The surprisingly realistic path to eliminating the Electoral College by 2020 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/9/1594792/-The-surpris...
And an oddly polite discussion in the comments, how strange!
Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
11–20 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#12A bigger issue is that there are far too few representatives in the House. With more reps (say 1:50000) there would be room for more diverse views to be heard and represented (and likely additional parties).
As it stands right now, it is impossible for one person to reasonably represent the views of 1M people.
Edit: also Eectoral votes are tied to the number of representatives + senators + DC, so there could be an effect there too.
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#13We're closer than you think. Check it out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Inters... Hopefully more states will come on board after this election.
Unlikely. Republican-controlled states have no incentive to do that, as a national popular vote would help Democrats (the country is mostly more liberal than the Republican platform). You see this reflected in the makeup of the states that have signed so far.
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#14I'd like to add to the question: How could Trump gain more than 50% of the Electoral Votes given he had even less than 50% of the absolute votes? (According to: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president )
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#15I feel like if we eliminated the Electoral College, presidential candidates would only visit areas like La New York City Boston Chicago Atlanta to teach the maximum number of voters.
Instead of removing it, are there ways we can improve it?
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#16I'd like to add to the question: How could Trump gain more than 50% of the Electoral Votes given he had even less than 50% of the absolute votes? (According to: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president )
Because most of the votes Hillary got didn't help her win electoral votes: if you get 80% of the vote in a state, that gets you just as many electors as 50%+1. The remaining 30% is "wasted".
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
One reason I'd oppose that is because you're making the federal government choose how each state votes. You can already go to a small state and campaign for changes to the voting method. Moving it to the federal level takes that power away from your local community or state. If you forced every state to vote the same way, I predict that method would never be touched by any politician ever again. As an example, Maine…
I see your point, but the current system encourages states to use a winner-takes-all system because it maximizes the influence of that state, which is hardly ideal. It'd be a shame to pass up on a good system (or one that is better than the one you are using now, in my opinion) just so you can forever experiment around with individual states. "Perfect" is the enemy of "good" and all that.
You can also prevent the tragedy of the commons, without federal interference, through an inter-state compact (basically a treaty/contract between states).
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#18I'd like to add to the question: How could Trump gain more than 50% of the Electoral Votes given he had even less than 50% of the absolute votes? (According to: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president )
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Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#19I'd like to add to the question: How could Trump gain more than 50% of the Electoral Votes given he had even less than 50% of the absolute votes? (According to: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president )
Re: Ask HN: Will the US electoral voting system ever change?
#20I feel like if we eliminated the Electoral College, presidential candidates would only visit areas like La New York City Boston Chicago Atlanta to teach the maximum number of voters. Instead of removing it, are there ways we can improve it?
Bingo, and this has been thoroughly analyzed.
The election would reduce to 8-10 urban areas, which also makes cheating a lot easier.
While we're at it, why don't we remove the other part of the great compromise that gave each state 2 Senators (#electors = #of House of Representative Members + 2)
And that's one reason it'll never happen, you won't get enough state legislatures to vote their states out of relevance.