Bill Nelson is calling for a recount in razor thin race in Florida for their Senate seat. It looks like the vote margin is within the automatic recount margin anyway. But...
Rick Scott already claimed victory because Fox News declared him the winner prematurely last night. There's something to be said for declaring yourself winner then demanding that others recognize it.
Gee this sounds exactly like Bush V. Gore - Fox News was the outlet who declared Bush the winner there too when it was unclear who won. Back then, legitimate news outlets repeated Fox News* claim. Shady goings on by the Florida Republicans with ties to Bush and an intervention by the Conservative Supreme Court handed the election to Bush who should have lost the election in Florida and not been President.
I'd absolutely take a net gain of 10 electoral votes in California and 5 or 6 in New York as a starting point (and at the same time subtracting about 10 from those States where barely anyone lives as they go from 3 to 1). Keep in mind this would also give Texas more as well. The main point of these posts has always been showing how even the House is not representative because there is a cap on the number of Reps, and to show how the imbalance has gotten, to say the least, at tad out of control in one direction. I don't oppose protecting small states, all I'm arguing (and will continue to argue) is that it has gone well beyond that. "Protecting small states" has, in terms of Presidential elections, made the votes of people in small States 4x more powerful than those in large ones. In regards to the Senate, it has made some of them almost 80x more powerful.
One the one hand, I agree that House representation is out of alignment with the current population and really needs to be addressed. On the other hand, do we really want national elections to be decided only by people in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Miami, and New York City? Do you believe that voters in New York City and Los Angeles have your best interests at heart, given that they do not live in your area?
The opposite question could also be asked. Do we believe rural voters have the interests of those who live in cities at heart?? This kind of represents this general cultural narrative that people who live in less populated areas are more salt of the earth, work harder, and have more common sense than those "city folk", which, as I can attest from living in a rural area most of my life, is nonsense. The main divide in this country is urban/rural, and it's getting worse, not better.
I'd absolutely take a net gain of 10 electoral votes in California and 5 or 6 in New York as a starting point (and at the same time subtracting about 10 from those States where barely anyone lives as they go from 3 to 1). Keep in mind this would also give Texas more as well. The main point of these posts has always been showing how even the House is not representative because there is a cap on the number of Reps, and to show how the imbalance has gotten, to say the least, at tad out of control in one direction. I don't oppose protecting small states, all I'm arguing (and will continue to argue) is that it has gone well beyond that. "Protecting small states" has, in terms of Presidential elections, made the votes of people in small States 4x more powerful than those in large ones. In regards to the Senate, it has made some of them almost 80x more powerful.
One the one hand, I agree that House representation is out of alignment with the current population and really needs to be addressed. On the other hand, do we really want national elections to be decided only by people in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Miami, and New York City? Do you believe that voters in New York City and Los Angeles have your best interests at heart, given that they do not live in your area?
The opposite question could also be asked. Do we believe rural voters have the interests of those who live in cities at heart?? This kind of represents this general cultural narrative that people who live in less populated areas are more salt of the earth, work harder, and have more common sense than those "city folk", which, as I can attest from living in a rural area most of my life, is nonsense. The main divide in this country is urban/rural, and it's getting worse, not better.
I don't care if rural places want to make abortion illegal and back alley abortion a thing again. They can post the 10 commandments on the courthouse steps. They can be allowed the right to die because they don't get vaccinated. They can be as racist and backwards as they want to be.
On policy they can continue to vote away their food stamps and medical care and support tax cuts for the rich. They can turn their own towns and states into backwater dumps of Republican policy if they want.
Maybe they'd then see how bad these policies are? Or maybe not. As long as it's their problem and they aren't setting policy for the rest of us. We don't want to have to put up with their backwards ways. Don't tread on me man. Go ruin your own backyard.
I'd absolutely take a net gain of 10 electoral votes in California and 5 or 6 in New York as a starting point (and at the same time subtracting about 10 from those States where barely anyone lives as they go from 3 to 1). Keep in mind this would also give Texas more as well. The main point of these posts has always been showing how even the House is not representative because there is a cap on the number of Reps, and to show how the imbalance has gotten, to say the least, at tad out of control in one direction. I don't oppose protecting small states, all I'm arguing (and will continue to argue) is that it has gone well beyond that. "Protecting small states" has, in terms of Presidential elections, made the votes of people in small States 4x more powerful than those in large ones. In regards to the Senate, it has made some of them almost 80x more powerful.
One the one hand, I agree that House representation is out of alignment with the current population and really needs to be addressed. On the other hand, do we really want national elections to be decided only by people in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Miami, and New York City? Do you believe that voters in New York City and Los Angeles have your best interests at heart, given that they do not live in your area?
The opposite question could also be asked. Do we believe rural voters have the interests of those who live in cities at heart?? This kind of represents this general cultural narrative that people who live in less populated areas are more salt of the earth, work harder, and have more common sense than those "city folk", which, as I can attest from living in a rural area most of my life, is nonsense. The main divide in this country is urban/rural, and it's getting worse, not better.
I don't care if rural places want to make abortion illegal and back alley abortion a thing again. They can post the 10 commandments on the courthouse steps. They can be allowed the right to die because they don't get vaccinated. They can be as racist and backwards as they want to be. Yes it would be even worse to live there than it already is but that's what they want apparently.
As long as it's their loss only and they aren't setting policy for the rest of us to have to put up with their backwards ways.
Din't you supported an federal ""assault"" gun ban? Why not let the cities decide his laws?
USA should be an union on states, not an centralized government. No continental country with an centralized law and regulatory system can work If an stupid law is approved, then it should ruin only an city not an continental country. The same is unfortunately happening on Europe. Before was an union from free market between countries, now is becoming an country with laws and regulations centralized.
Like Otto Von Bismark 've said "Law and sausage are two things you do not want to see being made."
I'd absolutely take a net gain of 10 electoral votes in California and 5 or 6 in New York as a starting point (and at the same time subtracting about 10 from those States where barely anyone lives as they go from 3 to 1). Keep in mind this would also give Texas more as well. The main point of these posts has always been showing how even the House is not representative because there is a cap on the number of Reps, and to show how the imbalance has gotten, to say the least, at tad out of control in one direction. I don't oppose protecting small states, all I'm arguing (and will continue to argue) is that it has gone well beyond that. "Protecting small states" has, in terms of Presidential elections, made the votes of people in small States 4x more powerful than those in large ones. In regards to the Senate, it has made some of them almost 80x more powerful.
One the one hand, I agree that House representation is out of alignment with the current population and really needs to be addressed. On the other hand, do we really want national elections to be decided only by people in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Miami, and New York City? Do you believe that voters in New York City and Los Angeles have your best interests at heart, given that they do not live in your area?
The opposite question could also be asked. Do we believe rural voters have the interests of those who live in cities at heart?? This kind of represents this general cultural narrative that people who live in less populated areas are more salt of the earth, work harder, and have more common sense than those "city folk", which, as I can attest from living in a rural area most of my life, is nonsense. The main divide in this country is urban/rural, and it's getting worse, not better.
I don't care if rural places want to make abortion illegal and back alley abortion a thing again. They can post the 10 commandments on the courthouse steps. They can be allowed the right to die because they don't get vaccinated. They can be as racist and backwards as they want to be.
Yikes, that sounds like Children of the Corn! Count me out if they starting killing everybody over 18...
This is a meaningless statistic, the Senate elections are comprised of many individual races. The total number have votes are divided among these many individual elections. Nowhere is a Democrat winning and getting cheated out of their representation. They just get a lot of extra votes in already deep blue districts.
Except that it's not. The system gives representation to everyone, in every state. It's not perfect, it could surely be improved as could any system, but in the absence of viable solutions to problems- whatever those problems are- it seems to me like this is just sour grapes. I still don't see what the serious problems are with the current system of representation as a whole, other than democrats lose sometimes.
1. As @jjstraka34 has explained, even the House doesn't accurately reflect population. The House is biased against the majority of the population as well, disenfranchising urban areas. 2. The Senate was designed during a time when the states were relatively similar in size. Due to our weird state borders, we now have a situation where many state are several times larger, instead of several percentage points larger. 3. The Senate is the more powerful body in Congress, despite having fewer members than the House. Controlling the Senate gives you much more power than controlling the House.
The issue is that the GOP wins fewer votes than the Democratic party and yet gets more political power. Democracy is supposed to be majority rule, not minority rule.
1. As @jjstraka34 has explained, even the House doesn't accurately reflect population. The House is biased against the majority of the population as well, disenfranchising urban areas. 2. The Senate was designed during a time when the states were relatively similar in size. Due to our weird state borders, we now have a situation where many state are several times larger, instead of several percentage points larger. 3. The Senate is the more powerful body in Congress, despite having fewer members than the House. Controlling the Senate gives you much more power than controlling the House.
The issue is that the GOP wins fewer votes than the Democratic party and yet gets more political power. The thing about minority rule is that it's the very opposite of majority rule, and I don't think there's a better way to describe democracy than majority rule.
1) Unaware, i'd prefer elaboration if you would use it as an argument.
2) Why is state size an issue?
3) The Senate elections are popular votes. The people decide who gets elected to the senate. It's still a democratic system, i'm not sure what your complaint about Senate elections are specifically here.
Your whole complaint about the GOP rests on the false notion that they aren't winning by a majority of votes in their elections, which they most certainly did.
I can perhaps summarise: republicans win due to arbitrary divisions, be they state borders or voting maps, rather then due to addressing issues that are deemed important by the democratic voters.
I mean, the Senate races are decided by popular vote. This is democracy in it's most basic form. What's the problem.
Wyoming with 50 people gets 2 Senators and millions upon millions in California get two Senators. That's the problem.
And the House of Representatives gives seats by population, ensuring more populated states have more representation. Still don't see any actual issue.
They don't though, as I've proved with numbers a myriad of times. States like California are underrepresented by at least 20%.
California is over-represented because the rules of the House favor them: illegal immigrants or other non voting citizens still count towards electoral votes and the question about citizenship is not asked, and California has a few million more than most and a million more than the second most given the most recent government estimates.
I don't know what numbers you are talking about because I've never seen them, but if it doesn't take that fact into account it's probably not accurate.
Gerrymandering allows politicians to win individual elections with a minority of votes. The Senate, by granting extra power to a minority of voters in rural areas, allows a party to control the government despite getting fewer votes overall.
Let's say you have 100 cups on a table, a can of soda, and five gallons of water. Overall, you've got a lot more water than you have soda. But if you fill 60 cups with a tiny amount of soda and fill the other 40 with large amounts of water, you've still got more cups of soda than cups of water.
In our system, political power is based on the number of cups, instead of the volume inside those cups.
I can perhaps summarise: republicans win due to arbitrary divisions, be they state borders or voting maps, rather then due to addressing issues that are deemed important by the democratic voters.
Yes, or to be more accurate, colloquialism run amok. Again, the Senators from Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana represent roughly 75 to 80x as much voting power as the ones from California, or 16x as much as New York. That goes far, far beyond protecting rural voters into the realm of basically making those people super-citizens with massive, totally out of proportion voting power.
Nobody won a Senate race with a minority of votes. The majority vote winner won every race.
The issue seems to be that the left doesn't like it that the elections in individual states matter. It is good for the representation of people as a whole. People who represent your particular state are a lot likely to have your interests in mind, and know what particular issues are impacting you and how you feel about them, then someone looking out for supposedly the whole population and has to keep all of that in mind at once.
Know where elections REALLY don't matter?? For people who live in Washington DC. They have no votes in the House, and no Senators. All 3 of them (1 House member, 2 Senators) would be Democrats if they did. What possible justification is there for Wyoming residents being represented by 2 of 100 Senators while the nearly identical (and of course, black) population of Washington DC has no representation at any level legislatively??
I don't know how to make this any clearer. California has 68 times more people than Wyoming but has the same number of senators. A Wyoming voter gets 68 times as much power in the Senate as a California voter. Not everything is so unbalanced, but the fact that this situation exists is indefensible. That's the reality of the system we're working with.
If somebody got to vote for their senator 68 times and you got to vote once, would that seem fair to you? That's how things work in the Senate.
Some people's votes count more than others. That's not fair.
I don't know how to make this any clearer. California has 68 times more people than Wyoming but has the same number of senators. A Wyoming voter gets 68 times as much power in the Senate as a California voter. Not everything is so unbalanced, but the fact that this situation exists is indefensible. That's the reality of the system we're working with.
If somebody got to vote for their senator 68 times and you got to vote once, would that seem fair to you? That's how things work in the Senate.
Some people's votes count more than others. That's not fair.
The Senate gives equal power to all states, and the House gives more power to states by population. So states with more population have greater power in general, but not as exaggerated as it would be. I fail to see the great injustice. Throwing out wild numbers with no context doesn't convince. This strikes a sensible balance between the supposedly free states and the union, to me. No offense but I just feel like i'm repeating Civics 101.
I don't know how to make this any clearer. California has 68 times more people than Wyoming but has the same number of senators. A Wyoming voter gets 68 times as much power in the Senate as a California voter. Not everything is so unbalanced, but the fact that this situation exists is indefensible. That's the reality of the system we're working with.
If somebody got to vote for their senator 68 times and you got to vote once, would that seem fair to you? That's how things work in the Senate.
Some people's votes count more than others. That's not fair.
It wasn't supposed to be 'fair'. Fair wouldn't have worked when they were trying do get states to join the Union back in the late 1700's. If you want 'fair' then you can change the rules but the same issues that created this 'unfair' syatem will be back in play. Might as well have another Constitutional Convention and allow states to join or not join the Union again. The rules were agreed to 'fair' and square back in the infancy of this country.
I really don't see what's unfair with a set of mostly self-governing states where each state is represented and the people in each state are represented. Other than the fact that democrats lose.
I really don't see what's unfair with a set of mostly self-governing states where each state is represented and the people in each state are represented. Other than the fact that democrats lose.
The problem with this, is that many people are NOT represented. This system isn't even close to balancing things out, the minority of people in this country are worth more than the majority. Why should fewer people have more say?
I really don't see what's unfair with a set of mostly self-governing states where each state is represented and the people in each state are represented. Other than the fact that democrats lose.
Democrats are supposed to run everything because they're 52% as opposed to 48% or whatever. It's funny how every majority is akin to tyranny to them except when they're the majority.
Comments
Rick Scott already claimed victory because Fox News declared him the winner prematurely last night. There's something to be said for declaring yourself winner then demanding that others recognize it.
Gee this sounds exactly like Bush V. Gore - Fox News was the outlet who declared Bush the winner there too when it was unclear who won. Back then, legitimate news outlets repeated Fox News* claim. Shady goings on by the Florida Republicans with ties to Bush and an intervention by the Conservative Supreme Court handed the election to Bush who should have lost the election in Florida and not been President.
Let's see what happens this time, Florida Man.
On policy they can continue to vote away their food stamps and medical care and support tax cuts for the rich. They can turn their own towns and states into backwater dumps of Republican policy if they want.
Maybe they'd then see how bad these policies are? Or maybe not. As long as it's their problem and they aren't setting policy for the rest of us. We don't want to have to put up with their backwards ways. Don't tread on me man. Go ruin your own backyard.
USA should be an union on states, not an centralized government. No continental country with an centralized law and regulatory system can work If an stupid law is approved, then it should ruin only an city not an continental country. The same is unfortunately happening on Europe. Before was an union from free market between countries, now is becoming an country with laws and regulations centralized.
Like Otto Von Bismark 've said "Law and sausage are two things you do not want to see being made."
Tyranny of the minority
1. As @jjstraka34 has explained, even the House doesn't accurately reflect population. The House is biased against the majority of the population as well, disenfranchising urban areas.
2. The Senate was designed during a time when the states were relatively similar in size. Due to our weird state borders, we now have a situation where many state are several times larger, instead of several percentage points larger.
3. The Senate is the more powerful body in Congress, despite having fewer members than the House. Controlling the Senate gives you much more power than controlling the House.
The issue is that the GOP wins fewer votes than the Democratic party and yet gets more political power. Democracy is supposed to be majority rule, not minority rule.
2) Why is state size an issue?
3) The Senate elections are popular votes. The people decide who gets elected to the senate. It's still a democratic system, i'm not sure what your complaint about Senate elections are specifically here.
Your whole complaint about the GOP rests on the false notion that they aren't winning by a majority of votes in their elections, which they most certainly did.
I don't know what numbers you are talking about because I've never seen them, but if it doesn't take that fact into account it's probably not accurate.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-democrats-census-trump-2020-20180125-story.html
Let's say you have 100 cups on a table, a can of soda, and five gallons of water. Overall, you've got a lot more water than you have soda. But if you fill 60 cups with a tiny amount of soda and fill the other 40 with large amounts of water, you've still got more cups of soda than cups of water.
In our system, political power is based on the number of cups, instead of the volume inside those cups.
The issue seems to be that the left doesn't like it that the elections in individual states matter. It is good for the representation of people as a whole. People who represent your particular state are a lot likely to have your interests in mind, and know what particular issues are impacting you and how you feel about them, then someone looking out for supposedly the whole population and has to keep all of that in mind at once.
If somebody got to vote for their senator 68 times and you got to vote once, would that seem fair to you? That's how things work in the Senate.
Some people's votes count more than others. That's not fair.
The system is working as intended...