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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

#651

Post by m0zg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #589
m0zg wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 evidenc…

>> Article IV Sec. 4

Says literally nothing about secession.

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

#652

Post by hannasanarion »

nostrademons wrote: post #641
hannasanarion wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that tyranny of the minority is better?

Why do you assume there's an excluded middle, and that tyranny of one group over another is inevitable?

The Electoral College lets the minority choose the president against the will of the Majority. That is called tyranny of the minority. I want to know why you think that's a good thing.

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

#653

Post by Kerrick »

sachdevap wrote: post #627
newfriend wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, if we're talking of why electoral college was designed to be this way, then we should read the intention of the founders. > As Alexander Hamilton writes in “The Federalist Papers,” the Constitution is designed to ensure “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” The point of the Electoral College is to preserve…

In those days I don’t think the electoral college members were bound by law to vote for the president that state-run popular votes determine are the state’s choice. Of course the purpose isn’t being served if the men and women of the college aren’t allowed to act on their own.

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

#654

Post by gmoot »

raverbashing wrote: post #642
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…

Well, there's a potential "easy" way of solving this: making votes in the electoral college proportional to how the electorate voted in the state

Yes. You don't need to abolish the whole college, just do this. And states can do it on their own and immediately, no need to sign a pledge only takes effect at some possible future time.

The problem with this, and with the pledge, is that it requires the states that benefit from the current system to voluntarily decrease their own influence. Which won't happen.

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

#655

Post by zhoujianfu »

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…

There’s a lot of reasons for it on the movements official site:

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation

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

#656

Post by curiousgal »

daleco wrote: post #608
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…

Why aren't we talking about the Cambridge Analytica scandal example? Another issue of the Electoral colleges is that a candidate could target only a few amount of people (70k according to the documentary) for changing the course of the election. Even if this has been fixed by Facebook. Shouldn't it be considered as a major flaw of the election system? Source: "The great Hack" - Netflix doc.

> The Great Hack

I found the title to be self-fulfilling. That documentary was awful! It's just a tag along the journey of a smart narcissist to cover her ass.

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

#657

Post by zhoujianfu »

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…

Some people have wondered whether candidates might concentrate on big cities or ignore rural areas in an election in which the winner is the candidate receiving the most popular votes.

If there were any such tendency, it would be evident from the way real-world presidential candidates campaign today inside battleground states. Every battleground state contains big cities and rural areas. Presidential candidates—advised by the country’s most astute political strategists—necessarily allocate their candidate’s limited time and money between different parts of battleground states. The facts are that, inside battleground states, candidates campaign everywhere—big cities, medium-sized cities, and rural areas. Far from concentrating on big cities or ignoring rural areas, they hew very closely to population in allocating campaign events.

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

#658

Post by daleco »

ravenstine wrote: post #635
daleco wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't we talking about the Cambridge Analytica scandal example? Another issue of the Electoral colleges is that a candidate could target only a few amount of people (70k according to the documentary) for changing the course of the election. Even if this has been fixed by Facebook. Shouldn't it be considered as a major flaw of the election system? Source: "The great Hack" - Netflix doc.

Because using psychology to manipulate voters isn't new. And all of a sudden we're supposed to find it outrageous?

Yes, it’s not new to manipulate people, the low cost for high efficiency is new. Clinton had almost 3M more votes than Trump. It would be much more expensive to manipulate 3M (1% us population, 1.2% voters), rather than 70k (0.02% pop, 0.028% voters). If winning the election is about properly manipulating 0.04% of the voters, that’s very scary and not working as initially designed.

Edit:math

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

#659

Post by hannasanarion »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #324

If people are up in arms about the electoral college giving small states outsized influence, wait until they hear about the senate.

The "electoral college helps small states" thing isn't true. It's a convenient justification that high school teachers repeat without thinking. It makes no sense.

If the EC helps small states, then why has there never been a presidential visit to Wyoming?

The answer is that the electoral college doesn't empower small or large states, it empowers battleground states. This is dumb, undemocratic, and contrary to the framers intentions.

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

#660

Post by curiousgal »

WarDores wrote: post #333

It's not about division of power between rural/urban or big states/small states. The Electoral College is about buffering purely democratic power. The President doesn't represent "the people." He/she represents the interests of the states. The Legislative Branch represents the will of the people (most directly through the House of Representatives). One of the biggest problems is vesting too much power and importance…

>The President doesn't represent "the people."

Isn't that obvious by the fact that the electors are under no legal obligation to choose the candidate they were voted to do?

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