Does Your Vote Matter if You Live in a Red State or a Blue State?

What we should do, is eliminate party lines. Have something like the Primary with all the candidates. The ones with the two most votes run against eachother. No democrat or republican. Then we can not just have extremists.

This is what I've been severely annoyed with the past 12 or so years. I am an independent and will never get a president that supports most of my opinions.

Like my idea? :) Well vote for James Bowman if I ever run for President. Haha!

A good idea! Another, have the primaries just two weeks before the election, when the general electorate is finally awake, and then only a two week general election, A nice short political season and Money would be almost inconsequential as a side benefit.

I'd also like to see commercials and so on banned from elections. Only allow debates and personal signs. No funding by PACs or Campaigns.

Last statistics my state took were that over 91% would vote Romney over Ron Paul and I believe over 80% if it came down to Obama and Romney.

Too bad I don't live in a swing state though then I'd feel important.

if enough folks vote contrary to what the pundits say about your state, you can drive a red or blue state to the other side.

that's why its important to vote.

Good and relevant point.

It absolutely counts. Those who say it doesn't are lazy and never planned to vote anyway or they are just plain stupid. Time to start getting off our asses and voting. Don't let these idiot politicans (republican or democrat) get comfortable. When they stop working for you vote them out of office.

Easier said then done!

I live in Texas and my vote matters even less than it used to due to the gerrymandered districts we have here. There are a lot of registered Democrats in the state that don't even bother voting any more and certainly no attempts to register those who might vote Democrat in the future. Texas is the perfect example of what the country will look like in the future with unlimited secret funding of elections and successful voter suppression drives like the voter ID requirements and voter purges. The plutocrats and their mouth breathing base are winning. I work with a blue collar guy who is going to vote for Romney simply because the NRA has convinced him that he "won't take away my guns". When I pointed out that Romney as governor had signed more gun control legislation than the president has (Romney signed an assault weapons ban in Massachusetts) he just shrugs his shoulders and says he still thinks the President has designs on his guns. A lot of Texans are one issue voters like that and the NRA/GOP axis of evil has them eating out of their hand.

I'm from Massachusetts and it is the same with liberals. It seems the majority of people are stupid everywhere. lol

You speak the truth(fellow texan here). I am really considering whether I should even vote in this election because I know the state is going to go Romney.

Yeah, I'm spending my time trying to register new voters mostly in eastern Travis county where a lot of hispanic potential democratic voters live. If the democratic party has any chance at all, they will have to appeal to the coming majority.

Red and Blue states can change. One day NC may become far more purple than red. Also, I vote because it is the right thing to do. I will vote until I'm dead- it matters to me. But then again does it matter if anyone votes at all? The electoral college reigns supreme.

In my state (MA) the people are profoundly ignorant and apparently don't care that the Democrat Party is fully socialistic and fully in control of our state and media.
If truth, morality and character mattered, Obama wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of being re-elected.

If you live in a state that LEANS red or blue, your vote counts. When you live in a truly blue state like I do [CA] your vote doesn't count, particularly on the left coast. In the middle of the state, you count, at least up to the state level, but nationally, forget it. Think about it. We bring you Nancy Pelosi...
I do vote though, because I want to feel like I at least tried to make a difference. Plus, if you don't vote, you can't complain.

Same could be said of Texas, a red state. That's why I'm all for ditching the long past useful Electoral College and going to a much simpler, easier to understand and much fairer one man, one vote system where whoever gets the most votes wins regardless what color state you vote in which in the first place is nothing but media BS.

I heartily agree with your assessment of the behavior of the sheeples, who are unfortunately the majority of both parties at this point. That said. When you think about it, there wouldn't really be much difference in the outcomes if we chucked the electoral college and went to one man one vote. Think about it. Think about the population centers. The number of people dependant on the gvt one way or another. At least with the electoral college, there's at least a chance a non democrat would get in.

American leaders at the national level are basically picked for us. We are "allowed" to vote to reinenforce the illusion of choice.

No, that due to the next thing that should be done away with, the very biased and always rigged primary voting system. The reality is the majority of states hardly if every see who's running for president because both guys are trying to get votes in so-called swing states. When's the last time you saw a canidate make an appearance in RI or Mississippi or Utah?

It matters to ME. I consider voting my reponsibility.

well said

We're at a state of technology where votes could be and should be cast via the Internet. It would be simple enough with present technology to restricit voting to some system linked to IP address, social security number, driver's license other forms of ID to prevent cheating and multiple voting. Would be far more accurate, eliminate most of the cheating we all know goes on now and be much cheaper to set up and run.

I heartily agree. I'm amazed at the number of otherwise intellegent people who have a problem with requiring id to vote. I used to work in the polls, and saw a whole lot of people pretending they were someone else. This was back when people who lived in the neighborhood were allowed to work at the polls in the same neighborhood.
Can't do that anymore.
Gotta make sure that if someone presents themselves as a particular person, the chances of you knowing one or both of the people is slim to none. [Like the people who tried to pass themselves off as friends of mine, both of whom were dead...another who said they were someone I knew was in a convalescent hosp and non responsive].
Welcome to CA.

Personally, I Don't think it really matters who gets elected president, be it a Republican or a Democrat. They're still gonna screw the average American with their partisan politics. They don't give a damn about the United States of America or the people of the United States of America. All they care about is their political career and how to enhance it. America is finished as a nation. But the question remains why are Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, and Pennsylvania so crucial to electing a POTUS? It doesn't make sense to me.

They're the only states that are fairly evenly divided between the two major parties. The election could go either way.

Let's hope it goes Red.

We can always hope.

If Obama wins this election, he'll be the first president to break 8 curse or 8 theory.

As I've been saying for several election cycles the problem isn't who's president the real problem are the rats that infest Congress. It's a den of coruption, stupidity and political game playing on BOTH sides. Some day I hope the American people wake up and realize that and really clean house. Why wait? Do it this time around. Vote no on everyone already there regardless of party and we can really shake things up.

Some people argue that there should be a third party system and that happened in 1912 100 years ago when two parties the Republicans, Democrats and the newly formed Progressive Party ran for each had candidates running for president. We've never seen such an election in our county like that again. It was heavaly contested.

In 1912 incumbent President William Howard Taft ran on the Republican Party; ex president Theodore Roosevelt, himself a Republican ran for president again forming his own party known the Progrssive; Woodrow Wilson, govenor of New Jersey ran on that Democratic ticket. The division in the Republican Party that year paved the way for a Democratic Party vicory. It happened again in the 1992 campaign between the incumbent GOP President George Bush Sr., Democratic candidate Bill Clinton, and Independent candidate H. Ross Perot.

Of course it does!

If you don't vote, you shouldn't complain if your candidate loses or even enter a debate.

Popular vote does not matter at all, its all about that electoral college.

I agree, the electoral vote is meaningless and outdated and should be repealed.

It doesn't matter, it's all fixed.

Your vote matters no matter where you live. And it matters how many vote. We as a nation are going to have to decide just how important it is to us to get back what we're losing. This election is going to be the most important in the history of this United States.