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

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

#591

Post by brigandish » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:54 AM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #395

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…

Weighting "resources" is not a good thing. In the past it's been used to justify some of the most horrific policies in the U.S. The U.S. constitution counted slaves at 60% of a person. Some of the arguments for the three fifths compromise were that slaveholders didn't want people who weren't "knowledgable" about slaveholding to be meddling in slaveholder's business. This is essentially one of the causes that sparked…

If you think the government is becoming the "laughingstock of the world" then:

a) read more widely, there's a lot of governments out there that are more worthy of the moniker (and even more that are horrifying)

b) read more widely, the newspapers you're reading aren't being honest (otherwise you'd know about (a))

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

#592

Post by 40four » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:55 AM UTC

I always hear people complain about the electoral college, but I've never once heard a detailed, objective argument as to why they think a popular vote would be a better system.

Friends I've talked to about just seem to default to a majority system because it seems more 'fair', or its easier to understand? I dont know.

In the USA, I think we are conditioned to belive in the democratic process, so I guess it feels 'natural' to just tally up the votes, & majority wins.

We've done it countless times in our personal lives. Anytime there's a disagreement, or a group decision to be made, "Ok, lets vote on it". Majority wins. Simple.

This is a fine & easy way to decide things in small groups, but is it really the best way to decide something among 300 million?

I'm not convinced. I'm not saying the EC is perfect, I just suspect a simple majority wins vote could cause other serious problems that are not immediately obvious.

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

#593

Post by calimac » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:58 AM UTC

Mob rule

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

#594

Post by hannasanarion » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:13 AM UTC

brigandish wrote: post #587

delecti wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do you think that tyranny of the majority is a bad thing?

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

#595

Post by hannasanarion » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

webninja wrote: post #566

pknopf wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founding fathers did not predict that a few states would become hyper-partisan and stop giving EC votes proportionally. The few states, early on, did this because they were decidedly red/blue and wanted a bigger say in who is president. A bunch of other states wound up following suit to level the playing field. Now, we have winner-takes-all for almost every state. Now, politicians don't spend time pandering for v…

Maybe get rid of the winner takes all feature? It locks us in a 2-party system.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison tried that in the 1800s. Politicians benefit from the broken system (presidential campaigns are easier and cheaper because fewer voters matter) so it is hard to build support.

The NPVIC is a modern attempt to do the same thing, coordinated by mutual agreement instead of constitutional amendment.

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

#596

Post by jonas21 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

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…

On one hand, I agree with you that the impact of states with high voting power is somewhat mitigated by the fact that they're small, and the effect of the electoral college only comes into play in elections that are relatively close to begin with.

But on the other hand:

a) All recent presidential elections have been close in popular vote. And as the article points out, two of the last three presidents have won the electoral college while losing the popular vote.

b) Everyone would be appalled by any other large systematic difference in voting power, even if the overall impact was limited. Can you imagine if instead of going by state, we decided to go by income and the top 0.2% of people were given 3.6 votes each? People would lose their minds.

As for the math, I was using electoral votes divided by the voting-age population of each state in the 2010 Census. So, Wyoming is 3 EV / 0.428M = 7.0 EV/M and New York is 29 EV / 15.053M = 1.9 EV/M. If you use total population instead, you get the basically the same ratio (3.55x vs 3.64x).

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

#597

Post by lazyasciiart » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #590

rapind wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 t…

A lot of people think the changes Trump is making are radically different, and the system has turned out to be a gentleman's agreement that doesn't prevent anything.

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

#598

Post by hannasanarion » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:20 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #529

marcell wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about that, specifically this part: > He/she represents the interests of the states This assumes that states in America have some sort of distinct cultural/political interests, divided along state lines. This isn't really the case. For example there are no significant cultural differences between North Dakota and South Dakota. The dividing line there is pretty arbitrary. Similarly, some places that have…

California and Alabama are basically the same.

Los Angeles and Birmingham? Napa and Cumberland? Yeah, pretty much.

The red and blue on electoral college maps is a lie. About 40% of Californians supported Trump in 2016, and vice versa for Alabama.

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

#599

Post by pdonis » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

thomascgalvin wrote: post #442

pdonis wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one mentioned federal benefits. Sure you did; you said LAC voters don't have their concerns addressed as well because they are part of a large, populous state whose EC votes count for less per capita. My question is, if LAC is capable of managing its own affairs, why does it care? In other words, you're assuming that the President's job is to "take care of everyone's concerns", so everyone needs an equal vote to…

> In other words, you're assuming that the President's job is to "take care of everyone's concerns", so everyone needs an equal vote to elect the President. That seems to me to be absurd. Yeah you're probably right. Let's just disenfranchise more than half the population of the country. That'll give the federal government a ton of legitimacy! > The President's job is to faithfully execute the laws and to make executi…

> we the people get to decide which candidate will do the better job. Or we should. But because of the electoral college, we don't.

If we accept that we the people should get to directly decide, then of course the decision should be made by popular vote. But that's just assuming your conclusion.

Also, this is a different argument from the one you gave before: now you're accepting that the President's job is not to take care of everyone's concerns.

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

#600

Post by hannasanarion » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:23 AM UTC

40four wrote: post #592

I always hear people complain about the electoral college, but I've never once heard a detailed, objective argument as to why they think a popular vote would be a better system. Friends I've talked to about just seem to default to a majority system because it seems more 'fair', or its easier to understand? I dont know. In the USA, I think we are conditioned to belive in the democratic process, so I guess it feels 'na…

If majority rule is a bad thing, why do you think minority rule is better?

What if I told you that the framers Hamilton and Madison were appalled by winner-take-all laws passed by states in the early 1800s, and tried to change the constitution to abolish the Electoral College, it having become an abomination completely unlike their intent?