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What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

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Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#21

Will never happen. The Republican Party has almost made it its official platform to make it very hard for voters to vote. They are opposed to a holiday for elections; they come up with all sorts of excuses to take people off electoral rolls; they raise the bogey of "voter fraud" each and every election, when there's not much evidence of any.

Okay, I'm in.

The Democrat Party has almost made it its official platform to make it very easy for non-citizens to vote; since they're most likely to vote Democrat. They support a holiday for elections; only because it would make it easier for a part of their base to vote, not because of any benefit to voters in general. They come up with all sorts of excuses to keep people on electoral rolls; whether they should be or not. They raise the bogey (boogeyman?) of Republicans raising the bogey of "voter fraud" each and every election; even though there has been voter fraud throughout the country's history and used to be part of the platform of Progressives of the past. Edit: meaning Progressives of the past were fighting voter fraud, which many Progressives of today claim doesn't exist.

Give us some more. It's easy to provide the cynical but plausible reverse when demonizing people according to group identity/accusations thrown out there for polarizing political drama.

And before anyone jumps the gun, as often happens in these cases because people can be silly, these comments may or may not reflect my personal political views.

EDIT: you forgot the Social Security scare the Democrats accuse the Republicans from time-to-time to get old people to vote Democrat. Or is that one played out?

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#22
post #10

Meh, why is turnout something one should encourage? Put another way, why should the voices of those who could barely be bothered to show up be amplified over those of those who really care? I don't want 100% turnout; I do want the people who don't care to stay home. I'd also like to only allow people who can pass the citizenship test given to prospective naturalised citizens to be able to vote, but that's an entirely…

Sounds like you disagree with the core concept underlying one man, one vote. Why should a person who squeaks by with correctly answering 6/10 of the test questions be given the exact same voice as someone who gets 10/10, and someone with 5/10 gets no voice at all?

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#23
And if we also split those electoral votes as close as possible to the way the people of the state voted we can get even closer to a direct election. And that's what the author seems to want - he's still got butt-hurt that Al Gore lost even with the popular vote. Why not just say what you want instead of proposing something that sounds kinda interesting but will never happen?

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#25
I'm surprised voter turnout isn't lower. Unless you live in a swing state, or Maine or Nebraska, voting for president is a waste of time. If you are in a swing state, it still might not matter unless you are in a swing district. It's a terribly broken voting system.

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#26
post #22
post #10

Meh, why is turnout something one should encourage? Put another way, why should the voices of those who could barely be bothered to show up be amplified over those of those who really care? I don't want 100% turnout; I do want the people who don't care to stay home. I'd also like to only allow people who can pass the citizenship test given to prospective naturalised citizens to be able to vote, but that's an entirely…

Sounds like you disagree with the core concept underlying one man, one vote. Why should a person who squeaks by with correctly answering 6/10 of the test questions be given the exact same voice as someone who gets 10/10, and someone with 5/10 gets no voice at all?

I convince people to not vote. If I can convince you not to vote with a single argument, then your input is something our country doesn't need. I do not at any time stop them from voting; I only tell them it doesn't matter and they shouldn't waste their time.

Everyone gets a vote, but I'm not losing any sleep when those who don't care enough to vote don't get their say recorded.

(Of course there is a problem where people who want to vote are prevented from voting. This is an issue that needs to be fixed so that everyone who wants to vote can vote.)

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#27

I'm surprised voter turnout isn't lower. Unless you live in a swing state, or Maine or Nebraska, voting for president is a waste of time. If you are in a swing state, it still might not matter unless you are in a swing district. It's a terribly broken voting system.

Voting for president is essentially always be a waste of time.[0] Many people have convinced themselves that this isn't the case, and we still have 'competitive' elections.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#28

I'm surprised voter turnout isn't lower. Unless you live in a swing state, or Maine or Nebraska, voting for president is a waste of time. If you are in a swing state, it still might not matter unless you are in a swing district. It's a terribly broken voting system.

There's usually more than just the president on the ballot during national elections.

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#29

And if we also split those electoral votes as close as possible to the way the people of the state voted we can get even closer to a direct election. And that's what the author seems to want - he's still got butt-hurt that Al Gore lost even with the popular vote. Why not just say what you want instead of proposing something that sounds kinda interesting but will never happen?

This was something that I was just kicking around in my head and wondering "what would these results actually look like?" And then I realized that all the necessary data was publicly available, so I grabbed a coffee and went to town. I'm not actually proposing this change and had no idea what the results would be until I started writing.

Re: What if states earned their Electoral College votes based on turnout?

#30
post #5

This can also lead to some less desirable outcomes, such as calls to make voting mandatory.

Why is making voting mandatory* a less desirable outcome?

*Or as I prefer to say, "equal cost voting choice", ie. that it takes just as much time and effort to not vote (go to polling place, accept ballot and void it) as it does to vote.

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