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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

#811

Post by bwanab »

DuskStar wrote: post #808
seanalltogether wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They worked hand in hand. In other words, given the 3/5s compromise, how to you implement it from a voting perspective? For example, if your state has a population that was 50/50 slave/non-slave, then each non-slave vote was theoretically worth 1 and 3/5s of a vote, but giving individual voters differing weights was deemed unacceptable. The solution was the electoral college in which the votes available to the state could reflect the extra voting power of the non-voting population.

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

#812

Post by screye »

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?

If 40 times as many people stay in California, it makes sense that they would go there 40 times more often.

Why should people living dense regions be punished for it ?

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

#813

Post by pnw_hazor »

briandear wrote: post #807
hannasanarion wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pretty sure discarding the EC would lead to a defacto separation of the states. A bloodless civil war (hopefully bloodless).

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

#814

Post by pnw_hazor »

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?

Not Seattle and Portland.

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

#815

Post by screye »

exclusiv wrote: post #605
delecti wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this pointed out, and absolutely do not see it as a problem. What's wrong with politicians paying more attention to the needs of more people? They're going to campaign somewhere , why should they pay more attention to Cleveland, Ohio (metro area population ~2m) than Los Angeles ( city population 3m, metro population over 13m)?

What's great about the electoral college is you need to have cross-regional appeal to win. So its less about which states are going to be battleground but that you generally can't just appeal to 1 or 2 regions and win. In a goal of preserving the union, it's better to have a system that pushes cross-regional appeal than a system based strictly on number of votes IMO.

Why is geography a factor in a democracy.

Why is cross regional appeal of any value, if these region don't make up even 10% of the combined US population.

If US states were divided by population it would be a different think all together. But California has 40 times as many people as Wyoming.

Cross regional appeal is quoted as an obviously good thing to have, but the core assumption of equal distribution of population has been violated.

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

#816

Post by mikeash »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #805
mikeash wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Constitutio…

Right now, no. Next time the Democrats have control of both chambers, though, it seems possible.

In any case, my point is just that a constitutional amendment isn’t required and this is totally above-board. The odds of an amendment being ratified are far lower.

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

#817

Post by seppin »

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…

So for a citizen in California or Texas, who will never get or see this personal treatment, how is this helpful?

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

#818

Post by big_chungus »

kbaker wrote: post #562
big_chungus wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think adding more people to the room in an already-dissonant chamber will make thing more coherent? We moved to a modified republic precisely because a huge-scale town meeting isn't practical.

There are a bunch of good arguments here: https://www.thirty-thousand.org/

Hmm. I'd say the biggest argument I could see is that it would result in less stupid bills, e.g. fewer "bridges to nowhere". Maybe less federal bureaucracy. You probably shouldn't really be able to pass something if you can't convince at least 15,001 Americans. On the other hand, logistics would be an insane challenge, and you'd have a huge issue with the inability to have an actual in-person debate. Also, who wants to pay 30,000 people six figures a year? We'd have to stop paying them for it to be practical.

For reference, the current wage is $174,000/yr (a stupidly-high amount). $174,000 * 30,000 = $5,220,000,000. I'm severely disinclined to pay over five billion dollars per year (plus additional logistics costs) for pencil-pushers to sit around deliberating what bureaucratic idiocy they will next hand down from on high.

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

#819

Post by whenchamenia »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #284
033803throwaway wrote: post #86

If trump is re-elected it may be the last time a republican wins a presidential election in the current system, due to demographic changes in key states (FL, TX, NC, etc.) If the electoral college is abolished, it could actually end up getting another few republicans elected, since it would incentivize republican turnout in solidly democratic states like California.

I doubt it. The Republicans will just have to move their platform just enough to the left to appeal to whichever state has the 270th vote.

The left has gone so authoritarian they may not have to. Left and right are illusion. Freedom and despotism are what you experince as a citizen.

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

#820

Post by UncleMeat »

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…

> We are not a democracy, seriously no one wants a democracy of 300 million plus.

I do. This sounds much better than a federation of states with weird layers of indirection based on borders drawn by historical accident or anachronistic geographic boundaries like rivers.

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