Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#61

Post by yters » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

mreome wrote: post #50

yters wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like geographical proximity influences votes. I am not sure why cities tend to lean so heavily dem, but they do. So if it were just raw vote count the cities would control the whole country. Not sure that is preferable. Then it starts to look like a serfdom, where cities gain wealth through taxing the poor rural areas.

I'm not disagreeing that right now there is strong ideological divide between a majority of people in rural and urban populations, that's patently obvious. But what is the justification for providing someone with a larger representation per-individual based on what are largely arbitrary boundaries? Why should votes from Massachusetts for a Republican president and votes from Arkansas for a Democratic president be ren…

It is not the land voting, but political municipalities which are tied by common culture and people. I think it makes sense to try and give smaller municipalities equal footing with larger municipalities. E.g. in the global scheme we think it is a bad thing when super powers stomp all over the little guy. Same thinking applies internally. Each state is sort of like a mini country.

In general our country seems to try and prevent a tyranny of the majority, which is one of the historical flaws of pure democracy. E.g. see kulaks in USSR, jews in Nazi germany, other minority groups in the US etc.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#62

Post by mreome » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #54

mreome wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand your point, the counter argument to this is "Land doesn't vote, people do." Why does someone deserve to have greater representation because they live on a larger plot of land in a different part of the country? Why does someone in a big city deserve to have less representation?

This discussion was had when the original 13 colonies made a decision, for the second time, to unify under a single federal umbrella government. After the complete failure of the Articles of Confederation, a second initiative was created to desperately try to get the 13 states to subjugate themselves to a collective government. They all wanted the benefits of this shared collective, but had various gripes about joini…

This only holds if people still think they are a "Virginian" first and an "American" second. I've lived in several states, have close family in a dozen different states, and extended friends and family in almost every state. For me and many others, the state borders don't mean a whole lot, they're artificial lines drawn based on political maneuvering from 200 years ago.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#63

Post by pmoriarty » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #56

pmoriarty wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If most people live in the cities, I don't see an argument for letting rural areas have more than their proportional share of representation.

Because their labor matters too. But the thing is that their labor, which is extremely essential to the operation of the country (and the country would fail without their labor), requires more land than hands (especially as we've drastically introduced automation into their labor). We need food and natural resources, arguably more than we need investment bankers and programmers (not that we don't need these things, b…

That's not an argument for them having more than their population-proportional share of representation.

One person, one vote.

Not to mention that the US has a surplus of food, and the US government often pays farmers not to make food, so their value is really overestimated, if anything, especially considering all the subsidies they get at the expense of more populous states.

Most of the people that work in agriculture are probably undocumented immigrants with zero votes and zero representation, and those people who claim to care about the welfare of agricultural workers should have undocumented immigrant rights and representation at the forefront of their agenda. But somehow anti-immigrant, and thus anti-agricultural worker sentiment is rife among such people.

Many people are still under the illusion that small family farms are the ones that are being supported when they give agricultural subsidies. But those people are mostly gone. What are left in their place are huge corporations, and it's they who are benefiting most from the status quo.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#64

Post by votepaunchy » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

trident5000 wrote: post #12

This article says nothing about how it will be banished and is more like a wish. You need 2/3 of states to change and ratify the constitution. Its not even close to being banished.

2/3 of Congress (or 2/3 of the states) to propose an amendment and 3/4 of the states to ratify.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#65

Post by maxerickson » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #52

mreome wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand your point, the counter argument to this is "Land doesn't vote, people do." Why does someone deserve to have greater representation because they live on a larger plot of land in a different part of the country? Why does someone in a big city deserve to have less representation?

That's because it isn't the land that is voting. You're trying to represent a diverse set of people and industries. We shouldn't screw over farmers because laws that work in cities are disastrous in rural areas and we shouldn't screw over cities because of laws that work well in rural areas. We need the farms, mining, energy (solar and wind as well as coal and natural gas), fishing, etc that comes with rural areas. T…

It's weird to divide the 300 million people that live in urban conditions and the 60 million people that live in rural conditions into 2 sides (that's using the statistical definition of urban that counts many small towns as urbanized areas, not the definition of urban that means super-dense megalopolis).

And then Kansas actually has cities in it. Why does a resident of Kansas City (Kansas) get more national voting power than a resident of Los Angeles?

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#66

Post by erik_seaberg » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

mreome wrote: post #62

JPKab wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This discussion was had when the original 13 colonies made a decision, for the second time, to unify under a single federal umbrella government. After the complete failure of the Articles of Confederation, a second initiative was created to desperately try to get the 13 states to subjugate themselves to a collective government. They all wanted the benefits of this shared collective, but had various gripes about joini…

This only holds if people still think they are a "Virginian" first and an "American" second. I've lived in several states, have close family in a dozen different states, and extended friends and family in almost every state. For me and many others, the state borders don't mean a whole lot, they're artificial lines drawn based on political maneuvering from 200 years ago.

It’s true that many citizens feel little loyalty to their state. I think that’s because the feds are so far beyond their remit that states are left with few options for policy differences that would attract like-minded citizens. We now have different people enacting largely the same federal policies.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#67

Post by maxerickson » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #11

projectileboy wrote: post #3

I get where this comes from, but it’s very obviously wrong. It acts like media is the only group with money and influence. Many, many, many interests depend on the voting power that the Electoral College supplies to resource-rich states out west. I’d bet my left arm that the Electoral College will not disappear in my lifetime.

^this. Yes while it may be true that media will benefit from this, it almost virtually guarantees no more Republican presidents. Given that the House is also trending in that direction, the only real place where power still remains with the Republicans is the Senate. Too many mega corporations benefit from keeping the Dems out, (taxes, employee rights, minimum wage, etc.) and they will fight tooth and nail to maintai…

Republicans gained 10 seats in the house and lost several in the Senate (and also lost the majority). Typically the house moves away from the President in the first election after they take office, so there is a fair chance that more seats will go Republican in 2022 also.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#68

Post by candybar » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:26 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #22

Why is the conversation always "abolish vs keep as is?" The EC seems like a good idea that brings equity to a diverse nation but needs some updating as things have changed dramatically since its creation. There are other possible changes that might help, like removing the winner take all situation. But just basing on popular vote alone creates the same problem we're in but from the other direction. We need cities but…

I don't think the concerns you're bringing up have anything to do with Electoral College, which doesn't care about cities or rural areas and doesn't favor small states in any case. It favors a handful of medium to large states that are seen as battleground states. The swing states that received disproportionate attention in the last election are on average quite a bit more urban than the United States as a whole.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-urban-or-rural-is-y...

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#69

Post by drewcoo » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #22

Why is the conversation always "abolish vs keep as is?" The EC seems like a good idea that brings equity to a diverse nation but needs some updating as things have changed dramatically since its creation. There are other possible changes that might help, like removing the winner take all situation. But just basing on popular vote alone creates the same problem we're in but from the other direction. We need cities but…

Because in this country there are dichotomies. There's my chotomy and the wrong chotomy.

In times of stress people tend more to seek simple answers. I can only assume forcing false dichotomies on everything is a sign that people don't feel secure.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#70

Post by mbg721 » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

erik_seaberg wrote: post #66

mreome wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only holds if people still think they are a "Virginian" first and an "American" second. I've lived in several states, have close family in a dozen different states, and extended friends and family in almost every state. For me and many others, the state borders don't mean a whole lot, they're artificial lines drawn based on political maneuvering from 200 years ago.

It’s true that many citizens feel little loyalty to their state. I think that’s because the feds are so far beyond their remit that states are left with few options for policy differences that would attract like-minded citizens. We now have different people enacting largely the same federal policies.

That, and it's just easier to travel now.