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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

#211

Post by felipemnoa »

outside1234 wrote: post #63
m0zg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wyoming would still have a state legislature - I am not sure I see your point. If you are saying that each person in Wyoming would have 1 vote towards the presidency and each person in California would have 1 vote towards the presidency, then I agree.

>>Wyoming would still have a state legislature - I am not sure I see your point.

It means that California would have more influence at the federal level than it does now. And since federal laws apply to all states it means that indirectly California would have more influence on Wyoming.

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

#212

Post by AnimalMuppet »

_bxg1 wrote: post #183
tgafpg wrote: post #179

If this happens, Democrats will be very unhappy with how many Republicans there are in Upstate New York, Southern Illinois and Rural California who's vote now counts for something.

It'll mostly balance out I think, and even if it doesn't, that's hardly the point

No, it kind of is the point. Democrats aren't doing this because it's more fair, they're doing it because they think they'll win more elections.

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

#213

Post by huffmsa »

1) the presidency has grown too powerful and imperial with a bureaucracy so massive the Qing emperor would be jealous.

2) 15 States can do what they want, but unless they meet the provisions in Article 5, the college is here to stay.

Thank goodness the Framers had the foresight to include the process for amending the Constitution in the document.

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

#214

Post by YokoZar »

tgafpg wrote: post #179

If this happens, Democrats will be very unhappy with how many Republicans there are in Upstate New York, Southern Illinois and Rural California who's vote now counts for something.

This is known as the "Winner take-all effect". The electoral college also has a small-state bias (smaller states get more electoral votes per person than larger ones).

Historically, these two have often approximately cancelled eachother out as they favored opposite parties. But there's no guarantee of that - when Reagan won with 58.8% of the popular vote, he took 97.5% of the electoral vote.

Similarly, sometimes the small state bias is a substantially stronger effect: when Trump won with 56% of the electoral vote, he had only 46% of the popular vote, largely due to Clinton's higher "wasted" margin of victory in larger winner-take-all states.

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

#215

Post by d1zzy »

zaroth wrote: post #132
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…

Conversely, there are many issues where California can wag the dog by instituting state-specific policies which effectively drag the whole country with it. Some people like what California does with its state-specific policies. Some people even choose to live there. If the Executive branch was less powerful and the States retained more of what they were originally intended to oversee for themselves, I might have less…

So those people in California are citizens just like you who pay the same federal taxes and have the same rights yet when it comes to voting for the President they do not have have those same rights. It might be annoying to us that they are all "liberals" or whatever you like to brand them with but they are people with equal rights and deserve equal vote. If it means that the majority of the country is made of these "liberals" that we dislike or disagree with then so be it, but that's what it means to have a representative democracy.

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

#216

Post by gnulinux »

felipemnoa wrote: post #182
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.

>>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. This was all by design. The smaller states would not have joined the union if it mean that the bigger states would monopolize all the power.

Yes but maybe we can reform the system to make US more democratic. This question is about why this has been this way, rather it's about whether it's worth to change it even it was originally justified. Are people in Wyoming willing to leave the union if their votes are exactly equal to Californians?

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

#217

Post by wincy »

d1zzy wrote: post #199
theli0nheart wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

They aren’t free to leave the union though. The last time the states disagreed on this a rebellion was put down violently by the north.

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

#218

Post by baddox »

umvi wrote: post #188
azernik wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is federalism, which we already have; a Wyoming voter controls the Wyoming state government, which has power over things that are purely internal Wyoming concerns.

What incentive do rural states have to stay in the union if the federal government is controlled by populous state bullies? Wouldn't it be better for them to fragment into separate-but-open-border-countries like the EU?

Probably roughly the same incentives any state has ever had to join and remain in a federation. Things like free trade and movement among states and a combined military. One of the incentives to remain in a federation should not be the ability to disproportionately influence the federal government compared to other member states.

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

#219

Post by mc32 »

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…

This is somewhat balanced by representation in the other house of Congress.

It’s not only the US which has to balance rural vs urban electorates. Some are even further down the spectrum like Japan where rural areas have even larger influence than cities compared to other democracies.

But in a way it makes sense. Without people in the countryside the people in the cities would have little to eat. Most countries go to some lengths to ensure some modicum of food security/self-sufficiency.

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

#220

Post by godshatter »

CPLX wrote: post #143
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…

Another way of looking at it is to note that New York City is the most important city in the history of world civilization, and the global center of media, finance, culture, commerce, fashion, and art, while the rest of the state is mostly stripmalls and like a few dozen people plus a confusingly located NFL team, so maybe we should let the millions of people living in the city run things?

There are rural concerns that cities don't really care about, should they be ignored?
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