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The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

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Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#31

Post by joshuamorton »

rrauenza wrote: post #11
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…

> it could be argued that he only didn't win the popular vote because he didn't focus on that,

This is exceedingly unlikely. At least not without major platform changes. A trump that appeals to an additional 3-5 million people looks significantly different.

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

This makes even less sense, a more direct democracy (proportional approtianmemt in the house and senate) would be a much stronger check on an unpopular president. What you're seeing now is what happens when the value of votes are distributed unevenly, such that a party can appeal to a minority while retaining political power.

That said even if it were the case, a popular vote would have other useful far reaching consequences in terms of how federal funding is apportioned.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#32

Post by sky_rw »

baron816 wrote: post #14

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 fo…

And given all of these screwed up things, you would put it to these people to write a better framework?

You say "The only things people can point to that they like about the constitution are..." and then proceed to point out things that are not even in the constitution.

Here is something to like about the constitution: a system of government that has seen the peaceful transition of power every 4 years for 244 consecutive years.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#33

Post by platz »

compycom wrote: post #28
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.

It's still an issue in that this wouldn't afford equal representation. The way the number of electors is determined is {senators + members of congress + 3}. Since the senate affords massively more representation per person to rural states, rural states will be overrepresented in this system as well.

small price to pay to unlock everyones' vote mattering instead of just a couple battleground states.

Also, giving a bit more representation to less populous areas may be a feature you don't want to get rid of quite so hastily.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#34

Post by yongjik »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #22

As others have pointed out, changing the Electoral College is a really big task. However, there is a similar kind of injustice, that is much easier to get rid of. In the NBA Championships and MLB World Series, not every basket and run counts the same. Some are worth more than others. This is because instead of just counting the total number of points scored in the whole series of games and making the team with the mo…

That would be a great analogy, if the purpose of US presidential election is to entertain people and garner ad revenue.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#35

Post by HideousKojima »

r0s wrote: post #17
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?

Depends on what you mean by "should."

As far as legal, historical, and constitutional reasons go, the original idea of the US was sovereign states under a limited federal government. The federal government inherently had no power except that explicitly granted to it by the constitution. Several part of the constitution (most notably the commerce clause) have been stretched far beyond their original meaning and purpose to make the federal government far more powerful than the states.

As far as moral reasons go, I've personally always been of the opinion that government should be as close to the people as possible. National governments (and international ones like the UN and EU) make it almost impossible to truly hold elected officials accountable.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#36

Post by Talanes »

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.

True, but that's arguably just as difficult a change to make. Either getting enough State's to swap that the ones that don't are insignificant, or amend the Constitution. If it comes down to state-level changes, the threshold for that popular vote compact may be lower.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#37

Post by Kalium »

vmception wrote: post #3

There are deeper cases for revisiting the Electoral College than "I don't like it when the popular vote doesn't favor me". One primary issue is that the Electors for each state are not elected. A patch for this and guidance for their behaviors is something that has to be addressed in each state on their own, with a few states here or there seeming to force Electors to submit certain information, such as the popular v…

I think there's a quite strong argument that "I don't like it when the outcome doesn't favor me" is one of the worst available reasons to make major structural changes to a system of government. Major changes can easily be made for short-sighted, petty, power-seeking, partisan, or other unwise reasons. The US Constitution is difficult to change in no small part to guard against these.

Every time I see someone advocating for an Amendment on the basis that they think it will favor their brand of partisanship, I inevitably find myself thinking that they're exactly what the system was designed to stop.

Which is really deeply unfortunate on many levels. These are very often kind, compassionate, caring people who have correctly identified a very real problem in dire need of addressing.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#38

Post by aahortwwy »

ultramundane8 wrote: post #12
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…

It's not obvious that deleting the electoral college would cause US presidential elections to have more representative results.

Firstly, US presidential election results are largely determined by turnout and switching from an electoral college to a single, winner-take-all bloc wouldn't change that underlying reality.

Secondly, even if you accept that "most votes wins" produces representative election results, it turns out that there are all kinds of wacky situations that can emerge in seemingly simple voting systems based on that idea.

Finally, there's a very strong argument to be made that "most votes wins" results in significant minorites being perenially underrepresented, increasingly ignored, and then ultimately disenfranchised.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#39

Post by [deleted] »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #22

As others have pointed out, changing the Electoral College is a really big task. However, there is a similar kind of injustice, that is much easier to get rid of. In the NBA Championships and MLB World Series, not every basket and run counts the same. Some are worth more than others. This is because instead of just counting the total number of points scored in the whole series of games and making the team with the mo…

[deleted]

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#40

Post by HideousKojima »

arthens wrote: post #24
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.

What a weird take. The idea that America could keep the same broken and easy to manipulate electoral system if only the president had less power is ridiculous. The election process is worth fixing no matter how powerful or not powerful the elected official is. Stop pushing your small government agenda on HN.

>Stop pushing your small government agenda on HN.

Then tell OP to keep their anti-electoral college agenda off of HN

The EC isn't inherently broken, most critiques of it miss the point that it was explicitly designed so that the states, and not the people, elect the president. Representatives were the only federal office holders intended to be directly elected by the people

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