hey any clue where our voting place is for our house? I registered in arlington like the day we moved in but when they sent me the new voters registration card they didn't friggin fill out the part where it tells you where to vote!

Also, I can still understand the total apathy of kids our age in Nova not going to the polls. Nova almost always goes Dem while the rest of the state always goes Rep so basically we're screwed no matter what. But don't worry Catherine I'll be going to the polls this November to cast my meaningless ineffective and pointless vote. Please don't kill my nonexistent dog!

A girl that sits in with the band every now and then told me Tuesday night that she's not registered, feels too little informed and does not intend to vote. I've stopped coming up with retorts for people like this, 'cause frankly they choose to be uninformed. They're burying their heads in the sand. It's hopeless.--s

Julie (and fellow Virginians), here you go.

Also, Kerry and others seem to think Virginia's in play this year -- it's still a bit of a longshot, but he's going to be devoting some time to it, anyway. So who knows, you might be able to save a dog AND make a difference this year.

julie - we're at nottingham elementary. two blocks up. if you can't walk there to vote, your imaginary dog dies! in your case, julie, i'll kill your beta fish.

and yes, i don't care if you think your vote is meaningless (for a real meaningless example, my liberal grandparents are from wyoming, and i'm pretty sure they'll cast the only two democratic votes this fall). that's a lame excuse. it's thinking like that that *causes* our votes to be meaningless and ineffective. if all the people our age voted across the country, then it wouldn't be meaningless at all.

and yes, like tommy said: virginia is not 100% republican this time around. so it matters even more.

OK, as i said before i am going to vote and mostly for the reason that I believe it is my civic duty and I also think that if more people our age voted across the country it would make a difference. I'm just saying not necessarily my Dem vote in Northern Virginia, now if i were planning to vote Rep or if I didn't live in NoVa, then yes. Anyway, don't worry i'm voting.

My main problem is that for all the propaganda we hear, living in the US, we do not live in a strict democracy. Because of this when it comes to national elections not everyone's vote is counted the same. Had this been the case 4 years ago, we might have had a very different 4 years. I thought that there would have been a larger stir against the Electoral College after what happened, considering we now have the technology to take them completely out of the equation. But it did not work out that way.

However, if I am completely reading the situation wrong, please tell me why. I really would like to believe that our wonderful country actually does have this right. Why shouldn't everyone's vote for our next president count equally?

Sorry, i forgot to put this in. Another reason, of course, to go to the polls is to vote on everything else that appears on the ballot along with the national election. And I seem to remember that they had cookies, yum.

I don't own a pet dog so you could only be talking about one thing...

I read in the (arguably crappy) Express paper that VA was ripe to become competitve because of various demographic changes that are generally favorable to Democrats. Nobody seems to be very optimistic about this being the year but I'm looking forward to being able to sell my vote for more than the crumby 5 bucks my dad is willing to pay me to vote for Kerry.

your vote doesn't count equally first of all because we don't live in a democracy, and never intended to live in a democracy. the electoral college is set up the way it is because state's rights has been a very important issue in this country since it was founded. state's have had very differing opinions since the beginning, and giving the state's those rights was really the only way to get the southern state's to jump on board with the new country. basically, we were never meant to have a popular vote. i believe the same thing happened one of the times good ole TJ ran for prez. it might have been 1800 when he ran and didn't receive the popular vote and still won the election.

i don't think it will change until all of the state's have similar interests. i'm just not sure that's going to happen. the north and south are still heavily divided, and the west also has their own agenda. this in no way means that your vote doesn't "count". just because my vote in tennessee won't directly effect catherine's vote in va...doesn't mean your voice isn't being heard.

Puffy beat you to it, Catherine.

PS - Wreck could totally take you, P-Diddy, and your entire vote-rocking posse. Bring. It. On.

Thanks Jillyn. I actually had heard that it had happened before and knew that the original reasons had something to do with the States having issues with eachother and their differing interests back when our country was founded which came to a head during the Civil War. What i hadn't realized, i guess, is that we haven't moved past it in the least. Shouldn't our presidential election reflect the majority of the peoples wishes and not the states? I understand that effectively this is not going to happen anytime in the near future. But shouldn't we be more concerned about this? Isn't our country a "government of the people, by the people, for the people"?

If not then noone should be refering to the US as a democracy. How can we be fighting to create demoncracies in other countries when we do nothing to create a democracy in our own country? Isn't this hypocritical? Or is this just semantics? Should i really be reading "modified democracy" where i'm reading "democracy"? I still don't understand why what we have is better than a true democracy.

Julie, you shouldn't worry about the northern/southern va distinction -- unless I badly misunderstand the electoral system (very possible), it's a simple popular vote in each state that determines how electoral college votes go. So just because you live in liberal Arlington doesn't mean you won't affect anything -- it just means your vote doesn't go beyond Virginia's borders, so to speak.

Jillyn, you make a good point, but I feel kind of like (get up, get, get, get down) federalism is a joke in this town. Both parties have been eroding states' rights for their own ends for a long time while parroting it as an essential virtue at other times. "Sure, pass any laws you want! As long as, you know, you're okay about going without roads and schools."

Faster communication and transportation have also reduced the importance of state lines. I suspect a lot of Americans are more passionate about their chosen sports or entertainment franchise than about their home state.

Don't get me wrong -- direct proportional election may not be the answer either. But right now the electoral college seems strangely arbitrary, and instead of serving to give states individual voices, it simply silences all but a handful. Don't Texans deserve to hear Kerry's message? Don't Californians deserve to hear what Bush has to offer? (okay; maybe they don't)

So I'd be in favor of something different. If I had to choose between ditching the EC and instituting instant run-off voting, though, I'd take instant run-off. Not that either is an option.

Or is this just semantics? Should i really be reading "modified democracy" where i'm reading "democracy"?

"democratic republic" is what you're probably looking for. Republicanism isn't quite as inspiring a philosophy, though (outside of Star Wars movies).

I still don't understand why what we have is better than a true democracy.

Because of democracy, Clay Aiken is a rich, nationally known figure who has doubtless featured prominently in the sexual fantasies of thousands of teenage girls. Clearly, something is terribly wrong here.

Perhaps you're right Tom. My Government class from senior year is a little hazy. I was under the impression that it went by congressional district or something like that, then the majority from the districts got all of the EC votes. If anyone knows for sure, let me know. If I am voting with the entire rest of the state and not just my district that paints an entirely different picture for me. Also, I'm very excited that Virginia might actually not be a done deal this year.

ah, yes. Democratic Republic, that's it.

tom, maybe the people you know don't really take pride in their state or care about it, but i will tell that many issues come up in tennessee that are very important. until we just abolish state laws altogether, i don't see the electoral college being abolished.

julie, i think you make a good point. most people say we are a democracy and couldn't even tell you what that means. we are a modified democracy. we are probably more like a republic, with a federal government made up of smaller republics (states). one of the reasons we are not a straight up democracy is because they haven't worked in the past. it's almost like communism - it can work in very small countries where just about everyone can agree...but when you try to make it work over a large land mass with extreme opinions on each end, it just doesn't function properly. this is why there is a house and senate. the house is to have that straight popular vote - one rep per thousands of people or so, and the senate is for state rights - everyone has equal senators. there is a balance between a democracy and a republic.

that's my history lesson for the day. basically i just wanted to inform people that we weren't meant to be a "democracy"...not in 1789 and not in 2000.

Also, maybe that's why we don't get to vote until we are 18.

Isn't that why we have the system of checks and balances? Isn't the Congress supposed to represent the states and people? Isn't the President supposed to represent the people? I guess here is where i go wrong.

The EC makes sure that the president represents both the people and the states, but this is not true if people vote in districts and not as states. Because each states EC votes do not necessarily reflect the majority of that states voting citizens. This is why redisticting is such a big deal, i believe. Am I right?

Okay, here's an actual reference. The EC works by statewide popular vote everywhere except Maine and Nebraska, where two electoral votes are chosen by popular vote, and the rest on a district-by-district basis. Wacky!

The reason redistricting is such a big deal is that it can split voting blocs between districts to marginalize them. So if you had one district that was 100% for party A, and two districts that are 100% for party B, party B could gerrymander the lines so that there are now 3 66% party B districts, and party A ends up with no representation.

Ah thank you. I am duly corrected. thanks for the info. I'm much happier about casting my vote this year, although i'm still concerned that all of a state's electoral votes can go to one candidate even though the state is split 49 to 51 in the popular vote. But, it makes much more sense that what i was thinking.

It's not really the electoral system that's the problem, it's the first-past-the-post tabulation system that challenges our democracy.

Take, for instance, Ralph Nader's troubling run. I read a poll recently that showed that among newly registered (mostly young) voters, Kerry leads Bush by a solid margin—something like 50 points to 37. However, factor Nader into the equation and Kerry falls behind Bush by 2 points. Hence, in Michigan (I think), where Nader only assembled 3,000 or so signatures (10% of the number he needed to appear on the state ballot), the GOP boosted him with nearly 45,000. Any system so easily gamed has some obvious flaws; ours could be rectified with something as simple as a first choice/second choice ballot.

Julie: There is another body that more drastically shows un-proportionally representative democratic priniciples—the Senate. It's a stretch to justify why a senator from South Dakota representing around 250K people should carry equal weight as the NY representative representing several million people, but there you go. Were we to legislate as a real democracy, well, we'd be the United States of the Coasts. I don't know that the power of modernity and communication will ever overcome the fact that our nation comprises geographic areas so highly distinct as to be separate countries. Even if, one day, every citizen in the nation is an effete liberal, flyover country interests will be irreconcilable with NE or Pacific interests. So long geographic differentiation really obtains I think republicanism will stay.

But Canada, UK, Australia are divided by cultural issues that I think could eventually be diminished by modernity. Maybe we'll see pure(r) democracy in one of those places?

Pure democracy in the Athenian sense is not really possible, as Jillyn said, in anything larger than a very small culturally homogenous city state. City, really. And it's not entirely clear that such a thing would be at all desirable. Instead we all use our mish-mash of various electoral systems around the world to devise the closest approximation of fairness balanced with pragmatism that we can manage. I think it's okay to call it democracy, because even though it falls short of some Platonic ideal, it has fewer syllables than the alternatives.

Ok, I'm in Texas, and I was seriously considering not voting. Cause you know - it's Texas - is there any point? But I decided to do it anyways. So no one can yell at me for not participating. Even though it's not gonna freaking matter here.

btw, yes i am still alive.

hi lisa! i'm super glad you're voting. now i won't have to come to texas and kill your cats.

Don't kill Foxy...I'm voting, was planning on it, and will definitely do it now since I live with you! ;)