15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by 0xB31B1B » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

Schnitz wrote: post #361

The electoral college was just a kludge to allow elections before modern instant long distance communication became a thing. The gold standard for democracy was always "one person, one vote", but nowadays there's a lot of people that consider their personal gain more important than being democratic and those people (the Republican party mostly) will try to hang on to the electoral college, no matter the cost apparent…

“The gold standard for democracy has always been one person one vote”: it’s much more complicated than that. At least for US legal history, the idea of “who has the right to vote” has changed significantly, from land owning white males to citizens who haven’t committed felonies (and a few other exceptions like residents of Puerto Rico or citizens who live abroad and a few more). If you look even further back, Athens, the creator of democracy, would generally view our government as oligarchy (rule by the few) as popular vote elections were viewed as possible to be games/bought by the wealthy or connected. You can see echoes of that in today’s politics with dynastic families (Clintons, Bushes). To solve the problem, the Athenians employed the concept of “sortion” or essentially a civil service lottery where the ruling council of the city was chosen at random from all eligible citizens. A modern example of something close to sortition today is Jury Duty.

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

#382

Post by sachdevap » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #357

WarDores wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swing states shift, though. California was basically solid red from the 1950s through the 1980s. Until 2016, few people would have called Wisconsin or Michigan "swing states" judging from their voting in the past few elections. People move, demographics change.

I'm not sure that's actually true. There was a great graphic a few years back that showed party allegiance by state over time. You could see how most states used to be fairly split between both parties and how they frequently swung from party to party between elections. However, in the 80s or so many states started to align more closely with one party. Given the duration for which that has been going on, I wonder if…

That end result is probably strongly favored by gerrymandering.

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

#383

Post by corodra » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:28 PM UTC

khuey wrote: post #350

corodra wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your arguement about why do LA residents count less. I say it's not neccesarily less. Just differently. Do you want someone who has never farmed in their lives. Probably never even picked up a shovel, have a say in the rules and regs about agriculture throughout the midwest? Same goes vice versa. Country folk who hate living in concrete jungles shouldn't make rules for city dwellers. Thus an equal vote, isn't equa…

This cuts both ways, why should someone who lives in an area with hardly any immigrants be making policy for people who live in places like LA which are full of them?

Not arguing. I did say vice versa applies to my example.

But this is the point to the whole system. It's supposed to attempt to keep everyone's needs in mind. Gov body structures were originally figured out for countries the size of... Florida. Maybe California. Thus, your nation has roughly the same "issues" and "needs". But the USA is the "same" country for 3,000 miles of driving. West and east coast Americans are not the same. New Englanders and Southerners are not the same. West coast and is not the save as Mid-westerners. Hell, even folks on the Pacific Northwest are not the same as Californians. Then you have Texans. Shit, let's not forget Hawaii and Alaskans. Different land. Different climates. WAY different industries and lifestyles. I learned this first hand since I've traveled and lived in different parts of the country every 1-2 years (roughly).

So yea. Pretending like axing the electoral college is just a simple fix that solves this super simple problem... you're out of your god damn mind.

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

#384

Post by SamReidHughes » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

Schnitz wrote: post #361

The electoral college was just a kludge to allow elections before modern instant long distance communication became a thing. The gold standard for democracy was always "one person, one vote", but nowadays there's a lot of people that consider their personal gain more important than being democratic and those people (the Republican party mostly) will try to hang on to the electoral college, no matter the cost apparent…

This is not true. Go read about the formation of the Constitution.

It doesn't even make any sense. States were just as capable of holding elections and sending six-digit numbers to Washington as they were holding elections and sending two-digit numbers to Washington.

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

#385

Post by baggy_trough » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

0xB31B1B wrote: post #381

Schnitz wrote: post #361

The electoral college was just a kludge to allow elections before modern instant long distance communication became a thing. The gold standard for democracy was always "one person, one vote", but nowadays there's a lot of people that consider their personal gain more important than being democratic and those people (the Republican party mostly) will try to hang on to the electoral college, no matter the cost apparent…

“The gold standard for democracy has always been one person one vote”: it’s much more complicated than that. At least for US legal history, the idea of “who has the right to vote” has changed significantly, from land owning white males to citizens who haven’t committed felonies (and a few other exceptions like residents of Puerto Rico or citizens who live abroad and a few more). If you look even further back, Athens,…

If the House was chosen randomly from the population, it would be a big improvement.

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

#386

Post by J5892 » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

anon1m0us wrote: post #358

hyperpape wrote: post #302

There are discussions about the electoral college favoring small states. Some people think that's bad, some people think it's good. However, there's a more important issue: that's not really what the electoral college does. It gives a small edge to small states[0]. The much bigger effect is that in every given election, it favors a handful of battleground states over all the rest. If you live in Wyoming, the electora…

You should be careful about the word "small" here. What you mean is least populous, but geographically, they are large. Thus, the question is: Do you want the majority of the USA geography being controlled by the will of people least knowledgeable about it? If you eliminate the electoral college you give political control of resources to those who have absolutely NO physical control of those resources and yet still s…

In what way has Louisiana been decimated?

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

#387

Post by nilkn » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:30 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #94

The electoral college achieves one very useful function thats ignored by everyone calling for its abolition in favour of the popular vote: it produces a clear winner and contains the contagion of litigating and delegitimizing the outcome of an election. Think about this: there are a number of elections that have a very small popular vote margin. What if this gets less than, say, 20,000? That's entirely possible. In a…

For (5), I'm pretty sure they not only foresaw it but specifically designed the system this way. This is why they created both the Senate and the House. CA has 53x as many representatives as Vermont.

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

#388

Post by gshubert17 » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:30 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #371

maratd wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody cares about visiting. They can craft their policies to entirely exclude or screw over states that aren't worth their time. For example, favor specific industries over others that are heavy in one state vs another. They'll do that anyway, but may think twice if they need to build a coalition of smaller states vs just winning the popular vote.

If it takes about visiting why to the campaigns spend so damn much time in Iowa?

An early primary, I believe.

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

#389

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:32 PM UTC

0xB31B1B wrote: post #372

anon1m0us wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be careful about the word "small" here. What you mean is least populous, but geographically, they are large. Thus, the question is: Do you want the majority of the USA geography being controlled by the will of people least knowledgeable about it? If you eliminate the electoral college you give political control of resources to those who have absolutely NO physical control of those resources and yet still s…

To be fair, the primary cause of the decimation of Louisiana is it’s state government. I would also add that the resources of the country belong to all of us, not just those who live in close proximity (aka the same state).

[deleted]

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

#390

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 11:32 PM UTC

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…

> National Popular Vote (NPV) rewards states with high population - the higher the turnout, the more power for that state.

Well, it rewards people who vote. If more people in my state turn out to vote for the candidate that I didn't vote for, and who didn't get the majority of the states votes, I and most of the people that voted in my state are not rewarded by NPV.

OTOH, getting more Democratic votes in a Red state, or more Republican votes in a Blue state suddenly makes a difference in the national outcome; national elections no longer are about doing the minimum necessary to keep a majority in party-dominated states while focussing primarily on narrow appeal to the particular perceived interests of “swing state” voters, but about getting as much support as possible nationally.