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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

#151

Post by standardUser »

cybersnowflake wrote: post #108
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.

What you described is precisely the intended effect of the pact.

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

#152

Post by theli0nheart »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #55
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 counterpoint to that is that the Electoral College has transferred so much power to rural areas that we are no longer an actual representative democracy. For example, a vote in Wyoming counts 3.6 times more than a vote in California.[1] The people in California are not represented in the Presidential election; it would be more accurate to say that one-quarter of the people in California are represented. "Rural is…

> There are only eight states in America that have more people than Los Angeles county.[2] Why are the concerns of the people living in LAC less important than the concerns of the people in Nevada or Arkansas? What is it about their geography that makes their issues unimportant?

Why would Arkansas or Nevada have joined a union of states where their votes mean essentially nothing?

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

#153

Post by aabeshou »

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…

> 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.

This makes no sense. You've just made an error in thinking.

The pro-EC argument is people who tend to live rural have a different set of issues, and also tend to be a relative minority of people, and thus those issues aren't given due weight with 1-person-1-vote.

Deciding to move to a rural area does not decrease the power of your vote in a non-EC system - your vote has equal power.

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

#154

Post by Mirioron »

sacheendra wrote: post #107
umvi wrote: post #67

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? 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.

The city dweller isn't earning money off of their land.

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

#155

Post by ojbyrne »

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…

There will still be the Senate - 2 senators per state regardless of population.

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

#156

Post by standardUser »

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.

It's not confusing if you ditch the cynicism. Many people genuinely believe that a system wherein the president is elected after winning fewer voters then their opponent on a regular basis is a system that should be changed.

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

#157

Post by takeout »

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…

There's a great reply to this in Pod Save America, the gist of which is: politicians ALREADY don't go to Wyoming or Montana or Central California or Upstate New York. Presidential hopefuls, especially in the GE, go to swing states.

The question we should be asking is, why are Ohio, PA, Michigan and Florida more important than any other state?

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

#158

Post by alexis_fr »

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...

You could view it as: equality of vote per person _and square mile_.

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

#160

Post by zaroth »

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...

That alternative is that the rural vote doesn’t count at all.

Urban cities form extremely powerful electoral blocks in Congress which can pass huge amount of pro-urban legislation and pro-urban budgets. The rural areas have much less representation but at least enough so that they can perhaps dog-trade for policies that are important to them.

Remember that laws pass on majority or super-majority rules in Congress. So once you have enough to form a coalition your vote “matters” or not.

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