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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

#581

Post by casefields »

standardUser wrote: post #156
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.

Let's completely take away the cynicism. If California cared about representation for minorities they would divvy up their electors proportionally so that the minority of their voters, republicans, would receive electors. But that would defeat the purpose of using their overwhelming majority of democrats to bludgeon national elections towards their preference.

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

#582

Post by rayiner »

pasquinelli wrote: post #572
rayiner wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t follow. Even in recent history, most Presidents command large electoral vote majorities. In my life time, 7 of 10 elections ended in a more than 60-40 margin in the electoral college, including both Obama wins.

What difference does that make? It's either moving the goal posts so your team can win if they're out of power or it's entrenching your team's position if they have power. Either way is an outrage to someone, and so any reform comes at the wrong time. I really don't see the point you're making.

I took the OP’s argument to mean that, even if you can get a consensus that the electoral college should be changed, people should hesitate to do so where close races mean that the change will be outcome determinative for particular races. My point is that we still routinely have candidates winning massive electoral college majorities. If people otherwise were in agreement that a change was warranted (note that more than 50% of republicans supported abolishing the electoral college as recently as 2012), there are still opportunities to change the system where it won’t change the result of the current election.

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

#583

Post by newfriend »

sachdevap wrote: post #538
hyperpape wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was an election of a majority leader. The majority of electoral votes were for Donald Trump, by a large margin.

The house is elected by population, the senate by state. The electoral college is designed to be a blend of the house and senate systems.

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

#584

Post by Redoubts »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #348
lonelappde wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA has 53 districts. Those districts are under representative because they each get 2/53 of a Senator and WY district gets 2. State borders are fictions.

The Senate was never intended to be representative of the population. That is specifically why we have both the House and the Senate.

And states were never intended to be drawn to balance out slave power. And political parties were never intended to exist in federal government. Guess someone fucked up.

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

#585

Post by rapind »

rayiner wrote: post #569
TylerE wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I totally underestimated the importance of visiting until I went to Iowa earlier this month. (My wife went to high school and college there and we went back for the state fair and some campaign events.) It shattered my East-coast preconceptions about how elections work. Because of the caucus system,[1] you actually have to meet people in person to encourage them to advocate for you at the caucus. My wife got selfies…

"None of that stuff will get through Congress"

I have a different opinion. Sanders and to a lesser extent Warren have created massive volunteer networks that do have a pretty big impact, like everywhere. Obama had that too, but it was dismantled when he took office (insanity). There's a good argument to say Obama would have been far more impactful had he kept it going.

Sanders has no intention of shutting down his "revolution" (not my words) whether he does or doesn't get the nomination. There's going to be some serious pressure (like there already has) on congress in the years to come. I don't think the same ol' same ol' will continue much longer.

I don't mean to be a fan boy, but it's pretty phenomenal what he / they have done since 2016, and it resonates with a lot of people. CNN and MSNBC don't talk about it too often, but it's very real.

Don't take my word for it though. Easily researched.

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

#587

Post by brigandish »

delecti wrote: post #580
brink wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's wrong with politicians paying more attention to the needs of more people? It may encourage the discrimination against minorities.

Don't urban (and thus more dense dense) centers of population trend less white? Wouldn't it discourage discrimination against mionorities?

"Minority" does not always mean skin colour. John Stuart Mill wrote about the tyranny of the majority[0] in 1850's England∗, which I'll hazard a guess was 99% white, even with steamboats and the British Empire reaching right around the world.

∗and he appears to refer to it as a well established idiom so I suspect it goes further back

[0] On Liberty https://www.bartleby.com/130/1.html

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

#589

Post by dragonwriter »

m0zg wrote: post #482
dragonwriter wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technically states can secede, mlor form a separate union if they so desire. Technically , they can't. There is no provision for secession in the US Constitution. Practically , well, the one notable attempt didn't work out, so not that, either. > That's also why Senate representation is _NOT_ proportional to population. I suspect that'd be the next thing to be dismantled if whoever is pushing this actually succeeds…

>> There is no provision for secession in the US Constitution. There's no provision forbidding secession either, so they technically very much can. All that's not forbidden is allowed.

> There's no provision forbidding secession either

The Article IV Sec. 4 guarantee cannot be interpret as even coherent if a state can secede; once a state is admitted to the union, he federal government is irrevocably obligated to preserve it as a subject and republican government; if a state government could escape this oversight by secession, the guarantee would be empty.

Further, there is ample historical evidence that the idea of reserving the right to secede when ratifying was raised by New York, and rejected because it was understood that it would be viewed by the Congress as an inconsistent condition attached to ratification and thereby nullify the ratificstion.

The Supreme Court has also ruled on the issue, in Texas v. White. So your concept of a right to secession is inconsistent with the text, historical evidence of intent and case law of the Constitution.

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

#590

Post by tptacek »

rapind wrote: post #585
rayiner wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally underestimated the importance of visiting until I went to Iowa earlier this month. (My wife went to high school and college there and we went back for the state fair and some campaign events.) It shattered my East-coast preconceptions about how elections work. Because of the caucus system,[1] you actually have to meet people in person to encourage them to advocate for you at the caucus. My wife got selfies…

"None of that stuff will get through Congress" I have a different opinion. Sanders and to a lesser extent Warren have created massive volunteer networks that do have a pretty big impact, like everywhere. Obama had that too, but it was dismantled when he took office (insanity). There's a good argument to say Obama would have been far more impactful had he kept it going. Sanders has no intention of shutting down his "r…

It's a 50/50 country. It would be alarming if, after one election, which will at best be decided 60/40 in their favor, a radically different (from their immediate predecessor) President was actually enable to enact their agenda. The system we have is literally designed to prevent that thing from happening. "Volunteer network" or not, Sanders isn't passing his agenda. If he was serious about doing that, he'd stay in the Senate.
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