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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

#101

Post by danaris »

peapicker wrote: post #71

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 happe…

> the higher the turnout, legal or not, the more power for that state

Every actual study of the matter I've seen or heard of has shown no evidence of any significant fraudulent voting, particularly not systemic fraudulent voting. While there might be a theoretical concern about incentives here, there's a lot of problems we know are happening right now with voter suppression under the system that we have.

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

#102

Post by fintechpwmMEdev »

flyingfences wrote: post #34
acomjean wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Misguided? Are you saying you want to go back to when your state's House Reps decided your state's Senators?

I understand our federal politics are a complete mess but think that has more to do to equating money with freedom of speech, the great return on campaign donations, the polarization of our media and the lack of solid non-partisan research institutes that our elected leaders can rely upon. Have you ever watched CSPAN? Our leaders routinely become informed about the world around us through the same mass media as we do.

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

#103

Post by jonathankoren »

peapicker wrote: post #90
eunoia wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alaska with a population around 700,000 also has 2 senators As does: 1. Wyoming (Population: 572,381) 2. Vermont (Population: 627,180) 3. Alaska (Population: 735,720) 4. North Dakota (Population: 760,900) 5. South Dakota (Population: 892,631) 6. Delaware (Population: 975,033) 7. Rhode Island (Population: 1,056,738) 8. Montana (Population: 1,074,532) 9. Maine (Population: 1,342,097) 10. New Hampshire (Population: 1,…

"But the House hasn't reapportioned representation by population in a century." Not sure where you live, but since 1914 in Colorado: 1914 - four representatives 1973 - five representatives 1983 - six representatives 2003 - seven representatives So clearly seats are added as population changes in a state. See also: https://www.insightsassociation.org/article/states-expected-...

No. 385 are redistributed, which still enforces unequal representation, as states with less population than some territories have more purchasing power in the House. For example, Wyoming get a rep for 500,000 people, but everyone else has to pay 700,000 people.

To truly remedy this situation in the House, you have to bring the House up to about 930.

https://time.com/5423623/house-representatives-number-seats/

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

#104

Post by tmux314 »

"Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests." - Justice Earl Warren

There's a long history of the US electoral system favoring rural areas over urban areas. Typically, the courts had to intervene in order to remedy an issue where clearly the legislature has a conflict of interest. The most famous is Reynolds v Sims (1964), which stated that electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be roughly equal in population [1].

Hopefully, we can see similar change happen in the Electoral College.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims

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

#105

Post by barryp »

peapicker wrote: post #90
eunoia wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alaska with a population around 700,000 also has 2 senators As does: 1. Wyoming (Population: 572,381) 2. Vermont (Population: 627,180) 3. Alaska (Population: 735,720) 4. North Dakota (Population: 760,900) 5. South Dakota (Population: 892,631) 6. Delaware (Population: 975,033) 7. Rhode Island (Population: 1,056,738) 8. Montana (Population: 1,074,532) 9. Maine (Population: 1,342,097) 10. New Hampshire (Population: 1,…

"But the House hasn't reapportioned representation by population in a century." Not sure where you live, but since 1914 in Colorado: 1914 - four representatives 1973 - five representatives 1983 - six representatives 2003 - seven representatives So clearly seats are added as population changes in a state. See also: https://www.insightsassociation.org/article/states-expected-...

Yes, Colorado gained states, but some other states lost seats. The overall size of the House is unchanged in over a century.

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

#106

Post by mshirley »

I want to point out this article was written in May, and is a bit out of date. For example, Nevada (heavily mentioned in the article) never adopted the National Popular Vote compact because the governor vetoed the bill after the legislature passed it.

FiveThirtyEight published an article last week on the current state of the compact: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-movement-to-skip-th...

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

#107

Post by sacheendra »

umvi wrote: post #67
dlbucci wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right? Yeah but maybe that's a good thing. Otherwise you have a situation like New York where NYC gets to dictate everything since it's super high population density even though the majority of geographical NY state is farmers. So the farmers get screwed over by the interests of the city folk wh…

The property taxes example doesn't seem right.

Cost of a small apartment in NYC is equal to the cost of several acres of farmland. Proportional property taxes would impact both demographics similarly.

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

#108

Post by cybersnowflake »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #93

>On Tuesday, Nevada became the latest state to pass a bill that would grant its electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote across the country, not just in Nevada. The movement is the brainchild of John Koza, a co-founder of National Popular Vote, an organization that is working to eliminate the influence of the Electoral College. I don't think this will survive constitutional challenge, because it is not the vo…

Technically every single voter in Nevada could vote for one candidate yet under certain circumstances all their votes would go to the the opposing candidate under the Compact.

Yeah, I don't think all the people in smaller states falling over themselves to join the Compact are really thinking this through.

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

#109

Post by baddox »

dragonwriter wrote: post #13
pwinnski wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote counts will still be reported at every level, but electors will all cast their votes for the national popular vote winner. It will be easy enough to note which states' vote counts favor candidate B, despite the national popular vote favoring candidate A. As parent says, that's the design, but I'm sure there will be upset people in those states.

> As parent says, that's the design, but I'm sure there will be upset people in those states. There are people upset with the plurality winner getting all the states votes, too.

Not to mention a plurality of voters in the entire country in 2000 and 2016.

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

#110

Post by smolsky »

commandlinefan wrote: post #39
r00fus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

CA voter here - I believe that's correct to an extent. This is a blue state so you cannot influence presidential election here. However, there are local policies/measures/propositions and that is why people turn up to vote.
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