The threshold for changing the constitution is exceptionally high, requiring 38 states. If the Electoral college gives more power to smaller states, why are they going to give that power up? Why is Wyoming and North/South Dakota going to give up their more valuable electoral votes to get rid off the electoral college? Also it benefits one party over another. Unless there is overwhelming broad appeal, this isn't going to happen. The only way it would change is if the party that benefits from this structure were to suddenly lose because of it. Why would that happen? I understand how pro-democracy argument, but the logistics required to make this happen is far removed.
The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
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Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#42The word democracy doesn't appear anywhere in the US republic's constitution.
The USA was set up so that the electoral college had the final say over any populist choice of leadership, ie veto power. This is similar to the way the far more recent unelected EU commissioners are the senior decision and strategy makers.
The issue is centralized federalism and how to dilute this.
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#43I’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 consecu…
>a system of government that has seen the peaceful transition of power every 4 years for 244 consecutive years.
If you don't count that little incident in the 1860's
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#44I’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…
I think we should split the executive into three. Have one person responsible for economic matter, one person for international affairs and the military, and one person for all other domestic policy. Have 6 year terms and stagger elections (like the Senate). That way, power is more divided and elections can be focused on policy. Each position would be less susceptible to a “cult of personality,” and it would be relatively clear what would qualify a person for the job (eg. economists & businesspeople for the first, military & diplomats for the second, lawyers & activists for the third).
For the legislature, I’d go for a lower house that would be a form of proportional representation. Each representative would have voting power in proportion to how many votes they receive. There could be thresholds and limits, and could allow people to split their votes for representatives (so you could get single issue candidates in).
The upper house wouldn’t vote for bills at all. They’d be regional, and regions could easily design themselves (so a city could form its region and expand with expanding suburbs, or split off from its suburbs). They’d basically be glorified lobbyists to promote local issues, or delay a bill if their region would be adversely affected by it. Regions aren’t as important as they used to be (Phoenix and Atlanta are politically pretty similar), but you still want to preserve their voice.
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#45I do wonder whether the electoral college system somewhat insulates the US from election tampering or voter fraud. The current system disaggregates election certification to the state level, which is then made official by a discrete vote of the electoral college. For instance, if Donald Trump wants to claim that the election was rigged or tampered with, it's sort of moot as it's ultimately up to the state electors.
It feels like in the face of this, it's very hard for one candidate to dispute the election, as it's ultimately resolved by electoral vote. If we were to change the system to one based only a national first past the post poll, even one certified by vote totals from individual states, I wonder how you'd ensure an impartial certification of the final result.
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#46The 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.
Maine and Nebraska are the two states that don't do winner-take-all. Most states won't switch to proportional allocation because the party with the most political power in a state is likely to lose electoral college votes by switching.
> In forty-eight states and D.C., the winner of the plurality of the statewide vote receives all of that state's electors; in Maine and Nebraska, two electors are assigned in this manner and the remaining electors are allocated based on the plurality of votes in each congressional district.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#47The 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.
Why do you think pandemic response or wildfire are national in scope? Both can be handled at the state level. For example California, Oregon, and a Washington could perform necessary controlled burning (https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-...) or harvest trees on a timely basis (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/california-today-100-m...), or at least stay in target with even their existing forest management target, which they haven’t (https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/to-stop...). Whatever states cannot accomplish on their own, they can certainly invest in - whether it is purchasing PPE or hiring loggers.
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#48I’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…
There is a mechanism to amend the constitution, which has been used numerous times over the years, as the country and culture have shifted. I think it's somewhat naive to think, especially in the current climate, that a rewriting of the constitution would do anything to serve the people.
I made no mention of how likely it is. As far as I know, I’m the only one who wants to do it. Movements have to start somewhere though.
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#49I’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…
I’m not sure anyone has succeeded in preventing courts from being politicised, but it’s probably one of the most important things to do to preserve democracy.
Turkey was a thriving democracy turned slowly authoritarian by stacking the courts with political judges. Poland is in the midst of a similar transformation.
Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College
#50For people that complain a party won without the popular vote under the current rules, if you changed the rules for what defines winning, then that party would have campaigned in a completely different way
E.g. under the old rules, maybe the winning party purposely didn't campaign in a state they knew they couldn't win (a logical use of campaign funds), dragging down their countrywide vote. If the countrywide vote was important though, they wouldn't have campaigned like this.
You could argue that the current rules for winning don't accurately match the general will of the people but it's illogical to me to argue that the party that won under the current rules would have or should have lost if the rules changed.
Making it easier for people to vote and getting more people to vote seems like a no-brainier improvement though.