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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

#821

Post by Fjolsvith »

pjc50 wrote: post #713
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. Well, that didn't work.

Probably something taught by a not conservative teacher/professor.

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

#822

Post by munk-a »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #366
munk-a wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eeeeh... Texan's have a lot of state pride - but try confusing a Texan for a Delawarean vs. confusing a Texan with a Canadian or Kiwi - pretty sure the Texan will be more offended with either of those later confusions if they've got that weird patriotism streak.

As an American and a Texan, I find it sad you think patriotism is weird.

I find patriotism to be weird because it's so arbitrary - patriotic immigrants get a pass, but natural born citizens didn't ever make an active choice or put in the effort to become a citizen. I also fail to see why people in one country should be inherently given benefits that people in another country lack... Patriotism to me boils down to a weird form of elitism.

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

#823

Post by tunesmith »

SyneRyder wrote: post #700
ananonymoususer wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that the Cambridge Analytica "hack" is even an issue? The reason is because the data was used to get an "evil" republican elected. The exact same tactics were used to get Obama elected, and nobody seems to be complaining.

Indeed, the system Harper Reed built for the 2012 Obama campaign was widely hailed at the time for how it personalized campaigns to each individual voter, by building a big data store about every voter in the US: "Those apps include sophisticated analytics programs like Dreamcatcher, a tool developed to "microtarget" voters based on sentiments within text." "All of the data collected through various volunteer interac…

This seems to over-abstract the issue by treating the content of each campaign as irrelevant.

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

#824

Post by delecti »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #814
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?

Not Seattle and Portland.

Seattle is still less white than the country as a whole, and Oregon has a weird history that makes it an outlier. In any case, a couple exceptions doesn't change that cities trend less white.

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

#825

Post by parineum »

yks wrote: post #510
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…

Currently it seems that rural states push all the bad things on themselves, e.g. climate change and other environmental destruction, so how much worse can it be for them?

The non-rural states are responsible for more environmental damage but they export it to other states/countries.

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

#826

Post by kd5bjo »

screye wrote: post #815
exclusiv wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 populatio…

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

Because those people control a large fraction of the country’s food supply and it would be a disaster if they decided to stop selling it to the rest of us.

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

#827

Post by kd5bjo »

hinkley wrote: post #620
exclusiv wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

As I recall, the electoral college was primarily for logistical reasons— a number of people come to Washington, meet together, and the outcome of that meeting determines the next President, with no appeals because the people in the room are empowered to choose.

Communication happened at the speed of a horse, so if you need a decision quickly, you can’t have electors asking for instructions from their home government. For better or worse, the founders favored a definitive result in this case over a correct one.

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

#828

Post by greenpizza13 »

kd5bjo wrote: post #826
screye wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 populatio…

> Why is cross regional appeal of any value, if these region don't make up even 10% of the combined US population. Because those people control a large fraction of the country’s food supply and it would be a disaster if they decided to stop selling it to the rest of us.

You're probably being facetious, but I have heard some version of this argument before. It's akin to saying "give us what we want or we'll hold the country hostage."

In reality, free markets being a thing, this wouldn't happen. We can import from other countries and they need to sell their goods to live.

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

#829

Post by greenpizza13 »

newfriend wrote: post #583
sachdevap wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quantify that "very close", in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes, which is 1.5% of the voting population. I would not call that very close. It isn't a difference of some 1000 votes. It's an election of a minority leader.

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.

You refuse to appreciate the context of his comment. Trump is a minority leader in the context of the popular vote. That's just by definition.

The reason we're not talking about electoral votes is because the discussion revolves around how things would change if we went with the popular vote.

Yes, he got more electoral votes. Many would argue this is a broken system which has fucked our country for the second time in 3 presidents.

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

#830

Post by greenpizza13 »

your-nanny wrote: post #802
flamingbuffalo wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Then move to Wyoming.

This is such an overwhelmingly stupid statement. It's effectively "if you don't like it, then leave."

Wyoming is not as desirable as California in many ways. People don't want to go there. Just because it's not as desirable doesn't mean it should get arbitrary favoritism when it comes to elections.

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