I don't like either of the candidates. I don't want to vote, because I don't like either of them, and I don't want to feel responsible for the sh*t that will inevitably happen as a result of this upcoming inauguration.

I'm not 100% sure how voting works in the United Kingdom, but if I'm not mistaken, you have several options to choose who to vote for, such as UKIP, Green Party, Libs, etc etc.

Is this not the same in America?

I'm not 100% sure how voting works in the United Kingdom, but if I'm not mistaken, you have several options to choose who to vote for, such as UKIP, Green Party, Libs, etc etc.

Is this not the same in America?

We do have multiple parties, but the majority of the votes go to the main two parties, Republican and Democrat, so you're essentially throwing away your vote by voting for the smaller parties. (Green, Independent, Libertarian, etc.)

The United States typically has 2 main parties running - Republicans and Democrats.

There are always others running as "third party" candidates (that's the phrase used to describe them since they aren't one of the two main parties) but they typically receive very little if any votes.

For example, here are the results of the 2012 Presidential Election when Barack Obama was re-elected:

Democrat) Barack Obama - 65,918,507 votes - 51.01%
Republican) Mitt Romney - 60,934,407 votes - 47.15%
Libertarian) Gary Johnson - 1,275,923 votes - 0.99%
Green Party) Jill Stein - 469,015 votes - 0.36%
Other (+) - 639,790 - 0.5%

So yes, there are more than 2 candidates, but they're rarely voted for.

If you're against voting for Trump and Hillary, why not vote for one of these smaller parties?

Surely they can't be as bad as Trillary. (Trump and Hillary - Trillary)

If you're against voting for Trump and Hillary, why not vote for one of these smaller parties?

Surely they can't be as bad as Trillary. (Trump and Hillary - Trillary)

The thing is, the winner isn't determined by the popular vote, it's determined by the electoral college where the electorates are chosen based on the popular vote. A candidate must have at least 270 electorates out of 538 in order to win the presidency. If a third party candidate is introduced and voted for, claiming some of the electorates, it is possible that no candidate would reach the 270 requirement. If this happens, the House of Representatives (Republican controlled right now) would choose the President of the candidates running while the Senate (Democrat controlled right now) would choose the Vice President.

So, in a way, if a person is against Trump for example, voting for Johnson may not be as great of an idea as it seems since it would be possible for Johnson to get enough votes to cause no candidate to reach 270, leaving the Republican controlled House to choose Trump.

Also, interestingly, we'd have a split "ticket" in the Pres/VP spot with a Republican President and Democrat Vice President.

Honestly, I wish I had a better handle on the facts in all these cases.  Recently it came out that Clinton (or her staff) had tried many times to get a secure blackberry - and the person who maintained and monitored her server wound up working the State Department IT department
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-email-scandal-took-root/2016/03/27/ee301168-e162-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html
Back then, Blackberries were used for working people like smart phones now.  I remember when I started using email - as an engineer - very few people were using emails privately (heck I remember using the internet before real graphics and windows) - then all of a sudden it took off.  I don't think the regulations and security kept up with the changing tech. 
  From PBS "In 2007, when Congress asked the Bush administration for emails surrounding the firing of eights U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales revealed that many of the emails requested could not be produced because they were sent on a non-government email server.  The officials had used the private domain gwb43.com, a server run by the Republican National Committee. Two years later, it was revealed that potentially 22 million emails were deleted, which was considered by some to be a violation of the Presidential Records Act."
  Honestly, she is in her 70s, her skill set is not technical.  I have actually volunteered for teachers in the schools (who were awesome teachers) who couldn't even figure out how to receive or send emails without help.  There is no smoking gun (and by that I mean I haven't seen anyone produce evidence - even the FBI and all the other committees called it careless not intentional) about her actively trying to hide things by using the private server.  She supposedly was introduced to the blackberry during the 2008 election and loved it and wanted to figure out how to use it in her job.  As an engineer, I can understand wanting to use good tech.
  I want to know more about the missing emails but my understanding was there was a firm that backed up the servers for the Clintons and last October delivered their backups to the FBI - I have no idea why we haven't heard anything more about that.  We should have at least heard whether they were able to recover the missing emails or not. 

Today, Hillary Rodham Clinton officially accepted the Democratic Presidential Nomination making her the first woman to ever be the nominee to a major political party in United States history.

This all seems very omplicated, and now we have to wait until November for the result?

So you can only vote for 1 of 2 people?

yeah you can only vote for one person....i mena there options to write people in.....but honestly meh....idk im not really a huge political person haha. i just watch the stuff when they had their debates here in ohio and then the news and such for other stuff.....

This all seems very omplicated, and now we have to wait until November for the result?

So you can only vote for 1 of 2 people?

You can technically vote for anyone by writing in an individual's name, but really you have choices ranging from all political parties that decide to run. The thing is, there's 2 main parties that dominate elections because the other parties get very little coverage. For example, a party's candidate must be polling at 15% or more in x amount of national polls in order to be accepted into the nation-watched presidential debates where the candidates debate the issues. Someone like Gary Johnson, a libertarian, is polling around 9-10% right now, so he would not be included. This lack of coverage and transparency for these candidates leave them in the dark and the two major candidates remain in the spotlight. So technically, there are multiple choices, but because the other non-mainstream candidates are known to be floozies most of the time, people don't bother voting for them, even if they most agree with them. They default to one of the two major candidates that reflects most closely to their beliefs since they're the only ones who have a chance of winning.

Lilly for President of America 2016!!

Lilly for President of America 2016!!

Lets do it!!!

Quote from: Eddie on July 27, 2016, 19:41:41

Lilly for President of America 2016!!

Lets do it!!!

LOL !!!! ill legit write in "Only Lilly"

Did anyone watch any of the speakers at either of the conventions? If so, thoughts?

Would anyone be interested in me posting each of the nominee's speeches so you can hear them?