Remeber four years ago, when the presidential candidate supported by the majority of Americans lost the election? Remember how there was a lot of noise about electoral reform? Remember how the noise was just that, noise, and nothing ever got done? Here we are, four years later, with the same flawed system. The electoral college is outdated and bad for America. Here’s why.

Reason One: My vote doesn’t count.

In case you don’t know, here’s how the electoral college works.

Let’s pretend that I have my own state, and that my state has a population of 100,000 registered voters. Let’s also pretend that we have two senators and eight representatives. Okay, time for election day. My state is generally pretty liberal, so 60,000 people vote for the Democratic candidate. 30,000 more vote for the Republican candidate, and the other 10,000 vote for the candidates of various third parties. You can see that my state is chock full of civic responsibility. Everyone votes!

Because my state has two senators (as does every state) and eight representatives, we get to choose ten electors (8+2=10). Electors are the people whose votes technically elect the president. They vote according to the majority opinion in the state they represent. So, since 60% (a majority) of my state voted Democrat, my state’s ten electors all vote for the Democratic candidate. Only Maine and Nebraska (and possibly Colorado this year) have their electors vote proportionally. If I was using one of those states as an example, there would have been 6 Democratic, 3 Republican, and one third party vote from the electors in my state. Then I would have less to complain about and wouldn’t be writing this entry.

Anyway, my state’s ten electors vote for the Democratic candidate. The problem is that only 60% of my state’s opinion was represented in this election. There would be exactly identical results if 50,001 people voted Democrat, or 100,000. Obeying the will of the majority is democratic and correct, but the electoral college effectively ignores everyone else. That means that if you live in a state that traditionally favors one party (like my real-life state, Massachusetts) , your vote won’t count for much. Unless you vote with the majority, your vote is thrown away. It just doesn’t matter, except in abstract ways, like how other people knowing you voted a certain way may make them more likely to do the same, and so on, until enough people are voting that way that it may change the majority.

So, in essence, the electoral college is bad for America because it disregards a large percentage of votes.

Reason Two: Ignorance is empowered

Originally, the electoral college system was put into place so that educated people were responsible for selecting the president, instead of the task being placed in the hands of the mostly ignorant American people. Though I don’t agree with the idea, it had its merits. Before the days of television and radio, it was difficult for the average citizen to be informed about the presidential candidiates. It made sense, to a point, to choose educated people who would vote for the president. They were guided by the opinions of the people in their state, but their votes were their own to do what they pleased with.

Now, however, the college serves the opposite purpose. Instead of placing the responsibility in the hands of a few learned, thoughtful people, we are surrendering our power to the majority. It seems to be a widely-held belief that the majority of Americans are fairly ignorant about the candidates and their positions. They fall for tricks like “Fuzzy math! Fuzzy math!” and let politicians lead them to whatever conclusion is best for their party. Most people don’t actually think about the candidates and issues, and try to do research on their own. It is these people that the candidates talk to when they make speeches- they appeal to the lowest common denominator of society. Because if they can get enough votes for a majority of a state, that’s all that matters. They don’t have to work to get the rest.

The electoral college is bad for America because it puts the decision-making in the hands of the ignorant majority.

Reason Three: There will be no third party. Ever.

If this country continues to use the electoral college system, we will never have more than two parties. As things stand, to even get a single electoral vote, a third party has to be supported by more than half of a state. Since third parties are usually seen as fringe groups whose ideas aren’t actually practical, this is very unlikely. The only way a third party could come into power is by gaining popularity a little at a time, and right now this is almost impossible. Voting for a third party is almost like throwing your vote away. Since there’s almost no chance that that party will get a majority of your state, your vote won’t count. If the president was elected directly, with every person getting a vote, there would be much more reason to vote for a third party. The votes from your state would combine with the votes from all the other states, and, gradually, a force would build up.

With a two party system, America will flounder. How many more years can we take with the same two parties, election after election? Eventually the two will be so scared of controversy that there’ll be no real difference between them. The two party system issue is a whole other entry, though, so I’ll stop here.

I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts on this. Does anyone have arguments for the electoral college system?

I’ve done a lot of thinking about religion lately, mostly spurred by a close friend going through a tough time and “finding Jesus” as a result.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are lots of different ways to be a happy, fulfilled, moral person. Many of them involve religion of one form or another, and some don’t. That’s it. A largely scientific world view works for me and makes sense to me, so that’s what I believe in. The important thing is not what you believe, but how it affects your life. If you find a way of existing that feels true and right and helps you make the world a better place, I’m happy for you, no matter what you believe.*

I’ve been skirting this realization for a while now, but I always felt an urge to argue with religious people and try to make them see the logic of my beliefs. But why? If they’re happy, and they’ve found a system that works for them, why not just leave them alone? Acceptance and tolerance work both ways. I think people forget that sometimes- I know I do.

*Note: This does not include people who try to make the world better through genocide, discrimination, or other not-actually-good things. They should examine their beliefs and think about the fact that people are people, no matter where you go.

I just got snazzy new glasses, so I took pictures.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to be one of the judges for Ore Ha Wufei!, a fanfiction challenge over at The Ventilation Shaft, so if you write Gundam Wing fanfiction and like chocolate, submit a fic! I promise on behalf of KD that no one will be mocked for poor writing, though I would be careful about how you treat Wufei. The challenge ends on October 16, so hurry up and get your fics in! There are only two so far, and if we don’t get at least one more I won’t get to judge anything. And you know I want to judge things.

I apologize for the lack of real content around here lately, but school’s just started and I have a lot of homework. Quite a lot. I guess that’s not actually an excuse, though, since I still spend way too much time sitting in front of the computer.

I have six five zero (sorry, guys) Gmail invites. I haven’t been able to give them away, since everyone who wants Gmail seems to have it already. If you’d like an invite, leave me your email address and a math joke and I’ll bounce one over to you.

Okay, it doesn’t have to be a math joke. But it has to be a joke of some sort. I would prefer math jokes.

I’m going to try to set up the new layout tonight, so please pardon the mess.

[Edited, because this point became pointless once the layout was up and running]

I know I haven’t written much lately, but that’s because I was working on the layout. I didn’t want to do anything until I could talk about that and get it out of the way.

I’ve made a few changes to the site with this layout. The links page is now entirely text-based, and the fanfic recs no longer exist. The Old Layout archive isn’t here right now, but it will be.

I like this layout much more than the last one. That was kind of thrown together in two days, while I’ve been working on and off on this one for several weeks. I used more CSS and constructed the XHTML in such a way that I’ll need to edit it very little next time I want a new layout. As stated before, the ultimate goal is to be able to view the site in previous layouts by switching style sheets.

Speaking if skinning, I have exciting plans for this layout. Well, they’re exciting to me, at least. I’m planning on making several versions with different colored flowers, and allowing the user to switch between them at will. I’ll probably change the default setting often, too, depending on my mood. Once I get the last details of this layout tied up, that will be my next project.

I’d appreciate opinions on this layout- especially if it looks wrong somehow in your browser. Tell me it’s lame, tell me you like it, tell me the menu bar at the top looks really weird- whatever! I want more comments.

Also, look at the footer. I love the footer. So pretty. I love what I did with the links down there. I am easy to please.

You’ve heard of apple pie. You’ve heard of chocolate pie. You’ve even heard of key lime pie. But have you ever heard of cake pie?

We celebrated my sister’s fifteenth birthday today. Since she is one of the most pie-obsessed people you could ever meet, she wanted a pie. However, she was hesitant to completely abandon the idea of birthday cake. What to do? She finally decided to combine them. My parents and I thought that her idea would turn out very badly.

We cooked both a pie crust and a chocolate cake, then spread frosting on the pie crust. The cake was broken into pieces and placed in the pie shell. Three candles were stuck on top and told to multiply themselves by five. And you know what? When accompanied by bacon-flavored coffee ice cream, cake pie is actually pretty good. I couldn’t resist taking pictures.

When I get a digital camera, I’m going to bring it with me on trips in to Boston/Cambridge and photopraph all the interesting signs I see. Yesterday, I would have taken pictures of the sign by the hot-air hand dryers (you know, the ones that blow hot air onto your hands but don’t actually dry them) in the bathroom of the Kendall Square cinema:

Yeah, we don’t like them either, but we’ve found these hair dryers to be the most enviornmentally friendly and cost efficient option.

That’s not an exact quote, but it was along those lines.

I also would have gotten a picture of the signs on Beech Street, in Chinatown. Two identical computer printouts on regular 8.5x11 paper, taped onto a telephone pole one above the other:

She loves you.

(yeah, yeah, yeah)

Because I should be working on one of my college essays and I’d rather not, I will write more about the upcoming schol year, which begins on Wednesday.

I got my schedule in the mail. After mistakes, my changing my mind, and three seperate trips to the guidance office, I’m taking Ceramics/Sculpture instead of Computer Graphics 2. I don’t know anyone else that’s taking the class, but it should be fun anyway. It’ll be a nice break from everything else I’m taking. I can’t understand it when people aren’t really excited about their schedules. I love choosing classes, talking about them, seeing who my teachers are . . . it’s so much fun!

School starts in five days. Because I’m busy, I have 1.5 days write my English essay, finish reading Lord of the Flies, do a physics lab, and finish as many of my college essays as possible. I doubt that more than the one I’m working on now will be completed. I think I can use this one for everywhere but the University of Chicago, though, so that’s not too bad. Speaking of college (which I always am), I think I’ve made my final final decision on which schools to apply to. Here they are, in no particular order:

• UMass Amherst
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Wesleyan University
• University of Chicago
• Worcester Polytech
• Rensselaer Polytech
• Harvey Mudd College

If I change my mind, I think it will be to add more liberal arts schools like Wesleyan. Some days I want to do my undergrad at a liberal arts school and then go to a more technical place for grad school.

My first choice changes all the time. I don’t want to go to UMass- that’s there just in case everywhere else rejects me. I know it’s not good to have a safety school you don’t want to go to, but I would be happy with any other place on the list, and I can’t see myself not being rejected from all of them. CMU seems like an all-around cool place and has one of the best computer science programs in the country, Wesleyan is intellectual and artsy and still has a good science program, the University of Chicago has excellent academics and a really smart, quirky, student body, WPI and RPI are both good tech schools likely to give me a scholarship, and Harvey Mudd is a tech school with a strong emphasis on the liberal arts that rivals Caltech in academics. If Harvey Mudd was around here instead of in Southern California, I think it would be my top choice. Unfortunately, it’s also a very high reach school.

Enough! I really should work on that essay. It’s about half done.