quote:

ORIGINAL: HunterS




Butch:
The electoral college appoints the president.
The legislatures appoint the electoral college.
The legislatures are elected by the electorate from an "approved" list of candidates.

H.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub
There is nothing stopping a third or more parties to take up a cause and capture the imagination of the public and replace an existing party...It has happened before and will or at least can happen again.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

quote:

ORIGINAL: HunterS




Butch:
The electoral college appoints the president.
The legislatures appoint the electoral college.
The legislatures are elected by the electorate from an "approved" list of candidates.

H.

There are very good reasons for the Electoral College...do some real research into why...just more genius of the forefathers.

There is nothing stopping a third or more parties to take up a cause and capture the imagination of the public and replace an existing party...It has happened before and will or at least can happen again.

It is all in your and my hands depending on our will and powers of persuasion.

There must be a system to screen potential candidates otherwise the election process would be unmanageable. We do a good job but like everything else it can be changed by a will of the people.

The way our Democracy works is not proof of a hidden controlling group of a quote” moneyed oligarchy”

Butch

quote:

ORIGINAL: HunterS



Butch:
My post was in response to your statement that "They are serving the government we elect..." I point ot the falshood of that statement and you post an apology for it. That would seem to point to an agreement between me and thee that we do not elect our government.

H.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

quote:

ORIGINAL: HunterS



Butch:
My post was in response to your statement that "They are serving the government we elect..." I point ot the falshood of that statement and you post an apology for it. That would seem to point to an agreement between me and thee that we do not elect our government.

H.

I just can't see how we agree... We do elect our government through our particular Democracy's process. This process works better than most others and manages to keep this very large country unified. If not for the electoral collage it would be more difficult to prevent secessions because of the difference of land area and population densities.

Butch

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

As a recent example...In the 2000 election Gore received more votes than Bush but fewer electoral votes...and thus lost.

If you look at the electoral map you will see the vast majority of land area… the middle to upper mid-west and west went for Bush.

These states control vast land areas and resources but few people. They would never be represented on a strictly popular vote because the densely populated state would always win.

So you say should not the majority always win…yes if you did not care that eventually the alienated states controlling the majority of land would feel they had no say in their democracy.

Eventually this could lead to rebellion and the dissolving of the union.

Butch

quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydawg

No anyone can declare they are running, and the electorate can write in any name they want to.

The electorate does not get a choice of approved candidates.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

Senate
Democrat (later Republican) Strom Thurmond was elected in 1954 to the United States Senate in South Carolina as a write-in candidate.

Need more?

In 1930 Republican Charles F. Curry, Jr. was elected to the House as a write-in from Sacramento, California. His father, Congressman Charles Curry Sr., was to appear on the ballot, but due to his untimely death his name was removed and no candidate's name appeared on the ballot.

Democrat Dale Alford was elected as a write-in candidate to the United States House of Representatives in Arkansas in 1958.

Republican Joe Skeen was elected as a write-in candidate to Congress in New Mexico in November 1980 after the incumbent Democrat, Harold Runnels, died in August of that year.

Democrat Dave Loebsack entered the 2006 Democratic primary in Iowa's second congressional district as a write-in candidate after failing to get the required number of signatures. He won the primary and in the general election he defeated 15 term incumbent Jim Leach by a 51% to 49% margin.


Thomas M. Salmon, a Democrat serving as Vermont's State Auditor of Accounts, became both the Democratic and Republican nominee for the office when he ran for re-election in 2008. Because the Republicans did not field any candidate on the primary ballot, Salmon won enough write-in votes to win the Republican nomination.[6]
On September 15, 2009, four write-in candidates in the Independence Party primaries for various offices in Putnam County, New York defeated their on-ballot opponents.[7]


Charlotte Burks won as a Democratic write-in candidate for the Tennessee State Senate seat left vacant when the incumbent, her husband Tommy, was assassinated by his opponent, Byron Looper, two weeks before the elections of November 2, 1998. Because the assassination occurred only two weeks prior to the elections, the names of the dead incumbent and his assassin remained on the ballot, and Charlotte ran as a write in candidate.
Carl Hawkinson of Galesburg, Illinois won the Republican primary for State Senator from Illinois's 47th District in 1986 as a write-in candidate. He went on to be elected in the general election and served until 2003. Hawkinson defeated another write-in, David Leitch, in the primary. Incumbent State Senator Prescott Bloom died in a home fire after the filing date for the primary had passed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-in_candidate

Thats good for a starter.