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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

#531

Post by [deleted] »

carry_bit wrote: post #494
baddox wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> National Popular Vote (NPV) would reward states with lax election laws - the higher the turnout, legal or not, the more power for that state. Illegal voting is already illegal, and states can already in theory do shady things in their elections (and some probably already do). The courts should absolutely go after this, and I don't see NPV really changing this. > The NPV system focus the most energy on states with a…

> Do states currently trust that other states hold fair elections to determine how their electors vote? I don't see any change here. Currently the effects of any illegal voting are contained to the state that the illegal voting happened in; North Dakota's electors aren't going to vote differently even if there are 6 million illegal votes in California. With an NPV that isn't the case.

[deleted]

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

#532

Post by CameronNemo »

bendbro wrote: post #475
hyperpape wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: 1. I’m gonna take a hard line that people deserve a vote, dirt doesn’t. 2. Louisiana is the 25th most populous state and I think 25th densest. So, I’m not sure the electoral college is protecting those less dense states’ environments. As the sibling points out, sometimes coastal liberals want environmental protection, while natives want to exploit the environment for profit.

And if Louisiana's federal desires are consistently decided by more populous states, what is left that motivates Louisiana to remain a member of the United States?

free migration, free trade, subsidized education and health, subsidized social security.

Louisiana can certainly give all that because they cannot force TX, NY, CA, etc to bow to their whim. But that would be sort of dumb.

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

#533

Post by delecti »

ShamelessC wrote: post #320
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…

I'm not in favor of the electoral college, but wouldn't its elimination merely shift this problem to politicians only visiting the most poulated states (e.g. California) anyway?

I've seen this pointed out, and absolutely do not see it as a problem. What's wrong with politicians paying more attention to the needs of more people?

They're going to campaign somewhere, why should they pay more attention to Cleveland, Ohio (metro area population ~2m) than Los Angeles (city population 3m, metro population over 13m)?

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

#534

Post by kevingadd »

carry_bit wrote: post #494
baddox wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> National Popular Vote (NPV) would reward states with lax election laws - the higher the turnout, legal or not, the more power for that state. Illegal voting is already illegal, and states can already in theory do shady things in their elections (and some probably already do). The courts should absolutely go after this, and I don't see NPV really changing this. > The NPV system focus the most energy on states with a…

> Do states currently trust that other states hold fair elections to determine how their electors vote? I don't see any change here. Currently the effects of any illegal voting are contained to the state that the illegal voting happened in; North Dakota's electors aren't going to vote differently even if there are 6 million illegal votes in California. With an NPV that isn't the case.

Why would there be 6 million illegal votes in California? That's a pretty far-fetched premise to base your voting system arguments on.

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

#535

Post by enraged_camel »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #360
baddox wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be unfortunate if states felt they wanted to secede because their citizens were given the same political influence over presidential election as citizens of other states.

It would be California and New York deciding the fate of all other states. You would definitely see a mass succession.

Low-population states seceding from the union would fuck themselves over hard, since they are overwhelmingly the beneficiaries of federal aid. In fact, I suspect many of them would cease to be viable entities altogether.

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

#536

Post by wutbrodo »

bendbro wrote: post #475
hyperpape wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: 1. I’m gonna take a hard line that people deserve a vote, dirt doesn’t. 2. Louisiana is the 25th most populous state and I think 25th densest. So, I’m not sure the electoral college is protecting those less dense states’ environments. As the sibling points out, sometimes coastal liberals want environmental protection, while natives want to exploit the environment for profit.

And if Louisiana's federal desires are consistently decided by more populous states, what is left that motivates Louisiana to remain a member of the United States?

For a start, they get massive transfers of money from more productive states: three dollars for every one that they pay in taxes.

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

#537

Post by delecti »

hyperpape wrote: post #426
jonas21 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wyoming gets 7 electoral votes per million people, while New York gets only 1.9. That's a 3.6x difference -- I would hardly call that a "small" edge.

True, at that extreme, it's big, and I probably could state my claim more precisely. Here's my claim: if you drew a curve of electoral votes per person by percentile, there would be a very small area that was significantly elevated, and the remaining portion would be moderately flat. Because Wyoming's population is so small, the absolute impact isn't that big. Go up just a few spots to Hawaii and it's more like a 2:1…

This [1] is population/EC vote rather than EC vote/population, and it's slightly out of order, but it's a steady slope. There's nothing like a normal distribution for people/EC vote ratio. There's just a large range between the power of a California voter and the power of a Wyoming voter. I think this graph shows just how ridiculous this is, Rhode Island voters being inexplicably much less powerful than Connecticut voters, when arguably they're all the same metro with either Boston or NYC, and would thus count as getting just as many "visits" if candidates only visited big population hubs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_2010_Census_State_Popu...

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

#538

Post by sachdevap »

hyperpape wrote: post #426
jonas21 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wyoming gets 7 electoral votes per million people, while New York gets only 1.9. That's a 3.6x difference -- I would hardly call that a "small" edge.

True, at that extreme, it's big, and I probably could state my claim more precisely. Here's my claim: if you drew a curve of electoral votes per person by percentile, there would be a very small area that was significantly elevated, and the remaining portion would be moderately flat. Because Wyoming's population is so small, the absolute impact isn't that big. Go up just a few spots to Hawaii and it's more like a 2:1…

To quantify that "very close", in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes, which is 1.5% of the voting population. I would not call that very close. It isn't a difference of some 1000 votes. It's an election of a minority leader.

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

#539

Post by squirrelicus »

koboll wrote: post #323
paggle wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electoral college gives extra votes to certain people. Why stop at rural vs urban? Why not give extra votes to people shorter than 5 feet? To people with black hair and blue eyes? To people who can wiggle their ears and roll their tongues at the same time?

The only people who say that are those who want rural people's values to have an outsized influence in our elections. That is, conservatives.

I certainly am conservative but the things I said are not false. The USA government is not merely a representative democracy, it's more formally a republic.

Consider this: the purpose behind the bicameral legislature is that in order for the federal government to act, it requires the consent of both the majority of the population and the majority of the states subject to it. If the population and the states can't agree, then we shouldn't do it at the federal level. It's foundational to the structure, and it's a process of slowing down the system against them whims of both the elite and the masses.

If you disagree with this, that's perfectly fine. I don't know a conservative that isn't in favor of CA and NY seceding. After all, most of the wealthy people live there anyway. Conduct the Marxist cleansing behind the border wall, but don't bring the rest of us into the shit. Let CA burn itself to the ground, we don't have a problem with that. Don't bring the rest of us down with you. We shouldn't have to support the insanity.

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

#540

Post by ianai »

TylerE wrote: post #328
ShamelessC wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in favor of the electoral college, but wouldn't its elimination merely shift this problem to politicians only visiting the most poulated states (e.g. California) anyway?

I think the whole “visiting” thing is overblown. We have TV and the Internet. This isn’t the 19th century when the only way the average American might EVER see or hear a President would be a short speech off the back of a train car.

Probably the biggest reason for physically visiting places is to get bigger donations from people and interest groups. Also to generate buzz that will land in the 24 hour media cycle.
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