Great job Congress did on dealing with an ACTUAL problem...the US's debt problems will be a thing of the past now...I see the system still working in the way that it was supposed to, voters go to the polls, vote for their candidate, and then when 1 party wins, the people supporting the other will continue to critisize and scrutinise over every decision/detail of his/her administration. I can give a perfect example of this from my own country (a democracy) where one party went back on their election promise (yeah, like that was a surprise) because there was a hung parliament and votes were swung from the Greens and Independants. Now the Greens agenda was to curb carbon emissions, so surprise surprise, a Carbon Tax was introduced. Now a portion of the public were against this because the Prime Minister turned her back on her promise, but the party that started to swing more votes in the elections (the Greens) pushed it forwards anyway. This percentage of people that were unhappy have been calling for early elections because of this, and I say that the majority made their choices. I started to notice the small percentage of people unhappy with the tax, because certain rallies to force the PM to call an early election failed to gain any decent numbers. It is a small percentage that feel that their opinions are GREATER than anyone elses, and because they are unhappy, they should impose their rights on everyone else.

The US voted for Obama...he has had a tough time of it...and when the elections come, the people of the US will have their chance to have their say. Persuassion occurs from everyone running for office, they peddle their ideas for people to vote for them, and people will vote with who will give them the most...

Also, didn't George Bush rig his second election? (I am not sure on this, this is why I pose it as a question...I am not an American, nor do I have any interest in your political system)

The people voted for the other guy, However the way the election is set up popluation only is 1 of 3 vote types needed. Hence why George bush won.

Point proven, Voting is worthless and a waste of time

there were some lefties bitching that since exit polls said Kerry won Iowa he must have won it and Bush must have rigged the machines...

>>Either you do not care about politics at all, or you get involved and that includes VOTING!<<

What about tunneling between store basements and dissolving soap in bottles of gasoline?

well i'm at heart a leftie and as a leftie  i can only quote a great man

"sic semper tyrannus"

Because you are voting on your local representative (well at least where I come from, where everyone is required by law to vote), and he represents my voice/opinions. Whether he wins/loses, I put my vote towards the person I feel would work to my benefit. There was a topic elsewhere in this forum that outlined the narrow margin that someone won (in Iowa I think), and you have to also understand that your actions affect the way other people act. If you were to vote, perhaps your friends decide that they too want to vote, and the same works the other way (monkey see, monkey do). You have more influence in politics than you think...

Seven votes decided Iowa. 

Examples

The Bush v Gore Pop picked gore ... and again with Hillary and Obama in the primary  Pop picked Hilary

I was wrong it seams to be two systems

The Electoral College. The national presidential election actually consists of a separate election in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia; in these 51 elections, the voters are really voting for "electors" pledged to one of the tickets. These electors make up the "Electoral College." (In most cases, the names of the electors aren't written on the ballot; instead the ballot lets voters choose among "Electors for" each of the tickets, naming the presidential and vice-presidential candidates each slate of electors is pledged to.)

So if you are in a state that is not a swing state ... your vote = pointless

Popular Vote:

The popular vote was won by Gore-Lieberman by 543,816 votes.
Bush-Cheney - 50,460,110
Gore-Lieberman - 51,003,926
Nader-LaDuke - 2,883,105
Buchanan-Foster - 449,225
Browne-Olivier - 384,516

The electoral vote was won by Bush-Cheney by 5 votes.
Bush-Cheney - 271
Gore-Lieberman - 266
Nader-LaDuke - 0
Buchanan-Foster - 0
Browne-Olivier - 0

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/ele

1: The only reason why you state a non-swing state vote is pointless is because it's not a swing state, and thus the outcome is already assumed.  That would be the case even if we had a direct popular election... unless it's a very close election, the outcome would be predetermined...
2: But... that means you just created a self-fulfilling prophecy!  The majority gets complacent and chooses not to vote.  As a result, the politically charged minority increases its relative voting power among that state... the result being that the election is determined more and more by the people who vote the same each election.

EDIT: Reversing my previous edit, only because it's probably a biased ruling for me, as a participant in the discussion, to be ruling on the rules validity of the discussion, since I have a number of vested interests in the issue.  Edited posts will be restored to their previous state until a more unbiased moderator can review.

Really? You're making bold statements about Obama bribing officials and attempting to set up a puppet state with sham elections, and the source you overwhelmingly use is a website called <thoughtsfromaconservativemom.com>?!?

Come on man.

This is a blogger who has an organized source of info.

I believe all the information