America: A Democracy?

omnicorp

If a candidate can get most of the people to vote for him and lose, is that a democracy?
This is what happened to Al Gore in the 2000 election against George Bush where Al Gore got most of the popular vote BUT George Bush "won" through the Electoral College system where each state has a number of votes depending on its population AND ono for each senator in the US senate.

After years of the USA prancing about "spreading democracy" it turns out that their political system isn't really democratic.
Anyone else shocked and horrified at their Hippocritical attitude?

I feel a new Yam-Man Comic coming...

America: Land of the Free America: Land of the Free
America: Land of the Free America: Land of the Free
America: Land of the Free America: Land of the Free
America: Land of the Free America: Land of the Free
America: Land of the Free America: Land of the Free
America: Land of the Free America: Land of the Free
America: Land of the Free America: Land of the Free

tuxy

can someone ban this clown please

RE*AC*TOR

omnicorp - spare us the fúcking Yam-Man shíte.

bobbyjoe

Anyone else shocked and horrified at their Hippocritical attitude?

Your only finding this out now?

The electoral college is supposed to stop the larger states having all the power and to spread it a bit.

Agree with you its a bit sh1te,
That and having to have 500 million dollars to even think about running
oh yeah and the fact that there are only really two parties,
and that their both pretty much the same
and, and , and

FatherTed

Your are so fucking stupid. The US has a thing called the "Constitution" and this says is how it is done.

Isnt it also possible for a party like Fianna Fail to get 51% of the votes and still lose the election? So I guess Ireland is not a democracy too, right?

secret_squirrel

He does make a good point though - I remember being completely shocked when I read about the whole 'democratic' election process in the states. How can anything involving the college of electors be part of a demoncratic process? The american system is about as democratic as the democracy that originated with the ancient greeks.

RE*AC*TOR

This is nonsense - America isn't a country like Ireland. It would be more atune to some future EU state. All the individual states have certain rights of government, and at different points in history signed up to the states etc. For the most part the states with the most EC points have the biggest population - so its not grossly undemocratic. If you want to point out undemocratic institutions - look at thje House of Lords in the UK, the Irish Senate (or for that matter the unchallenged irish presidential reelection).

ionapaul

How can any system involving unelected and appointed senate members be democratic? How can any system allowing candidates who received LESS first preference votes than others yet are elected before them be democratic? How can any system that allows the head of the government be chosen by the votes of other politicians, rather than the votes of the electorate, be democratic? (anyone remember voting for or against Bertie for Taoiseach? nope) How how how? Don't kid yourself that we have any greater claim to democracy than the Americans - we don't.

bobbyjoe

A bit about it

here
and
Wikpedia

DadaKopf

It depends how you define democracy. If by democracy you mean "rule by the people" then, no, it's not. If, on the other hand, you mean "the occasional exchange of elites decided through periodic elections by people who mostly don't know what the hell's going on and they don't care, which is then decided by an electoral college which decides the election on the basis of how many republican or democrat senators there are in the country", then it's a democracy.

I don't think it's a democracy.

RE*AC*TOR

DadaKopf wrote:

It depends how you define democracy. If by democracy you mean "rule by the people" then, no, it's not. If, on the other hand, you mean "the occasional exchange of elites decided through periodic elections by people who mostly don't know what the hell's going on and they don't care", then it's a democracy.

I don't think it's a democracy.

The people have the choice, however, to vote for a third party. There are actually several parites with Presidential candidates, independent, green, libertarian etc etc. The people do ultimately choose the president, the senators, the governors etc so it IS a democracy. In practice only 1 governor is an independent, every other office is filled by a Republican or Democrat may seem to be a closed shop system, but it is one that was voted for (repeatedly) by the American people.

secret_squirrel

So far you've all failed to address the point that I made which was the electoral college system is fundamentally undemocratic in that 5-50 people in a state can completely overrule the wishes of the people in that state. As mentioned by Dadakopft it was designed for the elite to keep power in the event that they didnt like the result of an election. And arguably instead of acting in the interests of democracy in florida the last time round the electoral college prevented democracy from taking its course.

TBH I dont see whether any other democracy deserves its name is relevant.

aidan_walsh

Somehow, I tend to ignore 13 year olds when they try to lecture me on politics... Come back when you know what you're talking about, kid...

RE*AC*TOR

secret_squirrel wrote:

So far you've all failed to address the point that I made which was the electoral college system is fundamentally undemocratic in that 5-50 people in a state can completely overrule the wishes of the people in that state.

If 5-50 more people in that state vote for a particular candidate, that strikes me as being democratic. Its like segementing a pie. You see which president each slice like best and assign points to the slices based on polulation based. Based on the results of each 10-year census, the 50 states are rewarded one electoral vote for each of their Congressional districts. In a pie as big as America, this is a convenient way of spreading the workload.

secret_squirrel wrote:

As mentioned by Dadakopft it was designed for the elite to keep power in the event that they didnt like the result of an election. And arguably instead of acting in the interests of democracy in florida the last time round the electoral college prevented democracy from taking its course.

Dadakopft suggested that the electoral college system has resulted in a system where the elite control the power. He never said it was designed for this purpose. I don't disagree that the current system is effectively closed, but the people have the power to change that if they want to.

secret_squirrel wrote:

TBH I dont see whether any other democracy deserves its name is relevant.

I was merely suggesting that compared to other so-called democracies the american system is well-developed. It has become an easy target for people to criticise ........... TBH

johnKarma

Good god, I hate these electoral college discussions.

People adopt such dogmatic definitions of "democracy" that the discussion becomes meaningless.

Democracy is a vague term. Here are only five possible definitions of democracy from dictionary.com:

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

2. A political or social unit that has such a government.

3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.

4. Majority rule.

5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

Note that majority rule is only one possible definition.

America _is_ a democracy by any world standard. There are multiple levels of democratic government in the US, starting at regional levels up through the State executives and legislatures to the Federal Government.

The United States as a whole and each State individually are free to choose the exact rules of their democracies as they see fit. Just as we are. No system of democracy is perfect, and it's very easy to criticise another country's system from afar. Even within europe there are multiple variations upon the themes of presidential, parliamentary, federal, and direct democracy. The central theme is that the people consent to the sytem within the constitutional framework. No one is in a better position to assess the fairness of the US Constitution than the American people themselves.

The United States chose the Electoral College system to ensure the unity of their republic, just as they chose to delicately balance the role of the federal institutions and the States. If it were not for the Electoral College System, large swathes of the population might well go unlistened to during the federal election season. For the very same reason Ireland, along with all the other small states in the European Union, has a disproportionately important say in the goings-on of the European Institutions. Surely you all think this should be abolished too?

I'm no fan of recent US policy either internally or externally, nor am I saying that the Electoral college does not need to be re-balanced or maybe even abolished if it has outlived its usefulness. However, childish, knee-jerk rants about the Electoral College and American democracy make it even easier for the Americans to dismiss criticism from Europe.

nutkase

The US has a thing called the "Constitution" and this says is how it is done.

Isnt it also possible for a party like Fianna Fail to get 51% of the votes and still lose the election? So I guess Ireland is not a democracy too, right?[/QUOTE]

The electoral college is an attempt at Proportional representation when a voter places the vote they vote for a candidate and thats it. It may be nice to have PR on the ballot so if You want Bush in office and you definitely do not want Kerry then put the candidates in order of preference. Nader then upsets the applecart because he is 2nd choice. Fianna Fail do not get the election won because a voter puts a wider opinion than yes Fianna Fail No Fine Gael right? voting fianna fail 1 Labour 2 Fine Gael 3. When I used to live over there isn't that the way Fitzgerald got in with Dick Spring?

There seems to be a problem with the ballot machines already as well: in states with electronic ballot machines reports of there already being 2-300 votes for Bush already in the machines b4 the 1st vote is even cast.

DadaKopf

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

The people have the choice, however, to vote for a third party. There are actually several parites with Presidential candidates, independent, green, libertarian etc etc. The people do ultimately choose the president, the senators, the governors etc so it IS a democracy. In practice only 1 governor is an independent, every other office is filled by a Republican or Democrat may seem to be a closed shop system, but it is one that was voted for (repeatedly) by the American people.

This was kind of my point. American democracy looks like a democracy but the question is: what is the quality of that democracy?

You can tick off a check list of America's democratic credentials, but I'd say the quality of American democracy is pretty poor.

RE*AC*TOR

That's a bit sillt really. Its like looking at a prisoner, who gets out of jail, but then proceeds to sit in a 10ft by 10ft room. Its his freedom to do with as he pleases. The quality is subjective, and ultimately not for us to decide.

pickarooney

bobbyjoe wrote:

A bit about it

here
and
Wikpedia

How do you pronounce "www.fec.gov"?

DadaKopf

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

That's a bit sillt really. Its like looking at a prisoner, who gets out of jail, but then proceeds to sit in a 10ft by 10ft room. Its his freedom to do with as he pleases. The quality is subjective, and ultimately not for us to decide.

In democracies, the quality of democracy is for its people to decide. When democratic states become unresponsive to the needs of all citizens (i.e. subvert its moral and theoretical foundations), the question of quality becomes necessary.

Democracies can look like them, talk like them, walk like them, but deep down, they can be something else entirely.

RE*AC*TOR

DadaKopf wrote:

When democratic states become unresponsive to the needs of all citizens (i.e. subvert its moral and theoretical foundations), the question of quality becomes necessary.

some would say, its the majority of citizens, not all.

nutkase

johnKarma wrote:

Good god, I hate these electoral college discussions.

America _is_ a democracy by any world standard. There are multiple levels of democratic government in the US, starting at regional levels up through the State executives and legislatures to the Federal Government.

I apologize for getting off the subject but the following puts the importance of the electoral college for the american voter in perspective

There is going on than meets the eye today, not only is the american voter deciding who to put in the whitehouse but the regional level has an extremely confusing barage of issues. Take for example California. On a state Level there are propositions on the ballot. Proposition 70 The Native Americans operate Casinos on thier tribal lands it is just like Vegas they pay a portion of the income as a business pays state taxes. Govenor Arnold the terminator wants more of the income given to the state and wants stricter control on what they do on their land he ran on the ticket not taxing business to get elected. Another propostion is trying to force a Company called "Wal-Mart" (kind of like Dunnes Stores)to pay for employees health insurance. A similar Store Target (little bit more Marks and Sparks) already pays for employee health insurance employees from companies earn the same wage. If a Target employee goes to the Emergency Room they would pay about $50 for the whole thing. The Wal-Mart employee on the other hand is responsible for 100% of the bill not just hospital, the doctor ambulance everything average bill would be $1200. and they normally would go to a County run Hospital unable to pay. The taxpayer foots the bill Target employee through raised taxes. Hospitals are closing because of this issue. Arnold does not want Wal-Mart to be forced to give insurance or pay higher taxes citing it will drive Wal-Mart out of state.

That is just 2 of the decisions that the voter has to make. There are many more about school funding Police funding besides the President. The scare tactic ads on TV about this mumbo jumbo is something else.

Gurgle

The president is the leader of the united states.
He is not the leader of the american people. He does not need a vote majority, he needs a mojority in weighted votes by state.

The electoral vote allows a state to choose their president then throw the whole weight of the state behind that candidate. Thats how it was intended to work, thats how it works.*

* Doesn't mean I think its a good idea.

omnicorp

Gurgle wrote:

The president is the leader of the united states.

well, a democracy is a government of the people.
A republic is a government for the people.
A bit of a contradiction on both terms by George Bush.

A democracy by the government for the government is not a democracy.

You can say they're different, that there are different systems of democracy, doesn't change the picture.
Oh, and about past points, I think the EU is not a democracy.

oh, and Bush won, Yeah you've all heard, but it deserves a mention.

damned_junkie

On BBC's election coverage lastnight they asked a Republican speechwriter whether or not he thought the Electoral College system should be abandoned or modified. In his opinion the elctoral college system should not be changed because it guarded against situations like the last French presidential election where the run off between Chirac and LePenn was a landslide because nobody wanted LePenn.
Now I'm no expert on politics but I fail to see the link.(if someone can point it out to me please do) It made me wonder if this was a stock answer used by republicans to bamboozal a public that really wouldn't know much about French election procedures.

omnicorp

it seems that if nobody wanted LePenn elected, he shouldn't have got elected and he didn't. Democracy.

Thraktor

damned_junkie wrote:

On BBC's election coverage lastnight they asked a Republican speechwriter whether or not he thought the Electoral College system should be abandoned or modified. In his opinion the elctoral college system should not be changed because it guarded against situations like the last French presidential election where the run off between Chirac and LePenn was a landslide because nobody wanted LePenn.
Now I'm no expert on politics but I fail to see the link.(if someone can point it out to me please do) It made me wonder if this was a stock answer used by republicans to bamboozal a public that really wouldn't know much about French election procedures.

The reason he made the reference to LePenn was that he was asked if an election by direct universal suffrage (i.e., whoever gets the most votes wins), requiring a majority, be a better system. The system that would be pt in place would be pretty much exactly the same as that in France, where if no candidate wins a majority, there is a second "run-off" election between the top two vote-getters. The problem with this, as it is argued happened in France in the last presidential election, is that a smart thinking left (or right)-wing party could secretly support certain oppostion-wing parties (knowing that it would subtract from the votes of their competitors, but not themselves), fragmenting the other-wing vote, resulting in an extreme left/right candidate to go up against in the second round run-off, which, as Chirac showed us, is much easier to defeat.

The fact is that pretty much every electoral system (direct or indirect) that you can think of can be concieveably taken advantage of in one way or another by party politics, selective campaigning and the like. The american system may not be perfect, but considering the popular vote and college vote have only disagreed a handful of times within the last two-hundred plus years, it seems to be doing quite a good job.

Also, on the original point, the USA is a representative democracy, much like us. We don't directly elect Bertie as our Taoiseach, we elect TD's who (if in the majority government), choose him representing the way we voted. If you want to see, however, what you call a true democracy, you'd have to go back to Greek times, whereby every single issue affecting the city would be voted on in a council held once-weekly comprising the city's entire electorate, without any elected officials, even to oversee (the "chair" for the vote would be rotated on a regular basis). Nice in principle, but if you actually look at it in today's settings, it's far too slow and inefficient to work, especially regarding foreign affairs. Switzerland have been a neutral semi-direct democracy for over 350 years now, and for the life of me I can't think of a thing they've achieved in that time bar the invention of the cuckoo clock.

therecklessone

Thraktor wrote:

Switzerland have been a neutral semi-direct democracy for over 350 years now, and for the life of me I can't think of a thing they've achieved in that time bar the invention of the cuckoo clock.

Jaysus but you better hope bonkey doesn't see that...

secret_squirrel

Thraktor wrote:

the city's entire electorate, without any elected officials, even to oversee (the "chair" for the vote would be rotated on a regular basis). Nice in principle, but if you actually look at it in today's settings, it's far too slow and inefficient to work, especially regarding foreign affairs. Switzerland have been a neutral semi-direct democracy for over 350 years now, and for the life of me I can't think of a thing they've achieved in that time bar the invention of the cuckoo clock.

Its worth bearing in mind that the electorate in the greek case was also only a tiny subset of the greek population. Making it even easier to manage than it should have been.

Holding a sizeable percentage of the worlds private wealth is a fair achievement.
Virtual immunity from any other country getting narky with them for the same reason would be another.
Having a rifle in every basement without the whole country going postal would be another.
Not being able to flush the loo after 10pm in an apartment block would also be a triumph for social justice.

bonkey

Thraktor wrote:

Switzerland have been a neutral semi-direct democracy for over 350 years now,

Switzerland has existed in its modern "neutral with semi-direct deocracy" form since 1848. Thats a mighty short time to squeeze 350 years into.

and for the life of me I can't think of a thing they've achieved in that time bar the invention of the cuckoo clock.

Well, one thing they've achieved is unparallelled recognition of their neutrality. When's the last time you heard the North Koreans complain about the Swiss observers on the North/South border?

Another thing they've achieved is a peaceful nation with a high standard of living, but I can see why there's nothing really memorable in that.

(And lets not forget many major brands of premium watches - thanks to the Hugeonots - and some sort of knife thingy)
jc

Redleslie2

Thraktor wrote:

Switzerland have been a neutral semi-direct democracy for over 350 years now, and for the life of me I can't think of a thing they've achieved in that time bar the invention of the cuckoo clock.

The Red Cross.