2020 US Elections

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Bigga said:
Much appreciated for the response. An interesting read.

What are your thoughts on Maine's shift to 'ranked-choice voting', its benefits and pitfalls. Taking that into consideration, would it be worth it to go nationwide with that system?

Cheers, CB.
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I have no problem with it in PRIMARIES, but failed to see its utility in an essentially two party system.
Of course, trying to convince the average voter it isn’t somehow “stealing” their vote for some nefarious person, or a scheme thought up by the Deep State or Pizzagate Pedo ring is the challenge.
Baby steps. We are America, after all!
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Correct. I am voting on 9 races and 15 ballot initiatives, including shit like whether a doctor’s presence should be required at dialysis usage, whether Uber/Lyft drivers should be full-time employees or private contractors, and whether 17 year-olds who turn 18 by a general election should have the right to vote in a primary when they are 17. I already said before — last election I voted on whether or not condoms should be required on porn sets filmed in California. The races are so small I actually know two people running — one is my state Assemblyman and another is a friend running for a water management board seat!

If anything we’re TOO democratic! Actually what happens is the initiative process is abused by special interest groups because the signature count required to get something on the ballot is far too low.
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You kinda answered your own problem there! ;-)

I think non-Americans don’t quite understand just how big, and complicated, American politics is.
 
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mancity2012_eamo said:
Sounds complicated.
Judges voted on too? Local authorities etc?
How are the local elections decided? Is it FPTP or do you have any sort of proportional representation?

Here in Ireland we have PR and multi seat constituencies which is different to the UK.
It’s a fairer system IMO, although not without it’s drawbacks some would say.
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No PR. Highest vote count in local elections. It’s only when it comes to President do we fuck it up and make it stupidly complicated!
 
ChicagoBlue said:
Simple...use the popular vote!

We already have Congress, which is a corruption of the democratic process by providing 2 senators for each state, no matter how populous or not. In addition, Senate approval is required for laws to be passed, with the VP being the 50-50 tie-breaker, and Senate approval is required for the Federal Judiciary, so small states already have an overweight presence in American Government.

Lastly, the Federal Govt is supposed to be a limited body, with ultimate government control supposedly falling to your State Legislature, so it makes sense that the head of the NATION should rest on a NATIONAL “ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE” election.

The Electoral College could be seen as a “national” election if we went back to a growing House, based on population growth, and simply removed the two “extra” EC votes given for each Senate seat, but we stopped growing the House and gerrymandering has taken over, as the post-Census preference for securing power for the next decade...and even the Census has been hyper-political this year of a global pandemic (resulting in a lawsuit to STOP THE COUNT!).

• Simple democratic vote for the President.
• Keep the two Senators per State.
• Update the House with a maximum population per Representative It used to be 50,000 people per seat, but that might needed changing! Maybe transition to 750,000 per seat initially
• Use a population & Lat-Long based map for the House, to create the “squarest” House map possible to reduce gerrymandering.

Those are “top of my head” thoughts. I’m sure there will be pushback and look forward to the thoughts of others.
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Those suggestions appear to be just rank sanity.

They're therefore not going to happen.
 
MillionMilesAway said:
Maybe that it's a retweet stops something being a lie because a public statement has already been made?

I would really love to see him on a defence stand, it would be hilariously watchable.
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Well that's his problem isn't it. He can't see that responsibility comes with the power he has been loaned - it's an alien concept for him, although as election day approaches his re-tweet count seems to be increasing and therefore is picking up lots more radical opinion, probably because the more sane radicals (if that's possible) have gone to ground.

The quote about QAnon made me chuckle too ... "I know nothing about QAnon ... but what I do know about them is ...".

He can't go a sentence without lying or contradicting himself because he's a child in an adult body.
 
On the killing of a murder suspect by deputised law enforcement:

"We sent in the US Marshals," ... "took 15 minutes (and) it was over."
"They knew who he was; they didn't want to arrest him, and in 15 minutes that ended,"

Summary extrajudicial killing it is then!
 
MillionMilesAway said:
Um, wow. Just wow.

I liked the whining about being asked questions that weren't questions he wanted to rant about.
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And why don’t you ask Biden this that and the other at his own town hall meeting.
The only people he makes any sense to are those that will vote for him no matter what he does.

Hopefully anyone with any sense left in America, cannot be sitting in the fence or undecided about him. The man is dangerous because he has no morals.
 
mancity2012_eamo said:
Crazy.
What do the state representatives that you vote in actually do if you’ve all done the work voting on things like that for them?

Something I have alwAys wanted to ask though is how or when are the senate seats voted In. How is the actual makeup of the federal government decided.
Are you voting governors in on ballot at this time too?
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So the Senate is off cycle -- one third of Senators are up every two years, so it's staggered (they have six year terms).

CA's governor is not up for re-election this time. Gubernatorial elections are all over the map as to when they take place. Many governors (it might be all) are term-limited also, like the President.

You ask a good question about what our state reps do given the initiative process!!! Obviously plenty of law-making, but in CA there's no question IMO that the initiative process has become a farce. We're supposed to rely on our representatives to represent us. It's their job to study the intricacies of proposed laws and vote in the best interest of their constituents and propose legislation that benefits the people. When you leave complicated questions up to a populace without the expertise to understand issues, you get Brexit. Not that I am saying Brexit is good or bad -- I don't understand the all the issues. But the complexity of such an issue should never have been left up to the hoi polloi to decide, ever.
 
MillionMilesAway said:
That's what he said, is it? I got that there was snark there.

It was pretty odd in a 1-to-1 to complain that a 3rd party wasn't being asked something. He just treated it like one of his 'press conferences'.
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Yep, that’s what the old white (?) racist misogynist said!

And, Biden HAS spoken out against ALL violence, but Trump uses the terms Antifa and radical left to help cream the shorts of his base, who don’t care about his inability to answer basic questions like “What will a second Trump term look like? What are your plans and working agenda?”

I double dog dare ANYONE to find me Trump saying what his plans are for a second term!

UFB that this is even a contest and that Biden Harris will spend $500M between now and Election Day on TV ads to try to seal the deal!
 
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