| sethnintendo said: @mrstickball, yea I realize that we are in a winner takes all system. I have a hard time dealing with the electoral college because it is divided by states (and whatever state you live is most of the time predetermined to vote a certain way). It would be pointless for someone to vote for someone that isn't a democrat in New York for President. Just like it would be pointless to vote for someone that isn't republican in Texas for President. Sure there are swing states but usually only about 4-5 matter (Ohio and Florida are the main ones). So even with electoral college certain candidates will avoid states altogether or barely visit them during the main election because they already know they can't win the state. All these reasons of votes becoming worthless either local, state, national election makes me want proportional representation. At least your vote wouldn't be totally worthless if you vote for a party that would usually never win most elections (libertarians, green, etc). You would be able to get more parties into the House and Senate than just having republicans, democrats, and independents. A lot of people are independents in USA and we should give them an opportunity to vote for other candidate that belongs to a minor political party without having them feel like they just wasted their vote or it won't amount to anything. Voter turnout in USA is horrible. I blame the system for part of the problem. I feel that if we had a multiparty system with proportional representation then more people would vote. Also, we should have a national holiday for election day. That would help voter turnout also. Most countries have national holidays for election yet USA doesn't. Most countries have way higher voter turnout than USA. Usually it is just the older generations doing all the voting. Only recently with Obama did the youth actually go out and vote. I won't go into Obama much besides saying that he lied about almost everything on the campaign trail (getting rid of the Patriot Act, not re-signing the Bush tax cuts, etc). |
The 2008 presidential election had the highest voter turnout of the past 40 years, so I fail to see your argument about proportional representation influencing the number of voters. Turnout is largely tied to if people feel that the election is meaningful, thus why very local elections usually do pretty crummy, unless the people care about the issue.
I do agree that November 4th needs to be a federal holiday, which would allow more people to vote.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
