Why vote in a corrupt sytem? Does it even count?

Government 101

Scenerio on a smaller level:
Governor:
Director of Transportation (State not Federal)
Private Corporation (Big Al's Highway Construction)

Top political figures have private interest in Big Al's company. These figures counsel the Governor to seek financing for new highway construction although the highway is in great condition, somehow construction still happens. Now the Governor happens to find the millions needed to build this new pavement project and in return, they introduce a new state tax so they residents can pay for the interest the state government will be charge.

Now a no bid contract is accepted and Big Al is rolling in the doe! Well, because Big Al have silent partners and these partners are very high political figures, money is being distributed all the way down. Everyone is happy except for the residents in the state who eventually will pay taxes upon taxes on the construction of this highway.

Now imagine this on a very large level. Since the Federal Reserve (Private Bank) make loans to the Federal Government, the American people are the ones to suffer (i.e. gas prices, new taxes, etc.)

So it really doesn't matter who is the CEO of the United States Corporation, the Board of Directors will continue to pull the strings of the so call President.

But hey, this could be a conspiracy so I will end on that note.

I believe it is all corrupt on all levels to certain degrees. People forget that this entire subject of politics is actually taught in School under "Political Science." That's right, there is a SCIENCE behind all of this and the tactics.

I believe that the people truly lost their voting power a long time ago when they did away with 1 vote = 1 vote. Remember back in the OLD days when all of the people were able to attend the meetings and elections and have DIRECT input into their say about whatever issue and the hands were counted there live.

Then we got this great idea about having 1 person represent an entire town or 100,000 people, etc. When you have 1 person have the votes under his belt, a lot of things can happen in the way of corruption, ignorance and weak minds.

Now that it has become such a money maker for corporations with special interests, most of the people in office are most likely bought and paid for to support a bill that will support whatever corporation(s) that may be involved.

Everything in Government takes years to happen and plan. NOTHING in government happens by accident or is a surprise. Anything we see has been planned many months to years ago, PERIOD.

We are just here for the ride and have nothing to do with anything, sad but I am afraid is true. I think the only way to take back control is to be like our original founding fathers that just over ran the house and just took it over by force until things got back to "normal." A revolution is the only way to turn this thing around.

AGAIN, I'm not advocating revolution, I'm just saying that we are soooo deep in this malaise of fat self serving representatives that they all need a very loud wake up call.

Just my .0000000000000000000002 cents

I do not vote because I have never been presented with a genuine candidate. IMHO, they are all puppets who only care for their own agenda. Sure, my "vote" is wasted, but what happens when the people who refuse to vote outnumber the ones that do, simply because NO candidates are willing to represent what the MAJORITY wants? It would send a very clear message that if someone DOES want to represent the majority, they will receive a lot of support.

Originally posted by NuclearPaul
I do not vote because I have never been presented with a genuine candidate. IMHO, they are all puppets who only care for their own agenda. Sure, my "vote" is wasted, but what happens when the people who refuse to vote outnumber the ones that do, simply because NO candidates are willing to represent what the MAJORITY wants? It would send a very clear message that if someone DOES want to represent the majority, they will receive a lot of support.

It is fine to not like candidates. It has been hard to really get behind any candidate as of late, but your example is exactly what politicians want. Politicians do not want YOU to vote. The politicians and their factions only want their hardline base to vote. They do not want independents or voters who will analyze the candidates and vote for the best one. They want voters who will walk into the booth and blindly vote democrat or republican. That's their best chance at winning. That's why politicians work so hard to disenfranchise voters and make them feel like their vote doesn’t count. When the moderate voters stay home the big parties win. We already have a country where 50% of voters don't vote. Change is not made when no one votes. Change is made when everyone votes.

What exactly is one to do when not a single one of the current candidates fits the bill. When nobody suits what you want to see done politically its very hard to cast a vote. Many people then turn to speak of voting for the lesser of two evils, but what is the point in casting a vote for someone whom you don't genuinely support? The politicians don't have to work to disenfranchise me, the candidates have already done that by their platforms, words, and their actions. Even assuming a uncorrupted system what should those who don't feel a connection to any candidate do with their vote?

"In other words, freedom does not depend so much on repeal- ing laws as on weakening the authority of the state. It does not depend -- as political strategists expediently claim -- on persuading enough people to vote 'properly' so that libertarians can occupy seats of political power and roll back legislation. Unfortunately, this process strengthens the institutional framework that produced unjust laws in the first place: it strengths the structure of state power by accepting its authority as a tool of change. But -- according to Nock's analysis -- state authority can never lead to a change that strengthens social power. "
Wendy MCelroy

When you vote for say the best or most honest person, you actually increase respect for the establishment of power, by voting for the worst offender of liberty or freedom you encourage disrespect for the authority of the state, you legetimize opposition by encouraging the government to get and take what it wants. This actually frees up people. By voting against good people you encourage disempowerment of the abstraction of power that is derived from respect for authority. I like Ron Paul, but the istitution of power is so tainted alone, i find it hard to imagine how he would not make more mistakes trying to do the right thing, but from the base of a institution that is not built to express his kind of ideas or movement. It would sort of deflate the disagreement with the state if he were to win whereas Guiliani or Clinton to win it would only inflame the debate of the people with the government. If Paul wins it kind of takes all the steam out of the self empowerment, kind of like the rebel that loses his cause, how do you rebel against a Ron Paul government, but only call for more government in your opposition? I also wonder if pro-big government types would sort of go rouge as a result? That could be bad as well, but in a sense Paul would be the best thing to happen to this society in a hundred years, the others running are just jealous of his position. Voting though would legetimize the state's power over us, that's what troubles me with voting, by not voting you deflate the state's power not only over yourself but those amongst your community that negate the powers that be by their absence and disapproval. Most people though assume that we have to have government of a Hamiltonian sort or we will shrivel up and die. That's thanks to the propoganda taught in the government schools, if you look at history the expansion of government almost dovetails with the lower test scores and graduation rates and the funding of education by taxes...

check this out WHY I WOULD NOT VOTE

Originally posted by stompk
Are the electors required to vote the way the popular vote in their state went?

The short answer is no. An elector who doesn't vote for the candidate they have pledged for is called a "faithless elector." The complicated answer is that it's left up to the individual states to decide whether or not to require an elector to vote the way they are supposed to. Only 24 states have laws in place which punish a faithless elector, and fewer still actually have laws which allow the vote of a faithless elector to be canceled.

What this means is that over 200 million votes can be nullified by controlling 270 people - the majority of the electoral college.

Welcome to America.

[edit on 29-11-2007 by mattifikation]

Nope it's just a waste of time, no matter who wins we lose, this whole voting system is just an illusion of freedom of choice. If they want another clinton to win, they will win hell if they wanted another bush to win it would happen. The next president or should I say puppet is most likely already chosen, don't waste your time.


[edit on 29-11-2007 by XNeMeSis21]

I am having some difficulties getting the right understanding of my posts on this threat...

It is ofcourse everyones right to say what they like in places like this and to criticise the system all they like...this is even good for the system

However if you really want things to change in the real world, you have to take part in what is going on in the real world.

The fact that you speculate and believe that systems are currupt is fine... but the fact that you base your real life actions upon speculations, that are more theory than reality, is pure nonsence.

If you don't vote, you are basicaly saying you dont want to be part of the system and thats fine, but you wont change anything.

If you don't consider yourself a part of the system and dont want to change anything, then why spend so much time speculating about it?

If you believe that every politician is currupt and therefor wont vote, then why arent you out making a political party yourself? Atleast write down how you would like things to work an see if anyone agrees with you, and do so in the real life. or atleast vote blank.

The fact is that in a democracy the majority of the people will select the leaders.
The fact is that your vote will count nomatter how insignificant you think it is.
The fact is that if you want changes you have to participate.

The speculation is maybe the system is currupt
The speculation is my vote doesnt count
The speculation is every single politician is currupt

So it is alright to speculate and make all kinds of theories, but the fact is that if you don't vote, don't claim that you want changes, cause you obviously don't.

I hope this explains my opinion better

Can anyone here explain, in simple layman's terms, how the electroal college and voting system works, step by step please?

Thanks.

When the Founding Fathers designed a system for electing Presidents they had no idea how crazy the system would become.
...
This system was designed before political parties originated. It was also before very many people had the right to vote. Until the 1820's most states chose their electors in the state legislatures. In the 1820's and 1830's, a political reform movement swept the country and led to several changes in how we nominated and elected a President. The most important of these changes were the extension of the right to vote to the common man and the national convention system of nominating candidates for President.

Since the Electoral College did not work in 1824 (John Quincy Adams was elected by the House), the supporters of Andrew Jackson went to work on the state level and got the vote extended to the common man and they also got most states to allow the Electors to be elected by popular vote. Most states made the rule which still exists in nearly every state. This rule says that whichever candidate gets a plurality of the vote in a state gets all of the electoral vote of that state.

The second Jacksonian reform of the Presidential election system was the National Convention to nominate a candidate. Starting in 1836, both major parties started having national conventions. (This idea was stolen from the Anti-Mason Party.) The political parties were allowed to choose their own method of selecting delegates to the National Convention. Usually Party regulators and elected public officials dominated the conventions in each party. This method continued throughout the Nineteenth Century.

In the early Twentieth Century, during the Progressive period, a new system of selecting Convention delegates emerged. While it was only established in a few states, this method would eventually become the dominant method by the 1970's. This new method was the Presidential Primary. Today, the overwhelming majority of the delegates to both party conventions are chosen by this method. Hubert Humphrey, in 1968, was the last nominee of either party to win the nomination without entering the primaries. It is this long and drawn out primary system that has made the U.S. Presidential contest the longest and most confusing in the Western World. Add the Electoral College system to this and this gives us a system few people in the general population will ever completely comprehend.

Source

So another words, the public is screwed. Know matter how informed we are about the issues when we go to vote,

if our vote doesn't count because some elector was bribed to vote the other way, or our state stays republican cause thats the way its always been.

Originally posted by Bluess
The fact is that if you want changes you have to participate.

Well said.

reply to post by stompk

For the electoral college, I can only recall one delegate ever voting different than they were expected, and they had a lot to answer for when they returned home. This just isn't done.

Furthermore, the electoral college only applies to the office of the US president, so every other office and issue is by direct vote. If you don't want to vote for the POTUS, that's fine, but that shouldn't keep you from voting on other things. There are other issues that are just as important.

reply to post by Hal9000


Hal, if you read the first page of the thread, I said I believe the system works on a local level, but not the Presidential level.

Could you please source the elector who voted the other way.

Thanks.

I'll help a bit.

They are called faithless Electors.

The following is a list of all faithless electors (most recent first). The number preceding each entry is the number of faithless electors for the given year.

(1) 2004 election: A Minnesota elector, pledged for Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards, cast his or her presidential vote for John Ewards (sic), apparently accidentally. (All of Minnesota's electors cast their vice presidential ballots for John Edwards.) Minnesota's electors cast secret ballots, so unless one of the electors claims responsibility, it is unlikely that the identity of the faithless elector will ever be known. As a result of this incident, Minnesota Statutes were amended to provide for public balloting of the electors' votes and invalidation of a vote cast for someone other than the candidate pledged for by the elector.

(1) 2000 election: D.C. Elector Barbara Lett-Simmons, pledged for Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, cast no electoral votes as a protest of Washington D.C.'s lack of statehood, which she described as the federal district's "colonial status".

(1) 1988 election: West Virginia Elector Margaret Leach, pledged for Democrats Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen, instead of casting her votes for the candidates in their positions on the national ticket, cast her presidential vote for Bentsen and her vice presidential vote for Dukakis.

(-) 1984 election: In Illinois, the electors, pledged to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, conducted their vote in a secret ballot. When the electors voted for Vice President, one of the votes was for Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic nominee. After several minutes of confusion, a second ballot was taken. Bush won unanimously in this ballot, and it was this ballot that was reported to Congress.

(1) 1976 election: Washington Elector Mike Padden, pledged for Republican Gerald Ford and Bob Dole, cast his presidential electoral vote for Ronald Reagan, who had challenged Ford for the Republican nomination. He cast his vice presidential vote, as pledged, for Dole.

(1) 1972 election: Virginia Elector Roger MacBride, pledged for Republicans Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, cast his electoral votes for Libertarian candidates John Hospers and Theodora Nathan. MacBride's vote for Nathan was the first electoral vote cast for a woman in U.S. history. MacBride became the Libertarian candidate for President in the 1976 election.

(1) 1968 election: North Carolina Elector Lloyd W. Bailey, pledged for Republicans Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, cast his votes for American Independent Party candidates George Wallace and Curtis LeMay

(1) 1960 election: Oklahoma Elector Henry D. Irwin, pledged for Republicans Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., cast his presidential electoral vote for independent candidate Harry Flood Byrd along with 14 others. Unlike other electors who voted for Byrd for president, Irwin cast his vice presidential electoral vote for Barry Goldwater.

(1) 1956 election: Alabama Elector W. F. Turner, pledged for Democrats Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver, cast his votes for Walter Burgwyn Jones and Herman Talmadge.

(1) 1948 election: Two Tennessee electors were on both the Democratic Party and the States' Rights Democratic Party slates. When the Democratic Party slate won, one of these electors voted for the Democratic nominees Harry Truman and Alben Barkley. The other, Preston Parks, cast his votes for States' Rights Democratic Party candidates Strom Thurmond and Fielding Wright, making him a faithless elector.

(8) 1912 election: Republican vice presidential candidate James S. Sherman died before the election. Eight Republican electors had pledged their votes to him but voted for Nicholas Murray Butler instead.

(4) 1896 election: The Democratic Party and the People’s Party both ran William Jennings Bryan as their presidential candidate, but ran different candidates for Vice President. The Democratic Party nominated Arthur Sewall and the People’s Party nominated Thomas Watson. The People’s Party won 31 electoral votes but four of those electors voted with the Democratic ticket, supporting Bryan as President and Sewall as Vice President.

(63) 1872 election: 63 electors for Horace Greeley changed their votes after Greeley's death. Greeley's remaining three electors cast their presidential votes for Greeley and had their votes discounted by Congress.

(23) 1836 election: The Democratic Party nominated Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky as their vice presidential candidate. The 23 electors from Virginia refused to support Johnson with their votes upon learning of the allegation that he had lived with an African-American woman. There was no majority in the Electoral College and the decision was deferred to the Senate, which supported Johnson as the Vice President.

(32) 1832 election: Two National Republican Party electors from the state of Maryland refused to vote for presidential candidate Henry Clay and did not cast a vote for him or for his running mate. All 30 electors from Pennsylvania refused to support the Democratic vice presidential candidate Martin Van Buren, voting instead for William Wilkins.

(7) 1828 election: Seven (of nine) electors from Georgia refused to vote for vice presidential candidate John Calhoun. All seven cast their vice presidential votes for William Smith instead.

(1) 1820 election: William Plumer pledged to vote for Democratic Republican candidate James Monroe, but he cast his vote for John Quincy Adams who was also a Democratic Republican, but was not a candidate in the 1820 election. Some historians contend that Plumer did not feel that the Electoral College should unanimously elect any President other than George Washington, but this claim is disputed. (Monroe lost another three votes because three electors died before casting ballots and were not replaced.)

(4) 1812 election: Three electors pledged to vote for Federalist vice presidential candidate Jared Ingersoll voted for Democratic Republican Elbridge Gerry. One Ohio elector did not vote.

(6) 1808 election: Six electors from New York were pledged to vote for Democratic Republican James Madison as President and George Clinton as Vice President. Instead, they voted for Clinton to be President, with three voting for Madison as Vice President and the other three voting for James Monroe to be Vice President.

(1) 1796 election: Samuel Miles, an elector from Pennsylvania, was pledged to vote for Federalist presidential candidate John Adams, but voted for Democratic Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson. He cast his other presidential vote as pledged for Thomas Pinckney. (This election took place prior to the passage of the 12th Amendment, so there were not separate ballots for president and vice president.)

Wiki

How local of a level are we talking here? For instance, I wouldn't have much faith at the state level either, but for a county, perhaps. depends on the county.

The problem with corruption, is that it spreads all over the place, like a cancer. There's still healthy parts of the system working, but the list of them gets shorter and shorter as time goes on. This is just as true for the body, data on your hard drive, and politics.

[edit on 29-11-2007 by scientist]

The subject is about the Presidential election and electoral votes.

I believe the local level works to a point. Agreed, if the vote counters are corrupt,

Right now though, I would like to focus on the Presidential election.

If we have to count the votes anyways, why is the an electoral vote at all.

The electoral vote in my opinion, is a tool of the new world order, and their agenda.

Wanna know something funny. We just had our federal election here in Australia. And yet again, our votes are cast in pencil.

Am I the only one who finds this suspicious? Even if the system isnt corrupt the possibilities are endless.

CT

Originally posted by stompk
If we have to count the votes anyways, why is the an electoral vote at all.

You have to go back to the time it was formed. Back then information about candidates was not as available as it is today. I would agree that it may be time to abandon the EC.

Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Electoral College - Origin and History

Originally posted by stompk
The electoral vote in my opinion, is a tool of the new world order, and their agenda.

I guess back in 1787 the NWO said let's setup this electoral college so that we can take over in the future.

Yeah, that makes sense.

[edit on 11/29/2007 by Hal9000]

I guess back in 1787 the NWO said let's setup this electoral college so that we can take over in the future.

Yeah, that makes sense.

My answer to that would be some facts I found on a website.

Fact, since the king retained the mineral rights to America, no man, free or otherwise had allodial title to his land, he was a mere tenant.

Fact, the king allowed the inhabitants of the States to believe they were free, just as with the British people in the 1215 Charta and the 1689 Declaration of Rights.

Fact, for a short period of time, eleven years to be exact, the inhabitants of the Colonies/States were declared to be freeman.

Fact, freeman status ended with the passage of the 1787 Constitution, because all State inhabitants were now declared by their representatives to be citizens, subject to the laws of the U.S. government.

Fact, the States ceded their grants of land and most of their sovereignty to the 1787 Constitution and U.S. government.

Fact, the king knew a central government was going to be created by the States when he signed the 1783 Peace Treaty.

Fact, by the creation of the 1787 Constitution a Republic was created.

Fact, the Republic in no way was a hindrance to the king in regaining his land, via taxation and banking.

Fact, the 1787 Constitution created a 10-mile square district, not subject to the restraints of the 1787 Constitution.

www.fourwinds10.com

Maybe it's time we re-examine the original constitution.

If you go by the definition of freeman that this statement implies...

Fact, freeman status ended with the passage of the 1787 Constitution, because all State inhabitants were now declared by their representatives to be citizens, subject to the laws of the U.S. government.

Then anyone who is a citizen is no longer a freeman because they are bound by law, and the only way to be a freeman is to have no constitution or government. If you believe that, then that would make you an anarchist, who believe that no government is needed.

Originally posted by stompk
Maybe it's time we re-examine the original constitution.

But even if you came up with a new one, as soon as it is ratified, this statement would still apply and you are no longer a freeman.

The use of the word freeman is a red flag for that site, and if you check it out, I bet you will find that it is tied to some anarchist group.

I don't have time, but if your interested search on freeman, anarchist, and militia and you will probably find similar rhetoric.