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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

#71

Post by peapicker »

Firstly, I'm an independent - I actually have a great deal of issues with both major parties. My concern with abandoning the college starts with this observation:

Swing states are the states most likely to have divided government. And if divided government is good for anything, it is accountability. So with the Electoral College system, when we do wind up with a razor-thin margin in an election, it is likely to happen in a state where both parties hold some power, rather than in a state controlled by one party. The Electoral college system focuses a great deal of energy on states in this condition when an election is close.

National Popular Vote (NPV) rewards states with high population - the higher the turnout, the more power for that state. Additionally, under NPV, each state would certify its own "national" vote total. What would happen when there are charges of skullduggery? Would states really trust, with no power to verify, other state’s returns?

I have other concerns as well but feel the EC system is superior. Just as an observation, the parliamentary systems of the UK, Canada, Israel, (& others) have the parliament elect the Prime Minister and likewise don't elect their leaders by popular vote.

[edited: removing poor wording about 'lax laws', seems I implied things in a FUD way that I didn't mean to]

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

#72

Post by _ph_ »

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…

The problem is not rural vs. high population states. It is whether a state has a strong party lead or not. Those who have not are the so-called "battleground" states. So some rural states get a lot of attention, where the outcome of the election is not already decided, while other states are completely ignored in campaigning. This is not bound to the size of the state.

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

#73

Post by bdcravens »

jeanperrot wrote: post #22
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.

Are you thinking of the US Senate? The electoral college is not meant to give a proportionally larger weight to small states.

Except it does. Smaller states do get more votes per capita than larger states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...

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

#74

Post by dragonwriter »

akulbe wrote: post #43

I could not be more opposed to the abolishment of the Electoral College. The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. That said... I think there's a solution for this. Hard term limits for everyone, in all the branches. It already exists for the Executive branch. I think it should be instituted for both Legislative and Judicial as well.

> The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in.

Well, it had a reason: like the per-state represt in the Senate which was locked in against amendment, like the 3/5 compromise, like the prohibition locked against amendment protecting the slave trade for a set time period, and probably like a handful of other things I'm probably not remembering off the top of my head, it was a mechanism of politically securing slavery and reassuring the slave states that the more populace free states, where ethical objections to slavery were already common, would not be able to band together and demand that all people be treated as people rather than some being treated as property.

(Before anyone starts quoting the Federalist Papers, I'll point out that those weren't working documents that the Constitutional Convention made decisions based on, but campaign literature to sell ratification particularly in New York. So they weren't going to say “A lot of this document is about mollifying the slave states to get them to stay by giving them as much assurance as possible that it will never be structurally possible to abolish slavery.” But, not saying it when selling the document in New York doesn't stop it from being true.)

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

#75

Post by rootusrootus »

andyv wrote: post #12
baggy_trough wrote: post #2

Let's imagine a state signs this and is a tipping point state for the presidential election. If this compact has any effect, it will be for the state's electors to vote against the popular vote in that state, resulting in the election of the undesired president according to the state's voters. Nothing wrong with that constitutionally, but I suspect the politicians will feel differently after the voters express their…

If the popular vote favored, say Trump, and if California could change the election by pulling out of the compact, they would. In a heartbeat. That's why I'm not too worried about it. If it would really change the result, it's easy for a State to hit the pause button.

> it's easy for a State to hit the pause button

Is it that easy? It's a compact, not trivial to pull out of.

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

#76

Post by pchristensen »

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 is an innumerate talking pointing point repeated endlessly by Republican talking heads. There is somewhat of a numerical advantage to small states, but it helps Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Mexico etc for Democrats, and it hurts Texas, Florida, Ohio, Georgia etc for Republicans.

With winner-take-all allocation of states' electoral votes, politicians are incentivized to put all of their effort into battleground/swing states, regardless of size. Presidential candidates spend 99% of their time in swing states, except for when they go to NY/CA/TX/FL to fundraise. Iowa gets attention because it's the earliest primary, not because it's rural.

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

#77

Post by francisofascii »

bdcravens wrote: post #44
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…

The flip side is that candidates ignore large states that are unlikely to change (think California for Republicans or Texas for Democrats), even though both states have a ton of people who don't have the same ideologies and values as their state is stereotyped. > Even though I live in a giant urban area, I wouldn't want to feel pressured to due so due to lack of political stake if I move elsewhere. Imagine a develope…

Due to rapidly changing demographics, Texas will soon be in play. (I certainly hope people don't move for fear the new state may not vote their candidate of choice.)

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

#78

Post by GeekyBear »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #58
flyingfences wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a flawed argument, because the House isn't proportional to population, either. It's _still_ weighted towards smaller, emptier states.

All states get at least one House member.

Should some states have zero?

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

#79

Post by creaghpatr »

akulbe wrote: post #43

I could not be more opposed to the abolishment of the Electoral College. The founders had a very good rationale for putting it in. That said... I think there's a solution for this. Hard term limits for everyone, in all the branches. It already exists for the Executive branch. I think it should be instituted for both Legislative and Judicial as well.

Definitely, for the Senate, I don't mind unlimited in the house since they are up for reelection every two years.

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

#80

Post by jayd16 »

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…

Good. Then partisanship shouldn't matter when it comes to the merit of this proposal.
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