The Case for Dumping the Electoral College • Hacker News Board

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#61

Post by nradov » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

jackcosgrove wrote: post #29

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 presidenti…

> You also have the judiciary to worry about. It's not obvious that the NPVIC is constitutional Interstate compacts without the blessing of the federal government are unconstitutional. This is because the federal government has sovereign power over interstate relations, and a bloc of states that coordinate action are effectively challenging that sovereign power. So if the NPVIC is passed, it would also need to be app…

There are already interstate compacts over water rights without the blessing of the Federal government. I don't think those have ever been found unconstitutional.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#62

Post by Areading314 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #48

Areading314 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That may be. But if you want to start a successful movement, think about how it would look as a constitutional amendment. How would you define the amendment in such a way that it accomplishes the desired change, but in a way that 2/3 of congress could still get behind it?

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#63

Post by cmurf » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

techman9 wrote: post #45

I 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. I…

We don't have the Electoral College Hamilton envisioned in Federalist 68. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp

They were supposed to be regular people, not politicians. And certainly not the worst people ever conceived: party loyalists. That's The system we use.

It's also not the ultimate decision making body. If the results are disputed, and no candidate gets 270 Electors, House of Representatives chooses the president, one vote per state. Senate choose VP, one vote per senator.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#64

Post by GeneralMayhem » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

baggy_trough wrote: post #58

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Serious question:) What, specifically, do you see that's new in the past 233 years that we can learn from? Aren't most democracies created since 1787 also extremely flawed and/or mostly copied from the American Constitution? Hand-waving that "it's been 200 years, there must be better ways to do it" without actually providing any is not something I find particularly convincing. In any case, I think a lot of the probl…

Senate apportionment could be handled gradually by a new amendment: 5 years after each census, the largest state is divided into 2 new states.

Again, this is fundamentally impossible to get ratified, because ratification takes 2/3 of states, which means you're going to have to get the ones currently benefiting from the Senate structure to sign on.

EDIT: Also, splitting up states is wildly inefficient, to the point of being laughable as a solution to any problem. First of all, how do you choose where do you draw the line? Maybe California makes it relatively easy, since there's exactly two major population centers, and maybe you can find a way to split Texas in the desert and Florida in the swamp, but once you get to New York in the 4th cycle you're going to have a big problem. Then, you have to split up all the existing stuff the state has - who gets custody of prisoners? who gets the state treasury and/or debt? And finally, you have the simple task of setting up a second state government from scratch - just write a new constitution, have snap elections for all your officials at every level, write new building and utility codes (and figure out how to handle what you already have, especially if the new sub-state is not politically aligned with the old one), hire and train an entirely new civil service, and start collecting taxes.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#65

Post by aahortwwy » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

ultramundane8 wrote: post #59

aahortwwy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 turn…

"More representationally elected" does NOT equate to any of the absolute garbage you are assuming are my views. Please respond to actual comments rather than your vivid imagination. I mean, seriously, try to find evidence of your response in my comment. Please, try your best. This is why there is no more "good faith."

Right back at you.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#66

Post by compycom » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

One half solution that people don't tend to bring up: massively increase the number of members of congress. The formula for a states representation in the electoral college is {number of senators + number of representatives}.

Since the senate is fixed at 2 senators per state, it massively advantages small states in terms of political power per person. The number of representatives per state is currently set at 435, and is allocated proportionately to population. This number is arbitrary, and can be changed by an act of congress. Increasing it will dilute the power of the electors from the Senate.

There's also compelling reason to increase the number of for its own sake: the number of people per representative is higher now than it has ever been. And it's much higher than other Western democracies.

When the Constitution was written, the number of representatives was set so there'd be one for every 30,000 people. The idea was that the number would be increased over time, and there was almost almost an amendment ratified to ensure this would happen, where the ratio would never get above 50,000 per.

But the number of representatives hasn't been updated since 1929. Back then, there was one representative per 218,000 people. Now there's one representative per 744,000. If we had the 1929 ratio in place, we'd have 1505 representatives. And if we set representatives at 50,000 per person (as preferred by founders such as Washington), we'd have 6564.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#67

Post by gizmo686 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:07 AM UTC

HeavenFox wrote: post #23

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 agree with you; in practice, however, when Alabama enacts anti-abortion law New Yorkers get pissed; when New Jersey enacts anti-gun law Texans get pissed. Everyone want to push their favorite ideology nationwide and the federal government grows as a result.

More practically, states have open borders. In the world where the constitution was written, this was not as big of a deal. However, improvement to transportation technology mean that it has become increasingly possible to circumvent one states laws by traveling to another state. Hence, any law a state may want to make legitimatly becomes an issue of interstate commerce, which is nessasarily a federal concern [0].

For instance, when Alabama enacts their anti-abortion law, they could have a legitamite grievence that their residents can hop in a car and spend a weekend taking a road trip up to New York (assuming every closer state passes a simmilar law) and get their abortion there.

Or, when New Jersey passes their anti-gun law, they can get pissed that their citizens can go to Texas to buy guns and take them back to New Jersey.

We (arguably) fought a civil war over this issue. States had different laws with regards to slavery. The southern states were upset that their laws on slavery were being undermined by the ability of slaves to travel to northern states which would than grant their freedom. A compromise was struck were federal law (the fugitive slave act) would require northern states to honor the slave laws of southern states and return slaves. Some northern states asserted their states rights to not follow this law; thereby continuing to allow slaves freedom once they crossed the border. We may have had a civil war regardless; but if the northern states weren't able to directly undermine the slavery laws of the southern states, it may not have reached that point.

[0] Although, even with modern transportation technology, Wickard v. Filburn (1942) takes a very broad view of what constitutes interstate commerce.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#68

Post by nradov » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:11 AM UTC

thayne wrote: post #25

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…

I remember one of my teachers proudly saying how great the constitution was since it has hardly changed in 200 years. I now realize that while the constitution was great for it's time, the fact that we haven't changed it to apply what we've learned from both our own experience, and that of other democracie, or account for changes in technology and society, is not a good thing.

The Constitution has been amended 27 times. That seems like enough.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#69

Post by jonathankoren » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:11 AM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #42

The 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.

A republic is a democracy. It’s just one that has a president, and not a king.

That’s all it is. It’s not representatives It’s not federalism. It’s just not having a monarch.

Re: The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

#70

Post by ultramundane8 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 6:15 AM UTC

aahortwwy wrote: post #65

ultramundane8 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"More representationally elected" does NOT equate to any of the absolute garbage you are assuming are my views. Please respond to actual comments rather than your vivid imagination. I mean, seriously, try to find evidence of your response in my comment. Please, try your best. This is why there is no more "good faith."

Right back at you.

Literally your entire comment is based on the assumption that I advocated "a single, winner-take-all-bloc." Elementary reading comprehension in all its scarcity reveals that I never said that.

What is your point exactly?