Who are you voting for in Nov and why?

[Ryllharu]

I was listening to the radio the other day and they decided to explain the historical significance of the electoral college.

Basically, it exists and we are the only ones who use it due to one incredible lack of foresight by the Founding Fathers. They assumed that there would never be political parties in the US. So, the equivalent of the current 270 vote majority would never occur. Regular people would nominate several contenders they would like to see in the presidency, and because a lot of random names would never get any kind of majority, Congress would end up choosing among the highest ranking of these (as they would do in a situation today if it came down to a 269-269 split) to ascend to the Presidency.

It's a weird system, but it makes perfect sense if political parties don't exist. The people bring up suggestions, and then the people they chose to represent them would make the final decision, supposedly picking the wisest and most competent person to run the country.

Political parties, as usual, screwed the whole thing up.

[Assertn]

The value of an individual's vote can be derived by two variables: The ratio of a state's population to number of its electoral votes, and how close the state is to being a swing state.

For the former, your weight is higher if the population to vote ratio is closer to 1:1, and for the latter, your weight is higher if you're in a swing state.

Of course, this is entirely because our states represent us in the general elections.

[ChaosK]

The Electoral College is controversial but will stay because:
1) Nobody has faith in the American people to actually make informed decisions. Probably more than half the people voting aren't aware of the issues. I know people who just go in and vote for every democrat/republican depending on their affiliation merely because that's the party they have established themselves with. I personally have on faith in the American people either. The American people are fucking retarded. It is good that a retarded jackass's vote doesn't get too much say merely because it's been 18 years since he was born.
2) Most of the time, the popular vote and the electoral college votes agree on presidency although the popular vote was a lot closer this time than the electoral vote would have you think.

The electoral college however, is very flawed as New York and California will consistently be democratic states, and combined they have 86 votes. Also, the all or nothing bit inevitably excludes a great deal of the voters. In states like Florida and Indiana where the the victor is ahead by a mere 1 or 2%, for him to get all of the votes is essentially discounting the votes of 49% of the state population.

One thing that this election has done though is it's giving the democrats a shot. If the fuck up, it's all on them. The American people are never happy and always have a tendency to change ruling parties around every 2-3 terms (excluding FDR). This is cause they automatically assume that since their current state of life sucks, voting the other way will change it, then 8 years later they realize it still sucks, so they go back hoping it will be changed again, and it's just a endless cycle of incompetence. Things are different though, with the economy falling and Obama's presidency hyped up to the max, in 2 years, if shit's bad, the midterm elections will probably swing back in republican favor.

I personally don't think Obama will last in office for more than one term. Then again, I think he's probably going to be shot before he's inaugurated so...yeah.

[Animeniax]

I was thinking that too. Too many guns, too many gun nuts, too many people who won't give the man a chance. Joe Biden might have just won the easiest presidential bid in our history. The Rodney King riots will be the rhetorical boy scout cookout in comparison.