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15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

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

#801

Post by WarDores »

notfromhere wrote: post #799
WarDores wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exactly. If the issue is people feeling/being disenfranchised, changing how we elect the President isn't going to help. It just reinforces the idea that we're a monarchy and the job of the rest of the government is to do the will of the President. We can do better than this! The Presidential horse race every 4 years is mostly for television. Federalism works because you want the decisions that affect your life t…

Nothing reinforces the feeling of disenfranchisement than having no direct impact on how the most powerful single government is elected. The Electoral College is fundamentally undemocratic and the lack of democracy de-legitimizes the office.

Why does direct democracy confer legitimacy? Does the Supreme Court not have legitimate authority? I don't see a correlation.

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

#802

Post by your-nanny »

flamingbuffalo wrote: post #774
your-nanny wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wyoming is a state and this country is a union of states, not acres, or arbitrary units of population. We've failed to communicate the actual point of all this, which is to make sure each state--and not population districts--get representation at the federal level. If you have a problem with all this you should be asking: why do we need states?

Wyoming gets 2 senators, same as California - which means their residents get massively MORE representation at the federal level.

Then move to Wyoming.

States are entities of political significance, regardless of how many people happen to live in them. This is a union of states, and states get a say. If you don't believe that consider advocating for the replacement of states with population based administrative districts.

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

#803

Post by briandear »

hannasanarion wrote: post #782
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.

We are talking about the electoral college, which enables tyranny of the minority. Not only can a candidate win the electoral college while losing the popular vote, but the winner-take-all system means that only votes in closely-contested states really matter. The Electoral College allows the minority to overrule the majority.

The president isn't the president of “the people” but of the states. It says so right there on the tin: “President of the United States.”

Which means the president is and should be, elected by representatives of the states. The House of Representatives should be the only federal office directly voted on by “the people.” If that were the case, especially eliminating the direct election of senators, you’d see a much less divisive, gridlocked system where governance is more about public service and less about these election soap operas.

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

#804

Post by AnimalMuppet »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #686
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see: - Enough states pass this for it to be in force in 2020. - Trump wins the popular vote in 2020. However, he would not have won an EC vote because of California and New York. - California decides to renege on the compact, and votes for Biden instead. - A bunch of red states sue California. Long before the court cases go anywhere, Biden takes the oath of office. And what then?

The compact explicitly requires a much longer notice period than the time between Election Day and Inauguration Day if you want to pull out.

And if they don't abide by that? Then what? Who's going to enforce it, and through what mechanism?

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

#805

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mikeash wrote: post #445
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, I thought you were saying this was the mechanism for deciding how to change the rules. That too. This "compact" approach bugs me partly because it's a hack to get around the appropriate way of doing this, which they know they can't get enough support to do. > The Constitution allows states to cast their votes as they see fit. That may be correct. But the Wikipedia article on this ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

What makes it a hack, but amending the Constitution isn’t? I agree it feels like one, but it is entirely above board. I’m sure the authors of the Constitution didn’t anticipate states choosing to allocate their votes this way, but they didn’t bother to specify how they could or couldn’t do it. From the Wikipedia article, the only question I see is whether the agreement requires Congress to approve it or not. There se…

And, under current circumstances, do you see congressional approval to be forthcoming? For myself, I rather doubt it.

[Edit: Why isn't amending the Constitution a hack? Because it's the recognized mechanism for changing the rules.

What makes the compact a hack? I guess it feels like a hack because the expectation is that, if you're going to change the way the president gets elected, you have to change the Constitution - and therefore having to withstand the full level of scrutiny that such a change would involve. Changing it within the parameters allowed - just barely - by the Constitution is not technically a hack, legally. But it's still feels like a hack to make the change without as much scrutiny, and without the need for the massive majority. At least, so it seems to me.]

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

#806

Post by etripe »

vturner wrote: post #379
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…

I wish someone with $$ would start plastering this message everywhere the absurd "get rid of the elctoral college" debate comes up. We are not a democracy, seriously no one wants a democracy of 300 million plus. We are a federation of states that is supposed to have most of the control in their region and sacrifice a little bit of control to the federal government for purposes of defense and commerce. Your "democracy…

Do you think any reform is ill-advised? What would for instance be wrong with giving each state 1 vote in the EC? Upon naive inspection, that would at least get rid of battleground/swing states somewhat.

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

#807

Post by briandear »

hannasanarion wrote: post #652
nostrademons wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A majority of state electors pick the president. The president won the most states, so he is president.

In the EU, is Ireland less important than Germany? Why doesn’t Germany get to pick the EU president each time? Since Germany has over 80 million people, they could team up with France and simply own the EU. Ireland and Poland would be forced to go along with whatever Germany and France wanted. Or, they would leave the EU.

If California and New York picked the president every single time, why would other states bother staying in the Union? If you just have to win New York City and Los Angeles and Chicago, then every single policy proposal would simply be to benefit those voters alone. You could deny federal protections and funding to every other part of the country because you’d rather have more money to spend in New York City. It would become just like the Hunger Games where the “districts” would serve the capitol.

The current system has worked for 200+ years. Just because some people didn’t like outcome, doesn’t make the system broken.

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

#808

Post by DuskStar »

seanalltogether wrote: post #712
hinkley wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recollection from civics was that the college is to prevent populist candidates from winning. Someone very popular only in densely populated areas may have an agenda that hurts rural ones (eg, noting that federal taxes disproportionately go to rural areas for things like maintaining highways, make it “fair” and leave rural people with shit roads and diminished services).

> My recollection from civics was that the college is to prevent populist candidates from winning The college was a compromise to give a larger voting share to slave owning states that had a high overall population, despite having a relatively smaller number of possible voters.

Pretty sure that was the 3/5ths compromise, not the electoral college.

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

#809

Post by briandear »

hannasanarion wrote: post #786
nostrademons wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, for one, I don't - I'm mildly in favor of direct popular votes combined with some form of runoff voting (either IRV, STV, or approval voting). But I also get the arguments of people that say that without the electoral college, there is zero incentive for politicians to campaign in or pay attention to the interests of people in lightly-populated area. And I think that is a bad thing - whenever you completely disen…

> But I also get the arguments of people that say that without the electoral college, there is zero incentive for politicians to campaign in or pay attention to the interests of people in lightly-populated area. This is a lie probably told to you by a high school teacher who never really thought about it, and clearly you haven't either. If the electoral college empowers lightly populated areas, how come no Presidenti…

Does the EU presidency have a popular vote? Why aren’t the various leaders of the EU all German since Germany has the most people?

I love the electoral college. For those that bother to understand that America is a republic; the system was nearly perfectly designed. If we can get back to the original method of electing senators and back to the idea of “these United States” rather than “the United States,” we’d all be happier. States should have increased sovereignty. The 10th Amendment ought to matter.

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

#810

Post by pcwalton »

rapind wrote: post #637
tptacek wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let's agree to disagree. I actually think big alarming changes are coming (and have already happened). I'm just a Canuck though, and not out to convince anyone. I'm really fascinated with the political changes I see happening (or think I see happening at least).

Canada is very different, because the party in power in the House of Commons can basically do anything it wants. By contrast, the political system of the US is effectively designed to produce gridlock. The Canadian Senate rarely blocks and introduces legislation unlike that of the US, just to name one example.

There are benefits and drawbacks to both systems. Right now I'm pretty happy with this aspect of the US system. (There are other parts of the US system I'm less happy with—such as the Electoral College.)

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