h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Copy of posting to http://www.h2g2.com/F15357?thread=75975&post=710980 ---------------------------- Twelfth Amendment The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; ---------------------------- Now as I understand it the Republican candidates for both the Presedancy and Vice-Predenancy are residents of Texas this means that the members of the Electorial college for Texas can not vote for both Republican candidates.

Actually, I've been very involved with my history books in this area lately, as I am in the early stages of researching a piece on the evolution of the Constitution. While the Founders did take elements from British government into consideration at the Constitutional Convention, I am not aware of any evidence that Mad George III had any representatives at the convention, nor was there in person. Neither have I heard of any missives from him to that body, which is just as well, considering that the Americans would have ignored him anyway. Such instructions to the Convention would only have given the representatives a humorous respite from their task.

Perhaps some of Mad George's relatives are running around in Palm Beach county, Florida trying to claim their 15 minutes of fame.

Just where did the system come from ? answer that and you will see what I mean

Mr Ox you will find Mad George's relatives filling the role of the Executive Head of the goverment of The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northen Ireland.

Well, we have enough mad idiots of our own as this scramble for the presidency has revealed.

Yeah, but the thing is you choose yours we inherit ours

You have a point there...

We did try it without them back in the 17th Centuary but it didn't work out - we just ended up with a military dictatorship so we invited them back. You got any thoughts on the 12th admendment thing ?

Ah...the out-moded electorial college. There is so much out of whack going on here that I feel the entire system needs an overhaul...but how can we stop the great machine long enough to get the bugs out? Amendment by amendment, I suppose, but I don't think we need the electorial college any more.

Perhaps it would be better if you want back to the origanal thoughts of the framers of the constitution - no political parties & no campaining.

It's the media that gets me. That's one thing that I really dislike about Gore. He's got that "Mr. Television" personality. And a whole lot of people have let the media spin doctors control their thinking. There will always be campaigning, though. The selling of lies and snake oil, basically. I have a lot of anger but I do not have an answer to any part of the problem.

Have a revolution and form a Anarchest State.

Gore is not a natural politician, that's why you can see the difference between te real self and the TV self.

's advocate:
What if we adopted the UK system of simply electing representatives, and the party with the most reps gets to form a government? Our count would have to be the total of the House and Senate.

And then the person leading the country would be the head of his or her party.

Whatever the pitfalls, one good thing would be that Mr. Nader could at least go sit in Congress and participate. If his constituency elected him.

Ok info on the UK system

Queen is the executive head of state, she is advised by the Privey Council - the Privey Council is formed by senior politicans & civil sevents and military.

House of Lords :This is the upper house the equilalnt of the senate members are either appointed of there becaue of there job (eg the chief Rabbi).
House of Commons: this is elected onece every 4-5 years and the party with the largest numberof MP.s forms the goverment.

The big argument over here at the moment is whether or not we should swith to a proportinal Rep system or keep the first past the post system.

Bravo! Absolutely the best one-minute or less summary of a thousand years worth of government in a single post.

As we have yet to discover the victor and victim over here, many people have decided to belabor and rehash our system, and it's amazing to me that the persons who established the electoral college seem to have thought out every conceivable outcome in an election.
Including what to do when 19,000 elderly votes get tossed out because the ballot made no sense.

Hmmm. Wonder if those same framers have any recorded speculations on stock market behavior in the next six months or so...

Have you seen that ballot? At least all the arrows and holes lined up. It was easier to follow than the one we had in Georgia.

I think the average ten year old could figure it out. I seem to be fresh out of ten year olds, so someone else will have to try it out.

Two points from me (UK resident)

Firstly what struck me was not the stupidity of mis-reading the paper - in the UK one election was re-run after a candidate stood for the "literal Democrats" and took votes from the 3 UK party the "Liberal Democrats". No, what struck me was the stupidity of, what, 19,000 of them who thought by making another hole there vote would count, rather than asking for a new paper, which was totally in their rights.

Second, I wonder if after the hand re-counts and Gore wins (possible) if his lawyers will still give their backing to the genuine greivance of the black voters who claim they were turned away. This is the one issue which actually alarms me here in the UK, where we may not have such an integrated society when it comes to our minorities in high places, the idea that black or asians could be turned away from the vote is unbeleivable.

CH

Well...here I am...3 or 4 days after the election...

...and I still don't know who my next president is...

(also, i have this sinking feeling it will be the one i dont like)
(of course i dont like either of the top 2 contenders..but still...)

I don't know what it is, but I'm absolutly sure there's SOMETHING wrong with the american election method.

So they think the only way to attain a truly accurate result is to count all the votes by hand - and GWB is taking legal action to stop it/the true result from being shown. It can mean only one thing - he knows damn well that the majority of the people of Florida did not vote for him!! Surely, if he succeeds in his legal action, stops the recount and is procalimed as President, it will be the greatest abuse of the legal system of all time.