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15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

nytimes.com

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Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#31

Post by outside1234 »

gfodor wrote: post #11

I'm really confused about this because I don't understand the incentives politicians have to adopt this in their own state. It clearly undermines their state's power in national elections. My (cynical) assumption is that this will be obeyed insofar as it helps bring about the desired outcome by those in power. It will be disregarded if it would shift the outcome in the other direction.

Does it? What if there state votes for the popular winner and that popular winner is not the winner?

Remember, this will work both ways - eventually we will have a democrat that doesn't win the popular vote as well in the current system.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#32

Post by wishinghorse »

dlbucci wrote: post #18
not_a_moth wrote: post #15

An argument I heard recently against this is, if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories, and they won't be accountable to rural territories. That basically makes sense. The EC is the only thing that really gives rural territories any stake, as the majority population has shifted to larger urban centers. People who want to get away from the big cities and live a different kind of…

I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right? Cause that's the current system for us: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_w...

Yes, that's the point. Adjust votes' "weight" based on population density.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#33

Post by LargeWu »

not_a_moth wrote: post #15

An argument I heard recently against this is, if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories, and they won't be accountable to rural territories. That basically makes sense. The EC is the only thing that really gives rural territories any stake, as the majority population has shifted to larger urban centers. People who want to get away from the big cities and live a different kind of…

Counter arguments to that:

1. Rural places do have representation, through Congress. Abolishing the EC will not change that.

2. Rural areas already have outsized representation due to how the Senate is set up.

3. The electoral college only matters for presidential candidates, during the general election, and they aren't spending a lot of time in rural areas already anyway. I grew up in North Dakota, and no presidential candidates ever wasted their time campaigning there.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#34

Post by flyingfences »

acomjean wrote: post #21
not_a_moth wrote: post #15

An argument I heard recently against this is, if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories, and they won't be accountable to rural territories. That basically makes sense. The EC is the only thing that really gives rural territories any stake, as the majority population has shifted to larger urban centers. People who want to get away from the big cities and live a different kind of…

Electoral college is for the presidency. But the political power discrepancy between rural and urban areas is quite stark in other branches of government. For example: Right now in the US there are 2 senators from each state. California with a population of over 39 million has 2 senators, Alaska with a population around 700,000 also has 2 senators.

That was the explicit purpose of the Senate: each state is equal in the union. Senators weren't even supposed to represent the state's people; they represented the state itself up until the misguided Seventeenth Amendment. Representation proportional to the population is the purpose of the House - that's why our government has two chambers.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#35

Post by UncleMeat »

not_a_moth wrote: post #15

An argument I heard recently against this is, if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories, and they won't be accountable to rural territories. That basically makes sense. The EC is the only thing that really gives rural territories any stake, as the majority population has shifted to larger urban centers. People who want to get away from the big cities and live a different kind of…

This cannot be true.

Right now in order to win Florida you must win a popular vote in Florida. There is no internal electoral college in Florida. Winning Florida is incredibly important for presidential candidates.

Where do they campaign in Florida? Everywhere. They don't just hang out in Miami. If candidates do not avoid less populated areas when aiming to win a popular vote in a state, why would they do so for the nation?

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#37

Post by jjeaff »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #16

This is stupid. The entire point of the electoral college is to ensure small states have a say and the country isn’t ruled by the majority mob. Small states would have to be pretty ignorant to make themselves irrelevant like that.

I'm not sure the electoral college does that except when successfully gerrymandered. Electoral college votes are applied on a population basis. So small states get less votes.

Without the electoral college, "states" collectively don't get any say at all. Only citizens of those states.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#38

Post by jeanperrot »

m0zg wrote: post #26

News flash: Trump would still have won, just with a different campaign strategy and a different platform. Promise a little more of what CA and NY want, and a little less of what everybody else wants, and he'd get the popular vote, too. In fact I think this would make it _easier_ for a populist to win, not harder, because all they'd have to worry about is crafting a campaign message that resonates with the majority an…

That's exactly the goal. The point is not to pick a different winner, it is to re-enfranchise voters in states that are strongly 'red' or strongly 'blue'

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#39

Post by commandlinefan »

r00fus wrote: post #28
not_a_moth wrote: post #15

An argument I heard recently against this is, if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories, and they won't be accountable to rural territories. That basically makes sense. The EC is the only thing that really gives rural territories any stake, as the majority population has shifted to larger urban centers. People who want to get away from the big cities and live a different kind of…

> if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories That's one take. Another take is that urban centers are being actively disenfranchised. Btw, those politicians who benefit from the EC are the ones creating policies that are destroying the rural populace at the same time.

I’ve often wondered how much knowing that the electoral college is in place drives voter turnout: how many conservatives in New York or California (or liberals in Texas) don’t bother to go to the hassle of showing up to the polls because they know their state won’t win anyway? In most presidential races, the race is called before the polls even close in Hawaii, so I’m sure an awful lot of people don’t bother to show up there.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#40

Post by outside1234 »

m0zg wrote: post #26

News flash: Trump would still have won, just with a different campaign strategy and a different platform. Promise a little more of what CA and NY want, and a little less of what everybody else wants, and he'd get the popular vote, too. In fact I think this would make it _easier_ for a populist to win, not harder, because all they'd have to worry about is crafting a campaign message that resonates with the majority an…

I mean, if he had won the popular vote, then fine, he is the winner.

All this is asking is 1 person 1 vote.

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