sdaniels7114

I'm not too impressed with the voting public. Suppose instead that every four years around 1000 people were selected to be the voters. I'm not real attached to the actual number. I'm mentioning 1000 because that's what most polls seem to use. I would like to see a fair breakdown along all the socio-economic factors that scientific sampling uses, and most of them seem to settle on about 1000.

So often I hear people say something along the lines of 'Well that Romney fellow hasn't shown me anything...'

Wouldn't it be nice if one day Romney himself knocked on your door, sat down in your living room, and laid out for you what he'd like to do for the next four years?

Wouldn't it be nice to have Hillary's cell phone number and be able to call her any time and have her explain what she wanted to accomplish with health care back in the 90's and what she's learned since then?

Something like that isn't possible with 100,000,000 likely voters; but it'd be much more feasible with a smaller number.

Obviously if your name came up you'd have to agree to a loss of several civil rights during the process, not entirely unlike what we ask of Jurors. Your life would be a bit different over the 6 months or so I'd suggest for a campaign to insure against voting privileges winding up on Ebay or something.

I can think of 2 serious benefits right off the bat:

1 A massively better informed voting block that's very close demographically to the current one,

2 Zero influence from PACs and other campaign donors. Most are at least concerned about all the money in politics; but banning it does take away first amendment rights. Why not just make the donations useless? No candidate will chase down millions for TV ads when all they'd really need is to invite the voters over for a cookout.

Why wouldn't this be a much better way of picking the President?

QuiGon

Well, there would be 99,999,000 pissed off people every year... not to mention it would look pretty shady when one of your "kingmakers" was given the ambassadorship to, say, Lichtenstein shortly after that person's politician won...

Besides.... if you think 1,000 people can accurately represent the views of 100,000,000 with no significant margin of error, you need to learn your statistics...

sdaniels7114

Do you think the margin of error in the actual elections we hold each year is bigger than what we'd end up with or smaller? What's harder to police? 1000 or 100,000,000?

As to the ambassador thing, I pointed out that 'electors' would have to agree to certain restrictions. I mentioned a similarity to jurors in fact.

EDIT: Let's not forget that we have 535 people actually doing it now. Not exactly the most above-board and simple system available.

Real World

I don't like it. The system isn't perfect, but it's the best their is.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

QuiGon

I don't think you know what "margin of error" means.... I am talking about a statistical margin of error - not any sort of funny business that may or may not occur in an election. In other words, 1,000 people cannot accurate represent 100,000,000. A quick calculation gives us a margin of error of +/- 3%. That's quite a significant swing. An individual would have to win by over 6 percentage points to be beyond the statistical margin of error.
Oh, well then I am sure that those sorts of agreements would completely eliminate any potential for corruption...
Actually, we don't have 535 people doing what it now. The Electoral College is in no way analogous to your little idea here.

sdaniels7114

Yeah, you're right, that's it exactly. Why don't you go start another weather thread and stop trying to pick a fight in this one?

sdaniels7114

That's what they said about trains before planes came along and what they said about leeches before we had Doctors with actual medical knowledge. You've frequently pointed out that the candidates each election get worse and worse. That America is heading for disaster. Yet you don't wanna make any changes? Disliking my idea is one thing; but hanging on to the 'best there is...' canard doesn't make any sense.

QuiGon

As I suspected and thank you for admitting as such. I mean, really... your response showed you didn't know what statistical margin of error is...You asked why your system wouldn't work. I gave several examples and reasons why. If you're too sensitive to handle the criticism, then don't ask for some.

Stokes

Well, number one taking away people's vote would never pass, and number 2 the information is out there, its just that people don't take the time to find out. Want to know where the candidates stand on the issues? There are any number of sites devoted to just that. Watch the debates, read the papers, look at voting records etc. Its not that there is a need for a more personal interaction between candidates and the voting public, just that people need to inform themselves better. I don't think you can force that on people.

It would also be a far worse system for other reasons. First, any number, 1000, 10,000, whatever, will never be truly representative. Second, and maybe most importantly, wouldn't that kind of personal interaction make a candidates personality the number one deciding factor? Someone can have the best policy positions in the world, but if they can't charm you at a BBQ or whatever you're suggesting, they're not getting a lot of votes. You could very well have pols only using charm to get elected, ignoring the issues entirely, but making friends with the select 1000.

sdaniels7114

Care to explain your 'quick calculation' that produced a 3.5% MOE? My understanding of how that's determined leads me to believe that I didn't provide enough information to compute one. Or did you just manufacture it, hoping nobody would catch on? Honest criticism's fine. I just don't ever see any of that from you. Its always bile that's designed to drag down the discourse here.