Rete

Have to say that I felt just that way about Obama. Didn't vote for him the first time or the second time but still got stuck with him as a president for 8 years.

dc koop

Well now you've got change coming. Hope you like it. Hope all of us end up liking it

mrken30

If it all goes to pieces, things will just get undone in 4 years time. Be interesting how much they mess up or improve the ACA.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Your sentiment is contradictory.

This issue is specifically addressed in the Federalist Papers. The reason that we vote for electors is that the electors can go against the voters if the voters made a bad decision. It is one of the many checks and balances that are included in the US constitution.

The electors won't actually listen, but the effort to persuade them is totally consistent with constitutional principles. Hamilton would approve.

petitefrancaise

According to wikipedia (!) there have been 157 instances of faithless voting so far. So, nothing new there. However, the number of faithless votes now needed is too high to be realistic.

Wintersong

To be fair, 63 of those were because their candidate had dropped dead

RoadWarriorFromLP

Of course, it isn't going to happen. I would assume that most people know this.

The reason for this effort is to have a reason to remind everyone that Trump was a crap candidate who came in second. You don't want his supporters to claim that he won a mandate.

We should do to Trump what the GOP did to Obama: Challenge his legitimacy every step of the way. Any reason will do.

dc koop

The ACA wont survive in any form. We're dealing with Republicans here.

When in history has the GOP ever introduced any program to benefit the ordinary working American? They hate such things '''it's ugh... that Socialism from Europe"

It will be a miracle if there's even one union in existence by 2020

You cant change spots on a leopard.

mrken30

Will it be called the UCA, the Unaffordable Care Act? The irony is that reimbursements to the healthcare sector have gone down since introducing the ACA. It can't get much cheaper.

Hiro11

I have conceptual and factual issues with this post. Conceptually, this is reductive and useless. I'm going to assume that when you talk about a "program to benefit the ordinary working American" what you really mean is taking money from some people and giving it to others. Inherent in this way of thinking is the concept the economic pie is fixed and it's up to the government to slice it. As economic growth exists, this is narrow-minded and wrong-headed thinking. Any program that fosters economic growth could be considered to "benefit ordinary working Americans".

Also, even if you stick to the idea that entitlements are the only way to "benefit ordinary working Americans", factually you're way off base. For example, economists of all political stripes agree that the two most efficient and effective Federal entitlements are Medicare / Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Note that these are also the two largest Federal entitlements. Medicare/Medicaid was enacted by Johnson (D) but has its roots in the Eisenhower (R) administration. The program was dramatically expanded under Nixon (R) and again under Reagan (R). The Earned Income Tax Credit was enacted by Ford, also a Republican. Both programs continue to have broad bipartisan support.

moneypenny20

Election day here is Saturday. It's a legal requirement to attend a polling station and take the ballot papers but there's no legal requirement to complete them correctly which is odd imo. I can't remember what the fine is but it's not a lot so fairly dumb really. We also have the choice of several polling stations in each area so if there's a long queue at one you can just nip up the road to another one, it's great in that respect.

SultanOfSwing

Australia, right? Having elections on a Saturday probably isn't a bad idea, though I tend to think having a mandated holiday on a weekday wouldn't ruin the weekend quite so much

I just looked, apparently Australia got a 94% turnout for an election, which is impressive, but compulsory voting bothers my anti-authoritarian sensibilities somewhat.

Nutek

I'd rather pay the fine than have voted for any of the "options" we were just presented with.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Writing in "none of the above" would be a clearer way of expressing your displeasure than not showing up.

scrubbedexpat099

\Perhaps there should be a sliding scale depending on how good the candidates are?