Election system needs an overhaul, but it's not that easy

They need to get rid of the Electoral College for starters. May the person who wins the most votes, win.

They need to get rid of the Electoral College for starters. May the person who wins the most votes, win.

People like Karl Rove, Donald Trump, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh seem to be making fools of themselves at this stage. being gracious in defeat is a virtue

Voters being told that they weren’t on the roll happened in FL and NY as well – I’m sure it happened all over the US. I live in FL, our system stinks (obviously). Desperately in need of an overhaul.

Let’s get rid of the electoral college while we’re at it. Popular vote should be the new system – then people in those always red and blue states will feel like their vote still matters. I’m sure there would be a higher voter turnout – if I was a dem I wouldn’t bother voting in TN for example, and if I was a republican I wouldn’t bother voting in CA.

I think that the Federal Government should control Federal Elections, including: determining district boundaries, qualifications for voting, enrolment of voting and conducting Federal Elections. Maybe we can lose the gerrymandering that has resulted in so few competitive race for Congress, which in turn might increase the turnout and reduce the influence of lobby groups. California’s independent redistricting seems to have increased the enrolment and turnout there.

Heck yes it needs an overhaul. anytime the general public gets to vote
to receive other peoples money they are going to do it, no questions
asked. Beware, however, as this gravy train will not last forever, as
everything, including entitlements, run out of funding eventually!

No voter in America should have to wait in line for hours just to vote. This doesn’t happen in the more affluent areas where there are plenty of voting machines, but it happens too often in poorer areas.

This is the third general election where there were numerous voting problems and extended delays before the final counts in Florida. I understand Florida has a lot of absentee voters, but they should have a way to accommodate for that. This isn’t rocket science and it shouldn’t take that much to figure out how to prevent or minimize these kinds of problems in Florida and in all the other states.

@Mercyneal

The purpose of the electoral college is to keep little states relevant. If you only go by the popular vote a smart candidate would promise everything to the 10-15 largest states and ignore the other 35-40 and pretty much have an easy win. The electoral college is the only thing that keeps small states relevant in a Presidential election. This is why Congress and the Senate are set up the way they are. California holds more sway in the House, but in the Senate each state has an equal say.

This suppression of voters is unconscionable, whether or not it disproportionally affects minorities and less affluent voters. Nobody should have to wait in a line for more than 30 minutes to vote! But requiring working people to wait in line for over 6 hours to vote on a weekday is a significant and unnecessary barrier akin to poll taxes and grandfather clauses, suggesting that the responsible state election boards are not actually incompetent, but malicious.

Electoral College shouldn’t go. If the national popular vote is close, think how horrible the recount would be. One state going to recount chaos is bad enough we don’t need an entire country going through it.

Also if one dense area (major city for example) has a high popular vote, it would offset less populated areas. Small towns would have very little impact. This country takes pride in protecting the little man, well the electoral college does that.

Get rid of “Winner take all” for the electoral votes. Each state should be split into regions, and each region gets one electoral vote. That would better reflect the popular vote, and split up the “Deep red” and “Deep blue” states to reflect their more “reddish purple” and “bluish purple” nature.

But what needs to change is the first past the post system we have. It enforces a 2 party system only. If a 3rd candidate shows up, it ensures the party that is least like that party will win. We should go to an Alternate vote system where we rank the candidates on who we want to run. We count all the #1 votes. The person with the least votes is dropped, and people who voted for that candidate use their #2 vote. The process is repeated until either one candidate has over 50% of the vote, or one candidate is left.

With Alternate vote, people can vote for a third party, with out fear of causing the more likely candidate from winning.

@BKMatthew

This isn’t a Federal Election. In the polls you vote for local, county, state, and federal offices. Are you suggesting having two different days to vote? I think that is a worse solution than doing nothing at all. People will not want to go out and vote twice or have to go to two different polling places.

There is no excuse for anyone in Florida to not vote by the voting deadline. After all, they have early elections.

The electoral college should go. One man/woman one vote. The small states aren’t any more marginalized than they are in the House of Representatives. That is why each state is afforded electoral college votes depending on its population. If we don’t get rid of the electoral college in its entirety we should at least get rid of the winner take all for each state. I do like the idea of 50% to win the election as this would open up the electorate to more candidates but alas would mean a more expensive election process as we would be burdened with runoff elections. These voter suppression laws are ridiculous and voting should be made to be as easy as possible to not disenfranchise any American which is one of the reasons it should either be moved to a weekend or election day should be a holiday. It is easier for people in salary positions to walk out of work and have it cost them nothing than it is for some hard working janitor or other hourly individual to take off on a Tuesday and not have a financial repercussion to take off time to vote.

The electoral college should go. One man/woman one vote. The small states aren’t any more marginalized than they are in the House of Representatives. That is why each state is afforded electoral college votes depending on its population. If we don’t get rid of the electoral college in its entirety we should at least get rid of the winner take all for each state. I do like the idea of 50% to win the election as this would open up the electorate to more candidates but alas would mean a more expensive election process as we would be burdened with runoff elections. These voter suppression laws are ridiculous and voting should be made to be as easy as possible to not disenfranchise any American which is one of the reasons it should either be moved to a weekend or election day should be a holiday. It is easier for people in salary positions to walk out of work and have it cost them nothing than it is for some hard working janitor or other hourly individual to take off on a Tuesday and not have a financial repercussion to take off time to vote.