The Glade 4.0

France's presidential election system solves that problem nicely, i think. As I understand it, you need a majority to become president. If nobody has a majority, they eliminate some of the candidates and vote again, continuing until a majority is reached.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

So, to recap:

President Obama was chosen over Governor Romney, both electorally and in the popular vote.

Gay marriage was approved in Maryland and Maine, and Minnesota rejected a gay marriage ban (Washington is still up in the air, but looking good for marriage equality proponents).

Colorado and Washington legalized "recreational" marijuana use.

Akin and Mourdock were summarily defeated. Turns out female bodies can shut some things down, apparently.

Scott Brown was ousted in favor of Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin became a Wisconsin senator, and soon Allen West won't be reporting for work.

FWIW, turnout seemed higher where I am - normally takes me 5 min to vote. Took me 40-ish this time. I was happy to see that - regardless of where their votes went.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

This doesn't entirely solve the issue of a system converging on two parties, but it's probably a big step in the right direction. It at least solves the "spoiler effect" issue, anyway, and gives us a more realistic count of how much support a candidate really has, since there's no incentive to cast your vote contrary to your actual political preference.

A more convenient version of this is Instant Runoff Voting. Nutshell version: rather than casting a single vote, you vote for as many candidates as you want, ranked by preference. If no one has a majority from the rank 1 votes, the bottom-most candidate is eliminated. Those who ranked the eliminated candidate #1 have their votes moved to their #2 preference and so on until someone gets a majority.

I personally wish all of our elections were done this way, but of course it would be difficult to get any state to adopt this system, let alone all of them.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

PR voted to become a state.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

/\ Yes, also this. With all of the contiguous shakeups, I keep forgetting about this.

That is the system Ireland uses. It seems like a good idea to me. In that type of system I would gladly vote for a third party candidate if I felt they were the best option. Currently I would never do that as it would essentially be a vote for the Democrat.

That sounds nice on paper, but why would the Republicans and Democrats ever change the election rules like that? Why would they give up their monopoly on power? Solutions to the two party system are easy, it's the implementation that's hard.

Surely you mean PR voted to apply for statehood.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

6 billion dollars + spent.
Countless ads, volunteers, etc
8% congress approval
~40% presidential approval...

And what did we get?

Almost the exact same makeup of government.
D president still
D still controls the senate by about the same majority
R still controls the house by about the same majority.

I **** hate the idiots in this country.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Looking at it like that is pretty depressing. Knowing things will only get worse is almost hide in a bunker inducing.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Just think of all the jobs and economic boom that the flag-making industry will create when they have to replace all your flags with 51-star-spangled-banners. And you can thank Obama, for being so personable that the people of Puerto Rico just couldn't resist basking in America's Holy Obama Glow.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Not that I liked Scott Brown but Fauxcahontas? Really? She makes me cringe. Also Alan Grayson won. He's worse than her. God help us.

The gay marriage and pot legalization were the lone bright spots for me. Even Mia Love lost.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Shelley Berkley lost her bid for Senate. This makes me a little happy. Heller isn't bad.

Dina Titus won her seat though. That erases the happiness I had for the Berkley loss.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Warren? Really? Holy cow.

Ugh.. i hadn't heard that....

As to that: see my sig.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Wasn't she a porn star?

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Holy shitsnacks!

Cheer up, Midgen. You know what they say: 'tis better for Love to have lost than to never have had Love at all.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/

So basically, big cities are blue, and BFE is red.

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Holy shitsnacks!

All I can ever think of when elections take place, is the late great George Carlin and his wisdom in the form of comedy (and his less routine interview material).



"They got you by the ball..."

http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-t ... econd-term

in other words "thanks for the votes and money suckes~!"

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Color me shocked. His choice of analogy has been oddly appropriate:

"My feelings are constantly evolving" = "my views are constantly changing in whatever way makes me the fittest to survive politically"

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

And, yet, he's the only President to ever devote Department of Justice resources to making sure the Defense of Marriage Act was enforced.

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