[geeks] just to stir things up, a few predictions

[Lionel Peterson]

> From: patrick at mail.zill.net (Patrick Giagnocavo)
> Date: 2004/10/27 Wed AM 04:21:19 GMT
> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: Re: [geeks] just to stir things up, a few predictions
> 
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 11:22:45PM +0000, Lionel Peterson wrote:

> > Of course, what would a third-party candidate do with 2 or 3
> >electoral votes? I can imagine parties running extreme counter
> >candidates (i.e. the republicans covertly run a rabid anti-republican
> >candidate in addition to "their guy") to siphon-off electoral votes
> >from the democratic party...
> 
> I think these paragraphs are from Lionel ^^^^

Yes...
 
> Essentially you are talking about a Parliamentary-style election, I
> think; or worse, one based on popular votes.  
> 
> In such a case a candidate winning LA, Chicago, NYC and Mexico City (I
> keed, I keed) would automatically win the election, and would be free
> from then on to screw over everyone else in "flyover country" with no
> fear of retribution.  Which is what the Founders were afraid of.

Well, as it is now, if your stae is not "in play" you don't really matter to the politicians... One California "win" takes up to 10 states to balance out.

It would take about 50,000 voters in one state to earn a candidate one electorial vote - 50,000 votes is an awful lot of people, but that one or two electorial votes going to a Perot/Nader candidate in a given election might cause the "mainstream" candidates to possibly consider the Perot/Nader agenda (to win over those last few voters, gain a couple more electorial votes).

The election process would get very interesting if even just California or Florida went to a split vote for their huge number of electorial votes...