US elections?

[Bendman]

Should we or could we get a foreign country to monitor our elections? It used to be that the US set the gold standard for honest, democratic elections. We helped monitor other countries. Since 2016, however, Trump has worked hard to undermine trust and honesty in US elections. The latest is his repeated refusal to honor the results of the next Presidential election because he has repeatedly called US elections results as dishonest. The latest example is:
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declined to say whether Trump would accept the election results if he lost, saying Trump has been clear that he will “see what happens” in November. On Monday, Trump told reporters that “the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” (CBS News)

 

[aTUfan]

Should we or could we get a foreign country to monitor our elections? It used to be that the US set the gold standard for honest, democratic elections. We helped monitor other countries. Since 2016, however, Trump has worked hard to undermine trust and honesty in US elections. The latest is his repeated refusal to honor the results of the next Presidential election because he has repeatedly called US elections results as dishonest. The latest example is:
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declined to say whether Trump would accept the election results if he lost, saying Trump has been clear that he will “see what happens” in November. On Monday, Trump told reporters that “the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” (CBS News)

Democrat ideas of a fair election: Dead people voting, more votes in precinct than registered voters, missing voting boxes, illegals voting, vote harvesting, vote early and vote often

 

[TU_BLA]

Democrat ideas of a fair election: Dead people voting, more votes in precinct than registered voters, missing voting boxes, illegals voting, vote harvesting, vote early and vote often

Stop with just spouting off what Trump spouts. He does so baselessly and without any actual evidence. When it happens more than .0009% (most recent number of actual voter fraud cases in the 2016 election that I could find),equals to 115 votes out of the 128 million + that were cast in the last election. Roughly 40% of those were mistakes in registration where an individual moved to a different precinct and registered again...they didn't even vote twice...they were just registered to vote at more than one polling place.

BTW, did you know that Trump, Pence, and half the White House staff all voted by mail in the most recent primaries for the states they list as their residence? So why is it OK for them and not for the rest of the country....it's a classic misdirection. And he calls the media fake. Trump uses terms like "Absentee voting is perfectly legal and safe" followed by mail in voting is a sham and will result in a rigged election. He contradicts himself multiple times in less than 30 seconds...either that or he truly doesn't know that absentee voting and mail-in voting are the same things...and really, if he doesn't have the cognitive ability to make that connection, maybe we should be talking more about the 25th Amendment prior to November.

 

[lawpoke87]

Do you mean filing multiple lawsuits in multiple states challenging the results ?

Do you mean publicly calling on delegates not to vote in accordance with their states’ election results?

Do you mean calling Biden’s election illegitimate and claiming he’s not my President?

Those types of things ?

 

[Bendman]

Voting in Washington state is 100% by mail. Ballots are postage free or they can be dropped off in local ballot boxes. Each ballot is checked against a signature on file and other checks. Voter fraud is an unknown issue here even in very close races.

What is worrisome is that some of the blue USPS boxes here have not been picked up for several days and are so full, one cannot put another letter in them. The USPS has already removed many of their large sorting machines which sort milliions of pieces of mail an hour. In November, ballots may not be delivered in time to be counted which will have a much greater effect than claims about non-existent mail-in voter fraud.

Elections are the backbone of a democracy. Look at the countries that have lost faith in their elections. They are run by dictators.

 

[aTUfan]

Stop with just spouting off what Trump spouts. He does so baselessly and without any actual evidence. When it happens more than .0009% (most recent number of actual voter fraud cases in the 2016 election that I could find),equals to 115 votes out of the 128 million + that were cast in the last election. Roughly 40% of those were mistakes in registration where an individual moved to a different precinct and registered again...they didn't even vote twice...they were just registered to vote at more than one polling place.

BTW, did you know that Trump, Pence, and half the White House staff all voted by mail in the most recent primaries for the states they list as their residence? So why is it OK for them and not for the rest of the country....it's a classic misdirection. And he calls the media fake. Trump uses terms like "Absentee voting is perfectly legal and safe" followed by mail in voting is a sham and will result in a rigged election. He contradicts himself multiple times in less than 30 seconds...either that or he truly doesn't know that absentee voting and mail-in voting are the same things...and really, if he doesn't have the cognitive ability to make that connection, maybe we should be talking more about the 25th Amendment prior to November.

All documented tactics by the dems dating back to the 50s.

They also think validation of eligibility is wrong.

 

[TUMe]

If Trump loses he will still be President till January 20th. If he is stupid enough not to get out, the Secret Service after that would no longer work for him nor the military. He could be arrested for trespass on federal property.

I don’t believe anyone is stupid enough to not get out.

 

[aTUfan]

saw that hrc was a speaker last night and still claiming she should be president because she accumulated the popular vote.

ie. we didn't loose the World Series 3 game to 4, because we scored more total runs in the 7 games.

 

[Weatherdemon]

Another Trumper arrested:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-reacts-bannon-arrest-we-build-the-wall-project

 

[astonmartin708]

saw that hrc was a speaker last night and still claiming she should be president because she accumulated the popular vote.

ie. we didn't loose the World Series 3 game to 4, because we scored more total runs in the 7 games.

saw that hrc was a speaker last night and still claiming she should be president because she accumulated the popular vote.

ie. we didn't loose the World Series 3 game to 4, because we scored more total runs in the 7 games.

or you know, it’s like saying more Americans voted for me.

 

[noble cane]

Voting in Washington state is 100% by mail.

So.. are you just gonna 'fess up to being WATU.. or just continue this charade?

Its really unbecoming...

 

[TU_BLA]

They also think validation of eligibility is wrong.

Actually, the way the GOP state legislatures are going about disenfranchising poor people and POC is unConstitutional. Requiring an ID is not a terrible thing. Requiring a government issued ID with a photo may be since they are not free and requiring someone to pay money in order to vote would be the equivalent of a poll tax...that is unConstitutional and SCOTUS has ruled as such. Additionally, state legislatures have been closing ID agencies in rural locations. It's well documented the number of DPS ID agencies in Texas that have been closed after passing voter ID laws. 95% of these are in rural, poor, and districts with a high minority/POC demographic...the ones that usually vote for Democrats. This places an undue burden on the individual to be able to obtain a valid form of ID. Mississippi and Kentucky are also well documented to have undertaken these tactics. In the last 6 years the Republican party nationwide has done more to disenfranchise more legal voters in this country than to stop any form of voting fraud. Why? Because Republicans know that the fewer people who vote, the better chance they have of winning.

Keep spouting Trump falsehoods. You have yet to offer up any proof from a non-Fox News (or similar source) that any of this happens on a large enough scale to affect an actual election. Whereas in the last primary in Kentucky, they attempted to close precincts with 1000s standing in line to vote AFTER the GOP legislature and election board closed 75% of the precincts in the state affecting 90% of the urban and minority voters in KY. The KY Supreme Court had to step in and say everyone in line at the published time of closing had to be allowed to vote.

 

[aTUfan]

or you know, it’s like saying more Americans voted for me.

You are correct, but the strategy is different. Win a state by one vote or maximize all the votes in a state.

 

[astonmartin708]

You are correct, but the strategy is different. Win a state by one vote or maximize all the votes in a state.

Having more Americans vote for you should always be the strategy.

 

[Bendman]

A democracy is more representative when more people vote. In states with mail in voting, more people vote. If a party is a minority party, then it will work hard to restrict voting from groups that might vote against them.

 

[aTUfan]

Having more Americans vote for you should always be the strategy.

That is not the current system.

If it is wrong, change it;


before the election.

 

[Bendman]

The Republican controlled Senate released this report. Are they tired of Trump too?

The Trump Campaign Accepted Russian Help to Win in 2016. Case Closed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/...2016-report.html?referringSource=articleShare

Some choice pieces:

A bipartisan report released Tuesday by the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee cuts through the chaff. .....Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign sought and maintained close contacts with Russian government officials who were helping him get elected. The Trump campaign accepted their offers of help. The campaign secretly provided Russian officials with key polling data. The campaign coordinated the timing of the release of stolen information to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign.....

....The committee documented that, on Oct. 7, 2016, Mr. Stone received advance notice of the impending release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Mr. Trump brags about sexually assaulting women. In response, Mr. Stone made at least two phone calls arranging for WikiLeaks to release stolen internal emails from the Democratic National Committee.....

etc. etc.

 

[aTUfan]

Oh no. They shared polling data.
Give me a fxxxing break!

The dems bought a bogus document from a russian agent and they used that in court as if it were true.

Hrc distroyed evidence requested by the fbi.

 

[astonmartin708]

That is not the current system.

If it is wrong, change it;


before the election.

As I've said a million times, the current system is flawed, and it should be changed, but it requires Republicans to give up their inherent advantage and they won't do it because they prefer winning over justice.

 

[aTUfan]

As I've said a million times, the current system is flawed, and it should be changed, but it requires Republicans to give up their inherent advantage and they won't do it because they prefer winning over justice.

Had popular vote been the way in the last election, hrc would have had enough from 8 or ten cities; meaning that for the rest of us, our vote is meaningless. Now talk about voter suppression

 

[astonmartin708]

Had popular vote been the way in the last election, hrc would have had enough from 8 or ten cities; meaning that for the rest of us, our vote is meaningless. Now talk about voter suppression

"The rest of us" is the minority. The US is fundamentally supposed to be majority rule with minority rights. Not minority rule with majority rights. Just because you live in Tulsa rather than Sacramento doesn't mean your vote should be worth more than someone else's.

 

[aTUfan]

"The rest of us" is the minority. The US is fundamentally supposed to be majority rule with minority rights. Not minority rule with majority rights. Just because you live in Tulsa rather than Sacramento doesn't mean your vote should be worth more than someone else's.

I wonder how many people don't vote because they live in a state dominated by the opposite party.

 

[noble cane]

A democracy is more representative when more people vote. In states with mail in voting, more people vote. If a party is a minority party, then it will work hard to restrict voting from groups that might vote against them.

If only we were a democracy...

Thats the socialist dream...

Last I checked we were a Representative Republic...

Democracies dont survive because the herd is easily manipulated by one crisis after another..

 

[TUMe]

Having more Americans vote for you should always be the strategy.

Aston for four years or more you have told us how federal elections should be conducted...in your opinion. Trump and Biden as VP have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. It tells how the president is chosen. That process has been changed once to make the VP and president a package for the same party. You can’t say it is impossible, just extremely hard, which is what the framers wanted.

Amendments have been added and removed in the case of prohibition. If the was amendment like you want, small states from both parties might not be for it. I have pointed out the both big and small states are equally split. Obviously that can change with every census. Elections would be fought in CA,Tx,NY, Fl,I’ll, and Oh. smaller states would be ignored.

That would make very hard to get an amendment to have enough vote for a new amendment in the first place. After getting it through Congress. (Good luck with the Senate.) I think it is really just something to gripe about. Not much time between now and November.

By your theory if you live in Texas your vote is of low value. In fact, you will get more more attention from candidates, especially with group dynamics changing, than a person in Montana or Wyoming.

 

[Clong83a]

I wonder how many people don't vote because they live in a state dominated by the opposite party.

There is probably some truth to that, and I'd like to see if anyone has ever done any research along those lines. There's almost no point if you are a D in Wyoming or a GOP member in San Francisco.

 

[astonmartin708]

I wonder how many people don't vote because they live in a state dominated by the opposite party.

I'd guess it's probably about evenly split among the silent opposition between the few large Dem states and the many smaller Republican states.

 

[Clong83a]

I still really like the "Wyoming" rule. It would reset the size of Congress to have the population of the least populous state be the unit of measurement for how many people/representative you have. Congress would grow a lot, to over 1000 members. That might not be such a bad thing. And the number of electoral votes would grow a lot too. Wyoming would still only have 3. And it doesn't stack the deck in favor of the Dems. Under the Wyoming rule, Trump still would have won the presidency in 2016, but it DOES remove a lot of the whining about Wyoming being over represented.

The reason it doesn't stack the deck is that the "red" wall of states like OK and Kansas, etc, all stand to gain a bunch of representatives and electoral votes as well. If EVERY red state were as sparse as Wyoming, then yeah, it would screw the GOP. But there are an awful lot of states like Alabama and Arkansas that would make up for it by getting significant gains.

 

[astonmartin708]

Aston for four years or more you have told us how federal elections should be conducted...in your opinion. Trump and Biden as VP have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. It tells how the president is chosen. That process has been changed once to make the VP and president a package for the same party. You can’t say it is impossible, just extremely hard, which is what the framers wanted.

Amendments have been added and removed in the case of prohibition. If the was amendment like you want, small states from both parties might not be for it. I have pointed out the both big and small states are equally split. Obviously that can change with every census. Elections would be fought in CA,Tx,NY, Fl,I’ll, and Oh. smaller states would be ignored.

That would make very hard to get an amendment to have enough vote for a new amendment in the first place. After getting it through Congress. (Good luck with the Senate.) I think it is really just something to gripe about. Not much time between now and November.

By your theory if you live in Texas your vote is of low value. In fact, you will get more more attention from candidates, especially with group dynamics changing, than a person in Montana or Wyoming.

It's not just my opinion. It's what's fair and just. Having unequeal voting power from person to person based simply on what latitude and longitude they reside at is stupid and it's wrong morally. It would be like saying South Tulsa should have more voting power per person than North Tulsa when it came to electing the mayor.

When I say amendment is impossible, I mean impossible in any of our life times as one party (who controls an out sized proportion of small population states) benefits in the Presidential election for controlling those small population states. I have no expectation that it will change without a massive event that leads to a blue wave akin to the waves we saw with FDR or Reagan and those wave elections are getting more difficult to come by as the country becomes more partisan and is fed more disinformation.

I don't care that elections will be fought in big states. That's where they should be fought. The only argument I see for allowing small states to have out sized voting rights is that some small states might have larger GDP per capita than some large states... and if you want to base decision making on economic contributions I could listen to that argument, but it should be tied directly to a metric rather than the broad idea that small population states deserve a disproportionate level of influence compared to populated states.

You've tried to make the point that big and small states are equally split but they're not. In states with fewer than 10 electoral college votes by most recent voting pattern:

D's: New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii. (10)

R's: Alaska, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, ND, SD, Nebraska, Kansas, OK, Ark, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, SC, Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa (18)

Maine is split.

 

[astonmartin708]

I think it would be interesting to tie a state's electoral voting power per person to GDP per capita. Since people from small states will always argue that they deserve a greater voice because they contribute more.... the 25 smallest GDP's per capita (F.Y. 2018) are:

Ohio, Wisconsin, Kansas, Indiana, Georgia, Utah, Oklahoma, NC, Vermont, Louisiana, Nevada, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, New Mexico, Florida, Montana, Kentucky, Maine, Arizona, Alabama, SC, Arkansas, West Virginia, Idaho, Mississippi. 17/25 are Republican dominated states (typically low population) 3 / 25 are modernly Democratic (Vermont, New Mexico, and Michigan) I would call 5 of them tossups OH, WI, FL, ME, NC.

To me, this means that a lot, though not all, of the sparsely populated Republican states actually contribute less to the country's well being, yet they are given outsized voting power. Basically, quite a few of the states are mooching prosperity off of the higher producing states but they're getting to decide who the leaders are.

 

[lawpoke87]

I think it would be interesting to tie a states electoral voting power per person to GDP per capita. Since people from small states will always argue that they deserve a greater voice because they contribute more.... the 25 smallest GDP's per capita (F.Y. 2018) are:

Ohio, Wisconsin, Kansas, Indiana, Georgia, Utah, Oklahoma, NC, Vermont, Louisiana, Nevada, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, New Mexico, Florida, Montana, Kentucky, Maine, Arizona, Alabama, SC, Arkansas, West Virginia, Idaho, Mississippi. 17/25 are Republican dominated states (typically low population) 3 / 25 are modernly Democratic (Vermont, New Mexico, and Michigan) I would call 5 of them tossups OH, WI, FL, ME, NC.

To me, this means that a lot, though not all, of the sparsely populated Republican states actually contribute less to the country's well being, yet they are given outsized voting power. Basically, quite a few of the states are mooching prosperity off of the higher producing states but they're getting to decide who the leaders are.

Since Republican voters earn more money per capita than Democratic voters and thus pay more taxes aren’t they in fact contributing more in terms of revenue (well being as you put it) to the federal coffers?

 

[astonmartin708]

Since Republican voters earn more money per capita than Democratic voters and thus pay more taxes aren’t they in fact contributing more in terms of revenue (well being as you put it) to the federal coffers?

That deduction isn't necessarily true. In fact, I would argue that the Republican's monkeying with the tax code combined with tax evasion by the wealthy might make it false, (though I can't prove it)

Also, you're not accounting for the corporate taxes that companies pay based largely upon the production of the poorer workers who's labor the higher wage earners benefit from.

The CEO of Walmart probably make a lot and pay a lot of taxes, but how much is that compared to the amount of taxes Walmart is able to pay based on the profits made by their workers?

 

[lawpoke87]

That deduction isn't necessarily true. In fact, I would argue that the Republican's monkeying with the tax code combined with tax evasion by the wealthy might make it false, (though I can't prove it)

Also, you're not accounting for the corporate taxes that companies pay based largely upon the production of the poorer workers who's labor the higher wage earners benefit from.

The CEO of Walmart probably make a lot and pay a lot of taxes, but how much is that compared to the amount of taxes Walmart is able to pay based on the profits made by their workers?

The top 20% (income) pay 87% of federal income taxes. These are the people who are contributing the vast majority of revenue (well being) to our society. Corporate taxes only make up 7% of total federal tax revenue and are thus largely inconsequential to this argument.

 

[aTUfan]

I think that only citizens should be able to vote. They should register and receive a voter id. Also there should be no party reference on the ballot.

 

[TUMe]

It's not just my opinion. It's what's fair and just. Having unequeal voting power from person to person based simply on what latitude and longitude they reside at is stupid and it's wrong morally. It would be like saying South Tulsa should have more voting power per person than North Tulsa when it came to electing the mayor.

When I say amendment is impossible, I mean impossible in any of our life times as one party (who controls an out sized proportion of small population states) benefits in the Presidential election for controlling those small population states. I have no expectation that it will change without a massive event that leads to a blue wave akin to the waves we saw with FDR or Reagan and those wave elections are getting more difficult to come by as the country becomes more partisan and is fed more disinformation.

I don't care that elections will be fought in big states. That's where they should be fought. The only argument I see for allowing small states to have out sized voting rights is that some small states might have larger GDP per capita than some large states... and if you want to base decision making on economic contributions I could listen to that argument, but it should be tied directly to a metric rather than the broad idea that small population states deserve a disproportionate level of influence compared to populated states.

You've tried to make the point that big and small states are equally split but they're not. In states with fewer than 10 electoral college votes by most recent voting pattern:

D's: New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii. (10)

R's: Alaska, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, ND, SD, Nebraska, Kansas, OK, Ark, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, SC, Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa (18)

Maine is split.

It is just your opinion. Even the main stream media knows it isn’t going to happen. It was done to make margins of victory look larger and discourage elections going to Congress, the way Clay screwed Jackson the first time and gave us John Q.

What I have said is that five of the least populous states in the nation go to each party and five of the most populous go to each party, Actually in the long run this could favor the Demos if rising Hispanic numbers make Texas demo. The Tulsa discussion is wacky. You use poorly drawn examples.

Small states didn’t decide 2016 unless you call PA, Mi, Wi, small. You are saying the republicans are blessed with a large number of middle 30 states which are middle level.

They don’t give Amendments away with Cracker Jacks and the idea has, so far seen little interest.

 

[Clong83a]

I think that only citizens should be able to vote. They should register and receive a voter id. Also there should be no party reference on the ballot.

Other than the bolded part, that is precisely how it works....

But I don't disagree at all with the bolded part. Some cities and states have "non-partisan" elections for mayors and other more local offices. It essentially just means that the party ID is not on the ballot when you vote, and can't be used during the campaign either. It is kind of obvious who is from what party to anyone paying attention and endorsements and the like, but it can and does lead to dems winning in GOP strongholds and vice versa. It's kind of interesting sociologically.

Editted for weird formatting...

 

[astonmartin708]

The top 20% (income) pay 87% of federal income taxes. These are the people who are contributing the vast majority of revenue (well being) to our society. Corporate taxes only make up 7% of total federal tax revenue and are thus largely inconsequential to this argument.

And the top 10% pays 70%.... but those aren't all Republicans. The breakdown (based on a 2014 sample of 2000+ earners across multiple states, earning over 100K per year I can link if you want) is something like 45.4% Republican to 44.6% Democrat with ~10% declaring no lean.

More over, that 7% total revenue includes revenue for payroll taxes which I would argue should be removed because they can only be used for certain expenses (SS, Medicare, Unemployment). When you remove it, corporate tax becomes ~12% of the operating revenue for the country which isn't statistically insignificant.

And, having said all that, since when does % of taxes paid say how much your vote should be worth? GDP doesn't just account for the money that the government gets... it also accounts for the wealth that's put into the country at large and what's people are transacting to increase their prosperity.

 

[astonmartin708]

It is just your opinion. Even the main stream media knows it isn’t going to happen. It was done to make margins of victory look larger and discourage elections going to Congress, the way Clay screwed Jackson the first time and gave us John Q.

What I have said is that five of the least populous states in the nation go to each party and five of the most populous go to each party, Actually in the long run this could favor the Demos if rising Hispanic numbers make Texas demo. The Tulsa discussion is wacky. You use poorly drawn examples.

Small states didn’t decide 2016 unless you call PA, Mi, Wi, small. You are saying the republicans are blessed with a large number of middle 30 states which are middle level.

They don’t give Amendments away with Cracker Jacks and the idea has, so far seen little interest.

It's not an opinion anymore than "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" is an opinion. It's a self evident truth that the weight on one vote should equal the weight of another vote, or why vote in the first place?

The Tulsa discussion is spot on. You could also extrapolate the argument to counties voting for Governor. Why should one person's vote in Wagoner County, count for more than one person's vote in Tulsa County when voting for Governor or Senator? When the founders created the system it was to give the agrarian landowner more influence in a time where holding land was really important and landowners in small states were the most learned members of society. But now, holding land is next to meaningless in terms of your status in society, and it certainly doesn't have any bearing on your ability to make good decisions for the country.

Finally, there is one method to basically subvert the electoral college without changing the constitution. It's for more states to agree to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Since the states have the right to determine how their Presidential votes are administered, they can all agree among each other that they will follow the popular vote instead of their intra-state vote. This wouldn't actually take an amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

If you keep seeing the President elected by a minority of the country I think you're certainly going to see more people in swing states lobbying for this.

Right now there are states representing 260 electoral votes in agreement or with pending referendums / bills on the issue (190 currently approved) The compact is agreed by the states to kick in when they represent 270 votes. So, we're actually a lot closer to addressing this issue than you realize. If a few more medium states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Virginia, or North Carolina get on board we won't have to have this discussion anymore.

 

[lawpoke87]

And the top 10% pays 70%.... but those aren't all Republicans. The breakdown (based on a 2014 sample of 2000+ earners across multiple states, earning over 100K per year I can link if you want) is something like 45.4% Republican to 44.6% Democrat with ~10% declaring no lean.

More over, that 7% total revenue includes revenue for payroll taxes which I would argue should be removed because they can only be used for certain expenses (SS, Medicare, Unemployment). When you remove it, corporate tax becomes ~12% of the operating revenue for the country which isn't statistically insignificant.

And, having said all that, since when does % of taxes paid say how much your vote should be worth? GDP doesn't just account for the money that the government gets... it also accounts for the wealth that's put into the country at large and what's people are transacting to increase their prosperity.

Trump won every income group from $50k and up....the people that pay federal taxes. I'm not the one who tried to correlate whose paying more taxes to worth or quality of vote or well being as you put it. I simply provided statistics on how those who do account for our federal tax revenue voted in 2016.

 

[astonmartin708]

Trump won every income group from $50k and up....the people that pay federal taxes. I'm not the one who tried to correlate whose paying more taxes to worth or quality of vote or well being as you put it. I simply provided statistics on how those who do account for our federal tax revenue voted in 2016.

The breakdown was very close (1-2%) for most of the tax brackets with the major differences being between lower middle income and higher middle income (30-50 vs. 50-100) Moreover, I'm not just concerned about a single election the same advantage was by Republicans in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 etc...

I never tried to correlate it to paying taxes. Just because you pay the most taxes doesn't mean you should have the most influence. Paying the most taxes typically means that you received the most benefit from society at large. That's why we have a progressive tax system in the first place. The amount of goods, services, etc... that a populace produces is an actual measure of their contributions to the nation at large in terms of value added to the system that's going to be governed by the President.

I'll challenge you, if we have such a good system, why are there so few other countries who employ anything remotely close to our system and so many other countries with direct elections for their chief executives? Are we really foolhardy enough to believe that our system is inerrant by comparison?

 

[lawpoke87]

The breakdown was very close (1-2%) for most of the tax brackets with the major differences being between lower middle income and higher middle income (30-50 vs. 50-100) Moreover, I'm not just concerned about a single election the same advantage was by Republicans in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 etc...

I never tried to correlate it to paying taxes. Just because you pay the most taxes doesn't mean you should have the most influence. Paying the most taxes typically means that you received the most benefit from society at large. That's why we have a progressive tax system in the first place. The amount of goods, services, etc... that a populace produces is an actual measure of their contributions to the nation at large in terms of value added to the system that's going to be governed by the President.

I'll challenge you, if we have such a good system, why are there so few other countries who employ anything remotely close to our system and so many other countries with direct elections for their chief executives? Are we really foolhardy enough to believe that our system is inerrant by comparison?

I’m not arguing for or against the current system. The arguments for and against both have been stated numerous times. My contention was with your assertion that Republican states contribute less to the GDP them their Dem counterparts. I simply broke it down further to individuals and their GDP contributions rather than a state level analysis.