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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

#191

Post by Gibbon1 »

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 argument against that is under the current system if you're voting in a hard blue or red (spit) state, your vote doesn't matter in practice. Because the amount of 'swing' isn't enough to change the outcome.

If you get rid of the electoral college then no matter where you live your vote would count. At least for President.

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

#192

Post by huffmsa »

munk-a wrote: post #150

The Connecticut Compromise is good and all, but I think it's about time we discard it as an artifact of the days when communication was difficult and states had expectations around operating as semi-autonomous bodies. States used to be a strong identity tie than the nation but our general mindset has shifted toward identifying as Americans before Delawareans.

Great, get your Article 5 wheels rolling.

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

#193

Post by cj »

theli0nheart wrote: post #152
thomascgalvin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That logic doesn't work. It can be applied in reverse to invalidate your point:

Why would California have joined a union of states where their votes mean 1/4 of Wyoming's?

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by petmon »

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 EC supports battleground states, NOT rural states. Maine is very rural, Florida is not, but Florida is where the campaigning occurred.

This distorts our national priorities. For example ethanol subsidies are so high because Iowa is a battleground state.

We could conduct a popular vote where a Wyoming resident gets 3x the vote of a California resident. This would be an enormous improvement over the EC and I would support it.

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

#197

Post by mikeash »

m0zg wrote: post #51
outside1234 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if he had won the popular vote, then fine, he is the winner. All this is asking is 1 person 1 vote.

This would lead to e.g. Wyoming being run by California though. I'm sure Wyomingites would totally love that.

We currently have minority rule at the federal level. Is that better?

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

#198

Post by mieseratte »

mikeash wrote: post #189
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 rationale for the EC and every other compromise in the Constitution was simple: it’s what was required to get the states to actually sign up. There was the very real possibility that the individual states would go their own way if they didn’t like the proposed Constitution. Larger states could have easily decided that they didn’t need to be part of a larger country. Smaller states could have easily decided that t…

The EC is a check on populism, and very clearly still needed.

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

#199

Post by d1zzy »

theli0nheart wrote: post #152
thomascgalvin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

To get the benefits that you would get from such a union (whether they see those as benefits is up to them):

* access to single market and currency

* federal loans/money

* territory protection from other countries military intervention

* freedom of movement (including study, work, living, etc) within all the other states of the union

If states want to do some things differently that's why there are state level laws. If those states don't find that they have the right amount of freedom at the state level and think those benefits above matter less than being able to outvote 3:1 a citizen in California when it comes to presidential election then, I guess, they are free to leave the union?

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

#200

Post by hnburnsy »

sp527 wrote: post #96
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…

Nothing you said provides an argument against equally weighting each citizen’s vote at the federal level. States have select powers over the federal government that are specifically provided by our Constitution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights . When you vote in local elections, you are in effect in control of certain outcomes within your state, as accorded by our Constitution. The federal election d…

> There is no conceivable logical reason why citizens in any particular state should have more or less say in such matters than those in any other.

So should we abolish the senate too? Not being snarky just wondering what those who support NPV think.

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