes all. The final result is that in close elections it is indeed possible for the popular vote to go one way, but the electoral college to go the other way. This happened with the Bush-Gore election.

Of course these days most of it is done electronically, but by the constitution the electoral college actually does have to meet and cast ballots, but nobody ever hears about them anymore - they just go through the motions.

Sorry you asked?

"the good ole US of A is the oldest continually functioning democracy."- Halfwise

I dont think that can be right, There was a functioning democracy here long before your country was set up.

Full democracy, with no hereditary heads of state or members of parliament.

define functioning

Yeah but the head of state is just a figure head- a representive- they have no actualy power at all. They arent even allowed to have a public political view.
No one knows what the Queens politics are or ever will.
There are heridatary members in the lords- but it is a revision chamber which cannot make law or change law, only recommend- the legislative chamber is fully elected.

All of that came about in the 20th century. it hasn't continuously been that way.

Yes Kafria, I fear I shall have to retract 'functioning'.

No its pre 20th century- the creation of Houses of Commons is way earlier than the founding of America. It was in existence at the Treaty of Union in 1706.
The big change was The Reform Act 1832 which transferred most powers to the commons from the lords and got rid of previous rigged boundaries and greatly incresed the electorate. This was greatly increased again with the Representation of the People Act 1884.

Yes, but the transfer to power to make the hereditary positions mere figureheads did not occur until 1832. Wasn't a full democracy before then.

America makes no claims to having invented democracy, just to have had it in a pure form longer than any other existing country.

Well done, Halfwise! I always dread that question.

I find it's impossible to explain the electoral college without going into the historical background that created it. Just makes no sense otherwise.

Not sure about how pure it is but I take your point Halfwise.

Yeah, well...it's a political system with all the mud and dross and corruption, but the idea was nothing is hereditary. Except of course inherited wealth and the political dynasties that fosters. The funny thing is, such things were anticipated in early writings and not necessarily seen as a bad thing.

Actually I think its the Isle of Man which started around 979 if memory serves me right. Its the oldest continuous parliament in the world. and then there is Iceland which is even older but it wasnt continuous.

I knew there was something more ancient, but is the isle of man a country?

What a fine Isle it is,
The Isle of Man,
Stephen Fry says
The place is grand,

And Ian McKellen -
his heart all swellin'-
Says it's a gay ol' place -
and he's a fan -

the Soul of Wilde
is said to saunter round -
and girls and women
are all quite banned -

Oh how Men's Men
do love
the Isle of Man!

Gay Songs Remembered: Rock Hudson, Lost Diaries.

by Wisey Banks

I wondered what the right wing media in the US was going to do with the Atkin story- obviously they cant condone the man in any way so what to do?

Well its taken them a bit but Fox have the solution - blame the left wing media bias for making a big story out of nothing! Then declare the whole thing is good for Romney as his condemnation of his own party member tells women they have nothing to fear from the Republicans on the issues of rape or abortion (so long as women do as they are told with their bodies of course!).
Thats so much spin Im suprised Fox presenters dont get dizzy and fall down.

There's not much else one can say to that.

'He (Romney) actually mentioned the “G” word: God! Not only that but he managed to weave the Almighty and government into the same sentence by saying, “Let’s stop and think about the system of government and what it tells us in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence. It does not say that the government gave us our rights. It says that God gave us our rights. They came with us not with government!” - Fox

This is an aspect of the US I dont really understand- I thought your constitution called for a complete seperation of state and religion?
And didnt the founding fathers found America in part to get away from churches and heridataries telling the people how to live?

And what are the implications of Romneys words here- that US law should follow biblical law first and foremost and those parts are not up for debate?
That would seem to be the logical conclusion of such an argument.

[quote="Pettytyrant101"]

This is an aspect of the US I dont really understand- I thought your constitution called for a complete seperation of state and religion?

Not really at all. The 1st amendment among other things forbids the government to make laws establishing or prohibiting any particular religion, which is something very different. The "separation of church and state" issue has been batted back and forth ever since, especially in the Supreme Court in the mid-20th century, but the lines are far from clear.

And didnt the founding fathers found America in part to get away from churches and heridataries telling the people how to live?

Well, they weren't really intending to found a country, and the issue was mostly that they were pissed off at the English meddling in their local government. The new country just sort of happened by accident, and when it did, certain religious groups such as the Quakers asked for and received religious protection.

And what are the implications of Romneys words here- that US law should follow biblical law first and foremost and those parts are not up for debate?
That would seem to be the logical conclusion of such an argument.

The words hark back to the only passage of the Declaration of Independence that most people remember:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I think the Creator reference was coming from Locke, and was meant to imply that we have as much claim to "divine right" as any damn king. As a Mormon, Romney walks a pretty careful path among the conservative religious talking points, but he needs to touch them occasionally.

Have you read the Declaration of Independence, Petty? It's one simple page that's really nothing more than a justification for fighting the English. At that point they had no idea of founding a new country. They just wanted the existing colonies to have more autonomy.

Rather like Scotland today.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:And what are the implications of Romneys words here- that US law should follow biblical law first and foremost and those parts are not up for debate?
That would seem to be the logical conclusion of such an argument.

You say that like you're unfamiliar with this viewpoint in American politics.

Anyway, the Declaration of Independence clearly reflects a deistic perspective, which isn't surprising considering that it was primarily written by Thomas Jefferson. Christians don't go around using the phrase "Nature's God" very much. Don't expect many people on the religious right to acknowledge that, though when they do it's hilarious.

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

Thanks for the clarification David.
I note there is no explicit reference to a particular God- just a Creator.

Eldo-I was unfamilar with the idea of it being so insitutionalised. I thought it was just mainly the right of your politics.

All countries which have strong religous views which heavily influence their law scare me, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or otherwise- it does not strike me as a sane basis of governing or decision making.
And invariably it involves trampling on somebody, wether thats minorities, womens rigths or whatever.

agreed Petty. I dont understand the overiding need some people have in government to think they actually have a right over the reproductive functions of another persons body. How can it be right to have control over an individuals actual flesh? Its barbaric, like forced circumscision and mutilation of the genitals, and clandestine abortion. Its kind of like a prehistoric sacrifice. Its pretty scary stuff. All the principles women fought for in the 60s and 70s have gone down the tube.