2016 elections - because it's never too early

[derspiess]

I think Marti's plan would work, but only if it somehow involved Twitter and maybe a round where people vote via text message a la American Idol.

[garbon]

Would we be giving free obamasmartphones? Otherwise seems like we'd still need some sort of polling station to cover those who don't have easy or affordable internet access.

[Martinus]

I think Marti's plan would work, but only if it somehow involved Twitter and maybe a round where people vote via text message a la American Idol.

Nah, that's the system you guys already have.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, I have been wondering recently whether the predominant mechanics of democratic elections we have is really the best way, or was it simply the best available way back when it was invented?

For example, we have technology now to set up a system where instead of having a primaries why not say that voting for the President takes place electronically (assuming you can deal with the issue of potential fraud/hacking) over a period of, say, 3 months, and during this time you can change your vote as many times you like, with the current votes of those who have already submitted their choice being displayed. So you could then have the undecided wait until the last moment, the decided vote early, and those who can be swayed by candidates responding to the current vote split change their vote - until the final deadline.

No need to have polls, primaries etc. this way - but you could end up with the consensus building around two or one strongest candidates eventually.

It seems to me the fraud potential is a pretty big stumbling block here.

Not if you install everyone with a microchip which transmits directly to the mother ship.

Otherwise I would agree if the "provisional results" were not public to anyone. If "politics by popularity poll" is already bad, I can't imagine if voting was dynamic and public like (if I understand correctly) you're proposing.

But why not? It is already Big Brother meets the Hunger Games. Why not cut out the middle man?

[derspiess]

Would we be giving free obamasmartphones? Otherwise seems like we'd still need some sort of polling station to cover those who don't have easy or affordable internet access.

KEEP OBAMA IN PRESIDENT YOU KNOW

[derspiess]

Latest video from Diamond and Silk on voter suppression, Trump, Cruz, more Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsDjPLRwcnM

[The Minsky Moment]

Yeah, Founding Fathers would be all pro-gay marriage and whatnot.

Realize you are joking, but the FFs would have all considered marriage to be a purely state issue. 

As it should be.

And as it would be had the 14th amendment never been passed.  But it was and Clarence Thomas excepted, most of us have adjusted to that fact over the last 150 years.

[derspiess]

  See, this is why I never argue with you.  You're always thinking one or more steps ahead.

[Tonitrus]

The one who is not a 'Taker'.

I'll take my god with the title "the Destructor".

[Savonarola]

Michigan has open primaries, right?  CNN was reporting anecdotally that a lot of people were crossing lines and voting tactically.

Yes it does have open primaries.

Thinking about that, the one time I crossed party lines and voted in the Democrat primary was in 1998.  That year, as usual, the United Auto Workers selected the likely Democrat gubernatorial candidate; but he was challenged by an outsider, trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger; probably best known for defending Jack Kevorkian.  Fieger is a lot like Trump, from an affluent family, never held office before, loved to be in front of the camera, same boisterous manner, same schoolyard insults (he said, among other things, that the daughters of our then current governor, John Engler, couldn't be his unless they had corkscrew tails.)  Fieger won the Democrat primary; Engler refused to debate him and ended up winning about 60% of the vote in the general election, but didn't seem to have much in the way of coat-tails.

(In case anyone is curious I voted for the UAW stooge in the primary and Engler in the general.)

[Malthus]

(he said, among other things, that the daughters of our then current governor, John Engler, couldn't be his unless they had corkscrew tails.) 

I ... don't get it. 

[jimmy olsen]

Of course the Bill of Rights does not number all rights you have. But to say you want to "restore the constitution" in an originalist way and then say it comes from god seems strange to at least this Euro as my understanding of the founding fathers isn't that they were particulary religious in their motivations. They seem to be the very embodiment of Enlightenment.

They were very big on Locke's idea of natural rights, which were presumed to have been granted by the Creater.

Yes but Creator in the vague Deistic sense.
While it's wrong to assert that the Founders were atheist (except maybe Jefferson whose exact position is ambiguous), its also equally wrong to equate their positions with present day evangelical conservatives, whose views probably would have struck most of them as outlandish and retrograde.

The record clearly states that he was an atheist. 

https://www.google.co.kr/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DhLj6yY4P_Rg&ved=0ahUKEwia0KDNlLfLAhXGLqYKHQwnCtoQtwIIHjAB&usg=AFQjCNFY_kjaR9fB-rAblyW0HBb54zoZug&sig2=Ttkjd2MOoMdRKquICeLpvQ

[Savonarola]

(he said, among other things, that the daughters of our then current governor, John Engler, couldn't be his unless they had corkscrew tails.) 

I ... don't get it. 

He was calling Engler a pig and saying that he had passed on his porcine traits to his daughters.  (Actually I think Engler was supposed to be the result of some sort of barnyard miscegenation in Fieger's insults.  That would have been a good place to quit, but Fieger went on to insult the governor's then five year old daughters.)

[DGuller]

I think that was a compliment, actually.  He was saying that Engler's daughters were not pigs, to the best of his knowledge.

[jimmy olsen]

Jeb! 

http://gawker.com/my-summer-job-at-the-bohemian-grove-serving-milkshakes-1763551409

There were a few things that made the job special. The asshole customer yelling at you about something out of your control could be our next president. Or it could be Jeb Bush.

Devon remembered a night when she had to break it to the ex-Republican presidential candidate that she couldn't get him a milkshake. "The pastry chefs are busy making dessert for everyone, so there are rules about when you can order milkshakes," she said. "One night, Jeb Bush is there, and he flags me down and asks for a milkshake. I give him my spiel about why you can't get a milkshake before 8 pm. He's like, 'No, I really want a milkshake.' I'm like, 'I'm sorry, sir, I can't get you one.' So he asks to speak to my manager." Like his presidential campaign, Bush's milkshake confrontation would end in defeat. "So I find a manager and tell him what's going on. He goes back over to the table and tells him basically the same thing I did. Jeb Bush gets kind of angry. He says something like, 'Do you know who I am?!' My manager bends down and says, 'Yes, sir, I know who you are. But the milkshake rule still applies to you.'"