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

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

#911

Post by notSupplied » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:52 AM UTC

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…

Here is a fun thought exercise: why group by state?

A person's political views is not just shaped by where they live, but their race, gender, sexual orientation, education etc etc. If "location" is just another column in the table properties that describe a person, what if we had a "college" or "senate" based on some other property of an individual?

How about we give all citizens who identify as straight 2 seats and all those who identify as gay 2 seats in this imaginary senate?

Or a college roughly based on race, but for some reason the smaller races are grossly over represented?

How about by religion? As an atheist myself, I'd love to get in on some of that sweet over-representation-of-minorities mojo that Ohioans get.

My point is, cut this along any other descriptive property of an individual other than what state they live in and you get all sorts of colorful results that I'm sure would appall all the conservative proponents of the Electoral college or the Senate.

Is state or location really the most important a property when it comes to deciding whether or not you are a "minority?" When it comes to national issues, do you think a gay black man in Nebraska has more in common with a striaght white man in Nebraska? Or another gay black man in New York? Why does the one in Nebraska get to be an overrepresented minority, yet the one in New York get to be an underrepresented majority?

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

#912

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

CompanionCuuube wrote: post #900

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if Clinton had bothered to campaign in the Rust Belt, she would have won. Trump's politics was aimed at industrial workers, and Clinton thought she didn't need them to win. She bet wrong.

But maybe it's better that candidates don't need the Rust Belt to win? How many voters are there, compared to places like LA and NYC?

Lots. The Rust Belt is heavily populated. We're talking about tens of millions of people in a region stretching from upstate NY to Illinois.

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

#913

Post by jki275 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 12:46 PM UTC

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.

The 3/5 compromise was to reduce the power of slave owning states as they wanted slaves to count fully for determining the states’ representation in the house so they could maintain more control of the house.

The compromise reduced the control the slave states had.

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

#914

Post by jki275 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #899

briandear wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Dude, the Electoral College takes sovereignty AWAY from the states, and concentrates it in only 4-5 states where the race is close. If the Electoral College made every state matter equally, then candidates would be campaigning for support in every state equally. It is a fact that that's not what the Electoral College does. Also, the Electoral College in its current form was not "designed". It was a mistake. The peopl…

You’re confusing where people campaign with who has influence. Wyoming, as a state, has as much influence as California - and that’s how it was designed. Nobody campaigns in either state very much, because their state wide preferences are mostly set - but that doesn’t mean they have no influence.

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

#915

Post by jki275 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

pnw_hazor wrote: post #813

briandear wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It wouldn’t be bloodless, but it would be a civil war.

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

#916

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #792

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right! We're agreeing. Rural dwellers are outliers; their concerns are not addressed by rules made up in the Capitol City.

>their concerns are not addressed by rules made up in the Capitol City They are, depending on the concern. Rural voters have representatives and lobbyists in Washington and there are plenty of laws intended to favor rural interests. Part of the argument in this thread is that the Electoral College itself gives rural states out-sized influence in determining the Presidency. It isn't true that Washington is ignoring ru…

Locally being a euphemism for "by folks in the State capitol"?

Sure there are attempts to design government to balance rural and urban. They work better or worse, at each level. Abolishing them because they are 'out of balance' is maybe not the best solution.

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

#917

Post by jki275 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #395

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…

Weighting "resources" is not a good thing. In the past it's been used to justify some of the most horrific policies in the U.S. The U.S. constitution counted slaves at 60% of a person. Some of the arguments for the three fifths compromise were that slaveholders didn't want people who weren't "knowledgable" about slaveholding to be meddling in slaveholder's business. This is essentially one of the causes that sparked…

Again, the 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power in federal decision making ( the House specifically). It had nothing to do with what you claim.

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

#918

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #917

jdavis703 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weighting "resources" is not a good thing. In the past it's been used to justify some of the most horrific policies in the U.S. The U.S. constitution counted slaves at 60% of a person. Some of the arguments for the three fifths compromise were that slaveholders didn't want people who weren't "knowledgable" about slaveholding to be meddling in slaveholder's business. This is essentially one of the causes that sparked…

Again, the 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power in federal decision making ( the House specifically). It had nothing to do with what you claim.

> Again, the 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power in federal decision making

To claim it reduced their power is false. It was less than they preferred, and more than the free states preferred

The argument for any consideration of slaves in apportionment included the arguments GP puts forward.

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

#919

Post by jki275 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

greenpizza13 wrote: post #830

your-nanny wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you don’t want to go there, presumably because it’s not politically aligned with your beliefs. Which is exactly how it works.

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

#920

Post by jki275 » Sat, Aug 24, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #918

jki275 wrote: post #917

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power in federal decision making ( the House specifically). It had nothing to do with what you claim.

> Again, the 3/5 compromise was forced on the slave states to reduce their power in federal decision making To claim it reduced their power is false. It was less than they preferred, and more than the free states preferred The argument for any consideration of slaves in apportionment included the arguments GP puts forward.

No, it is not false.

The standard would have been that the slaves would have counted for representation purposes, which would have given the slave states the power to ensure slavery continued. The compromise reduced their power drastically and paved the way for slavery to eventually end.