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

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

#751

Post by uncletaco » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:31 PM UTC

greggeter wrote: post #491

harryh wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, the number of House reps is no longer proportionate to the population. Yes they are. Each house district has about 750,000 people. You get a bit of deviation because states don't necessarily have a precise multiple of 750k people. Also we only redraw districts every 10 years, so things have drifted a bit since 2010. But it's pretty close.

We should expand the number of reps to 1 per 100k. Would help much of the problems.

Set expansion rules so the number of reps is always equal to the cubed root of the population rounded down. They would provide adequate scaling rules imo.

If the UK can stomach well over 600 MPs the so can we.

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

#752

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:31 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #604

lazyasciiart wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except that it's prevented all sorts of things, including the two biggest-ticket items in Trump's agenda --- the repeal of "Obamacare" and the construction of a wall on the southern border. I'd extend the argument by observing that the widespread belief in the Republican party that anything and everything was on the table ended up royally screwing them; it is, for instance, why they failed to repeal the ACA.

The reason why they failed is because they were the dog that caught the car - they had no plans that were remotely workable.

They pounded it with demagoguery to get elected but they didn't have anything behind the policy and knew it. They also knew that going forward with their disasters would hurt them even more.

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

#753

Post by larrydag » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:35 PM UTC

When looking at political methods I like to look a first principals from all points of view.

Here is a conservative or traditionalist political point of view in favor of the Electoral College

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/danger-attacks-electoral-coll...

Here is a liberal or progressive point of view against the Electoral College

https://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/the-case-against-t...

These are but two opinions. Politics is ultimately creating policy on opinions from a large community.

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

#754

Post by zeveb » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:36 PM 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…

> In contrast, the Senate is thoroughly anti-democratic, unsalvagably so.

Why is that bad? The Senate represents the states, the other sovereign entities in our federal republic.

I think that a) we should amend the Constitution to eliminate the direct election of Senators and mandating that they be appointed by the state legislatures; b) amend the Constitution to apportion 1 representative per 40,000–60,000 people (yes, this would mean over 6,000 representatives); c) amend the Constitution to mandate a similar structure for the states, with each state legislature required to be bicameral, with senators appointed by the counties and independent cities and representatives elected by the people.

Note that greatly increasing the number of representatives would make the Electoral College much more democratic. I'm not terribly fond of that, but it's a price I'm willing to pay for an overall healthier republic.

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

#755

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:36 PM UTC

surge wrote: post #674

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?

We already have a problem with politicians getting the majority of their donations from people out of their district and even have very low approval ratings in their district. Something needs to be done to ensure all districts are equally represented and the representatives work for their constituents, not benefactors from out of state.

The issue is that states aren't - really. There is no barrier so said division is arbitrary and unenforcable. Local has been pushing its siren song for a while when marketing but it is actually a reactionary countertrend to essentially everything else.

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

#756

Post by rocqua » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:47 PM UTC

kingkawn wrote: post #698

danieltillett wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not going to be able to buy off 30,000 reps if you are a lobyist. More reps and less staff are the way to win back democracy.

It is probably cheaper to buy off a large number of low-power reps than a smaller number of high power ones

Moreover, if the reps have fewer staff, they will probably rely more on lobbyists for research.

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

#757

Post by your-nanny » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:47 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #708

ascorbic wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false dichotomy. The alternative isn't tyranny of the minority, it's a system that takes account of the views of everyone, by forcing candidates to appeal to a wide spectrum of the electorate.

If you want a system to appeal to a wide spectrum of the electorate, there are a large number of dimensions that are far better then geographic address. Gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. For some reason, though, I never see supporters of the electoral college feel that it's right and proper to give equal political power to social minority groups (Only geographical minority groups. As if where you live…

states, not geographical units.

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

#758

Post by hyperpape » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:49 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #537

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…

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 v…

But it’s by state, not by population, so it overstates the import of small states.

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

#759

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #750

nilkn wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above poster is saying that Trump shouldn't have been allowed to be president because he didn't win the popular vote. This means that, under the above poster's scheme, they wouldn't have any president fighting for them at all, and I doubt CA would suddenly start caring about them were that the case. I see this as an abandonment of the poor in favor of the rich and powerful. If Trump fails, then he fails. But that…

>I see this as an abandonment of the poor in favor of the rich and powerful. Trump represents the rich and powerful, though, arguably more so than Hillary Clinton, who's rich and elite but not even in the same league as Trump, or as entrenched with multinational business interests (although as far as the common voter is concerned, the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire may be irrelevant.) And realisti…

[deleted]

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

#760

Post by hyperbovine » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

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?

Isn’t that how a functioning democratic republic is supposed to work?