Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 115 posts

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#11

Post by rrauenza »

dheera wrote: post #2

Personally I say abolish the electoral colleges to ensure that every vote actually matters. That alone will reduce voter apathy and get more people actually out there voting.

Consider that our current president is a populist and it could be argued that he only didn't win the popular vote because he didn't focus on that, but rather on the electoral college.

I think the founding fathers would cite our current president as the reason they didn't trust direct democracy...

It's food for thought whenever I think about pushing more towards direct democracy. I've been leaning towards proportional electoral votes, but there are so many unintended consequences.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#12

Post by ultramundane8 »

HideousKojima wrote: post #4

The fight against the electoral college is one of those things that misses the forest for the trees. The real problem is that too much power has been vested in the federal government (and in the executive branch specifically), and too much power has been taken from the states. People would care a lot less about how the president gets elected if he didn't have so much control over the entire country.

I think you're right about the outrage that the electoral college gets, but not its actual faults.

To be sure, it's silly to oppose the electoral college due to personal political leanings. But arguably, the president wouldn't wield so much power were she more representatively elected.

I guess my objection is just that there's a clear feedback loop in power structures, and better representation is one of many avenues available to slow that.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#13

Post by arthens »

platz wrote: post #7

The electoral college itself isn't really the issue. It's the fact that states use winner-take-all apportionment of electors. Unlike the electoral college, winner-take-all apportionment isn't mandated in the constitution. You could have the electoral college and also distribute electors according to the share of popular vote each party received in that state.

This is definitely a huge factor.

A 2 party system is another one. Some founding fathers even wrote against it [1]

[1] https://ritholtz.com/2011/07/founding-fathers-beware-two-par...

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#14

Post by baron816 »

I’ve long been in favor of rewriting the constitution. Everyone hates how the government operates—courts are politicized and at risk of being captured, the legislature is at a constant impasse, everything is hyper partisan, the executive is either way too powerful, or not powerful enough. The only things people can point to that they like about the constitution are the first amendment, and sometimes the second and fourteenth amendments. Other countries have tried out different forms of representative government in the last 231 years. There’s a lot we can learn from them.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#15

Post by s5300 »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #8
HideousKojima wrote: post #4

The fight against the electoral college is one of those things that misses the forest for the trees. The real problem is that too much power has been vested in the federal government (and in the executive branch specifically), and too much power has been taken from the states. People would care a lot less about how the president gets elected if he didn't have so much control over the entire country.

I fully agree with this statement. Jefferson's vision of America was the better one, where the federal is weak and the states are what people are most loyal to, and which hold the most power over people's daily lives. I want to see universal healthcare, but I think if state's taxes were higher than federal, and they were required to come up with a plan that covers everyone, however they want to do that, that it would…

Serious question - how do you think this applies to states that have historically, and recently, discriminated against race, relationships, abortion, and blurred the lines between not separating church & state (as IIRC, the way things were supposed to be)?

It's not really a speculation, more of a fact, that if some higher power doesn't make them be what many see as humane/practice equality, then... they just wouldn't. If they don't, other states might have major issue with them... which isn't good for the prosperity of the nation.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#16

Post by compycom »

HideousKojima wrote: post #4

The fight against the electoral college is one of those things that misses the forest for the trees. The real problem is that too much power has been vested in the federal government (and in the executive branch specifically), and too much power has been taken from the states. People would care a lot less about how the president gets elected if he didn't have so much control over the entire country.

I disagree. Consider our inability to coordinate a proper pandemic response, or the current smoke catastrophe spanning the west coast. The problems facing our country are increasingly national in scope, and require coordinated responses at the federal level. I believe our entrenched commitment to federalism and state's rights is going to hold us back more and more in the years ahead.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#17

Post by r0s »

HideousKojima wrote: post #4

The fight against the electoral college is one of those things that misses the forest for the trees. The real problem is that too much power has been vested in the federal government (and in the executive branch specifically), and too much power has been taken from the states. People would care a lot less about how the president gets elected if he didn't have so much control over the entire country.

Why should states have more power?

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#18

Post by batch12 »

If the nation was intended to be a union of states, then the electoral college is one mechanism that can be used to ensure that each state, as an entity, has an equal vote for federal leadership. I understand it as less of a person voting directly for the President, and more as each person voting for how their state should vote for President. The idea from the article that any argument for the electoral college is racist is a shallow attempt to quiet any real discussion.

edit: grammar

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#20

Post by GeneralMayhem »

striking wrote: post #10
nradov wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds good. Now how do we make that happen? Complaints about the Electoral College are rather meaningless without a realistic proposal for a Constitutional amendment that could achieve the necessary level of political support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... already exists and is 73% of the way to coming into effect. No need for amendments when you have clever legal hackery!

It's the last 20% that's the hardest, though (apart from the first 1%). No state with Republican leadership will ever sign it, because they know that they depend on minority rule. That means that the Democrats effectively have to run enough states to control the Electoral College anyway, and winning enough branches of a state legislature to pass laws is generally more difficult than winning that state in a presidential election. The one thing that's working in favor of the NPVIC happening is that it doesn't have to happen all at once, but that's a double-edged sword - if we get a state or two in the purpleish zone to sign on one year, but it's not enough to get to 270, then they could repeal it the next year.

In particular, it'll be really interesting to see what happens if/when we get to the point where any state joining the NPVIC would push it over the edge. Would that state waver knowing that they're going to be the ones to press the big red button?

You also have the judiciary to worry about. It's not obvious that the NPVIC is constitutional, and I highly doubt that the current Supreme Court, packed as it is with activist right-wing judges, would let it happen.

Post reply on HN