hi chums
can you confirm me there is no change in political system at 2060's?
In 2057 , there were no primaries , why ?

It was a special election and there wasn't time to really have primaries, after the elected President and VP were impeached and removed. Although each of the candidates was IIRC the only one from their party.

excuse me chum but what is the IIRC ?
I'm old trog from old europe.......Acronisms is not my cup of tea
thanks <<cough!cough>>

IIRC = If I Recall Correctly.

The module "Super Tuesday" outlines the events leading up the election of Dunkelzahn as president of UCAS. However, a primary wouldn't have necessarily eliminated any of these candidates because they all represented different parties. A primary or caucus (depending on the party & state) would only be used if two candidates were from the same party (Republican, Democrat, etc.). All of the parties in Super Tuesday represented separate parties, who may or may not have been unopposed for their party's nomination. Independent candidates who don't have parties, like Ross Perot or Dunkelzahn, don't have to go through primaries. All they have to do is meet the qualifications for appearing on the ballot (collecting enough signatures, paying the filing fee, etc.).

Its not unusual for there not to be primaries before general elections. For example, there are no Republican primaries this time around because President Bush is running unopposed for the Republican nomination for President. All candidates from all parties, regardless of the size of the party, are entitled to run in a general election. Primaries are purely a function of American political parties, not required by the Constitution.

There are two SR books which detail the governmental structure of UCAS. There's the old book, Neo-Anarachist Guide to North America, and the new book, Shadows of North America. Its my understanding that the structure of the UCAS government is nearly identical to the structure of the modern US government. The only difference is that the electoral college has been eliminated, and there is now direct popular election of the President.

People,

Considering that an Electoral College might have prevented the scandal that caused the impeachment in the first place, UCAS might seriously want to reinstitute it.

-Polaris

The 2060s UCAS appears to have quite a few major parties - at least four or five fairly big ones, as I recall - plus a real possibility of electing independent candidates (Dunkie got elected, anyway). As such, primaries would be less important than in the modern American political climate, where you pretty much have to win the nomination of one of two major parties to have any real chance of getting elected.

With the woefully inadequate public education on civics, most people in the US have absolutely no clue on why the Founders invented the Electoral College in the first place. I figure its only a matter of time before the Electoral College is scrapped.

SCLariat,

That is precisely the reason it shouldn't be scrapped (the electoral college). In addition, the electoral college serves a very useful function in a healthy republic (not a democracy): It prevents the cities with a very specialized set of political priorities from dominating the political landscape. It insures that rural areas get a fair voice in presidential elections.

Today w/o an Electoral college, L.A., NYC, Chicago and Dallas would decide all presidential elections. That is wrong on many counts.

-Polaris

As has been said, it serves a valuable purpose. To be specific for people who don't know, the system works like this:

Each state runs a popular election for the office. Once the results of that are in, the state's electoral votes go to the victor (almost 100% of the time... the law is weird in that it's possible for electors to not vote the way their state votes, but it is incredibly rare). Each state has a number of electoral votes equal to their seats in congress. This mean that every state has 2 + population/x votes.

Google-fu turned up this cryptic page which says about the same thing. Getting rid of the EC would require a constitutional amendment, which needs passage by 38 or the 50 states (after a 2/3 majority of the Senate and Congress propose it... there's a way for the states to propose it, but it's never been used).

in a future with a lot fewer states, it'd probably be a lot easier to pass that kind of amendment. Or simply sneak in the change when the USA becomes the UCAS.

In the UCAS it is gone. They changed quite a bit in the switch.

You won't convince people to vote for someone who wants to put it back in place (thus taking them out of the loop according to opponents) unless they have a very popular reason (which is different from good reason by a far degree). I'm sure the New Revolution is working on it, though.

What does it matter?
The UCAS is just another puppet soap opera government anyway.

Kanada,

Dunkie could have done it. In fact given the fraud and the mess that led to a very divisive and contentious special election, I could very easily see a popular movement within UCAS to put it back in as "Election Reform".

-Polaris

Not having Super Tuesday, I can't read up myself, but ...

Why was there a special election in the first place? (I know that the President and Vice President were impeached) Currently, if both the President and the Vice President get removed from office then the position devolves to the next in line, in a strict sucession order.

Was this deliberatly changed for UCAS, confusion on behalf of whomever wrote Super Tuesday, or just advanced plot contirvance?

The electoral college does nothing but cause events like letting Bush be president. It doesn't give smaller states more power, it gives them less. You can almost win the election by winning California, Texas, and New York. Pick up a few smaller states and you win. The result? Almost all compainging outside the northern east coast happens in Southern California and Texas. They hit New York to get NY and NJ, they hit Philly and Pittsberg to get PA, they hit Boston to get MA, they might stop at Chicago for the TV time on their way to LA, San Diego, etc., maybe a stop by San Fran for the nice shot of them in front of the Golden Gate for the 10:00 news, then they make a cursory visit to Dallas, Austin, or Houston (BTW, Houston is about twice the size of Dallas in terms of population. Houston is the 4th largest city in the country.) even though they know that a republican is going to win Texas anyway because of all the gun nuts and other conserative freaks we have down here, and then they go to their home state to make sure they win that.

Anything else gets ignored except maybe a brief stop-over on the way to the others. Those small stop-offs are also where they press the harder issues more because they're less likely to get national coverage, but the party magazines will be able to say they're towing the party line still even though they're running the middle. We're heading up to an election year. Watch and see how many major political rallies happen in Montana, Mississippi, Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, etc.

And the reason for the electoral college is outdated anyway. It was because having an electroral college was the best way to communicate an election in those days. Each state votes, the votes are tallied, then a few designated people make the long trip to Washington to tell them who that state voted for. In these days of instant communication (as I'm typing this from southeast Texas, I'm currently talking to someone from California in an IM while also in a chatroom with people from NY, CA, FL, PA, AL, IL, Canada, England, Australia, Germany, Israel, and Malaysia), there's no reason to wait 2 months to have electorates vote for the president when we can have the results of a popular vote within a matter of hours after the polls close. You can vote when you get off work, go have dinner, and find out who your new president is by the time the desert comes.

The Abstruse One

John,

IIRC both Maine and Nebraska allocate their electors by who won the presidential election in each congressional district. The winner of the state as a whole in those two states take the two electors that represent the two senators.

-Polaris

Abstruse,

Actually you are wrong. The electoral college gives smaller states and rural areas of the country a porportionally greater voice....which keeps them from being drowned out by the cities. That is not opinion, but a mathematic fact and in fact is one reason the founding fathers drafted the system the way it is.

If it weren't for the electoral college then NYC, LA, Dallas, and Chicago would dominate all politics which very bad results for everyone else.

Remember, the US is a FEDERAL REPUBLIC not a democracy, and thank goodness for that!!!!

-Polaris

Of course, you still pretty much need California to win.


Although for the UCAS, with CalFree out of the equation, as well as Dallas/Houston, that would leave Seattle and NY/NJ as the voting dominants wouldn't it?

annachie,

Actually I would say that NY/NJ would be dominant in UCAS because on a statewide level Seattle has a fairly small population IIRC. However, Seattle in an electoral college system would be an important "swing" state which would make it politically important.

In the current US, you can (fairly easily) win the presidency via Electors without taking California. Granted I think California gets too big a slice, but you can do it.

-Polaris

There is no longer, if there ever was, electoral colleges in the UCAS. The President/VP ticket get elected by a simple majority vote by popular ballot. SoNA, page 168 for a reference. That was in the NAGNA as well. However, after secceding, the CAS did reinstate the electoral college.

*avoids that can of worms like the plague*

In one of Hunter S. Thompson's books (I can't remember the title, but it was his newest "non-fiction" one from sometime in the mid-90s about the 1992 election), he talks about how he was an electorate for Ross Perot from Colorado. Had Perot carried Colorado, he would then go to Washington to cast his vote. However, he had to sign an agreement stating that, if he were to vote for anyone else other than Perot, his vote would be automatically nullified and an alternate would accept his place as well as charges being filed against him for breech of contract among oher things. It's really interesting...but then again, everything the good Doctor writes is interesting.

BTW, why keep harping on Dallas? Ever been there? Seriously, Dallas sucks. It's a bunch of cowboy wanna-bes, rednecks, and maybe a dozen or two cool people with NOTHING to do. It's like Beaumont, only without the excuse of being a smaller town no one knows about. Houston's three times the size, twice the population, and is a much more modernized city. Plus it has the Johnson Space Center. What does Dallas have other than the Cowboys?

Sorry, I was born and raised a little outisde Houston and it always irks me the total lack of attention the city gets.

The Abstruse One