15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete • Hacker News Board

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#161

Post by mikeash » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

not_a_moth wrote: post #15

An argument I heard recently against this is, if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories, and they won't be accountable to rural territories. That basically makes sense. The EC is the only thing that really gives rural territories any stake, as the majority population has shifted to larger urban centers. People who want to get away from the big cities and live a different kind of…

Why doesn’t this same logic also apply to, say, black people? The percentages are about the same. Why do we dedicate the entire shape of our system to ensuring that rural Americans aren’t forgotten, as opposed to any other group of that size?

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#162

Post by tempestn » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #140

thomascgalvin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint to that is that the Electoral College has transferred so much power to rural areas that we are no longer an actual representative democracy. For example, a vote in Wyoming counts 3.6 times more than a vote in California.[1] The people in California are not represented in the Presidential election; it would be more accurate to say that one-quarter of the people in California are represented. "Rural is…

If rural issues aren't handled then you'll have even more urbanization and even more expensive housing. The odds are already attacked against rural life. > Why are the concerns of the people living in LAC less important than the concerns of the people in Nevada or Arkansas? So instead you want even more people from Nevada and Arkansas to move to LAC, because that's where politicians will pay attention?

That doesn't seem any more likely to me than Californians moving to Wyoming to make their vote count today.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#163

Post by peapicker » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #142

danaris wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the higher the turnout, legal or not, the more power for that state Every actual study of the matter I've seen or heard of has shown no evidence of any significant fraudulent voting, particularly not systemic fraudulent voting. While there might be a theoretical concern about incentives here, there's a lot of problems we know are happening right now with voter suppression under the system that we have.

Yep - illegal voting is straight up FUD.

Conceded, and removed that wording.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#164

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #122

umvi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right? Yeah but maybe that's a good thing. Otherwise you have a situation like New York where NYC gets to dictate everything since it's super high population density even though the majority of geographical NY state is farmers. So the farmers get screwed over by the interests of the city folk wh…

> Yeah but maybe that's a good thing. Only if you start with the assumption that different individuals voters should have different amounts of political influence, which the NPV movement is explicitly rejecting. > Otherwise you have a situation like New York where NYC gets to dictate everything since it's super high population density even though the majority of geographical NY state is farmers. So the farmers get sc…

An individual voter in Wyoming should have more say over what happens in Wyoming than an individual voter in New York.

Given the geographic clustering of opinions, it is not adequate to give every individual equal say over every area.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#165

Post by ur-whale » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

not_a_moth wrote: post #15

An argument I heard recently against this is, if abolished, politicians won't have incentives to campaign in rural territories, and they won't be accountable to rural territories. That basically makes sense. The EC is the only thing that really gives rural territories any stake, as the majority population has shifted to larger urban centers. People who want to get away from the big cities and live a different kind of…

That's the wrong way to look at the problem.

The real core issue is: the president and the federal govt has way too much power. There is no reason why a centralized authority should decide on policies for both rural and urban communities.

If political power was surrendered back down to where it naturally belongs, i.e. to the state, or even better to the city level, and the fed was stripped and left with little to no political power, this whole electoral college charade would become entirely moot.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#166

Post by wolco » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

sp527 wrote: post #96

peapicker wrote: post #71

Firstly, I'm an independent - I actually have a great deal of issues with both major parties. My concern with abandoning the college starts with this observation: Swing states are the states most likely to have divided government. And if divided government is good for anything, it is accountability. So with the Electoral College system, when we do wind up with a razor-thin margin in an election, it is likely to happe…

Nothing you said provides an argument against equally weighting each citizen’s vote at the federal level. States have select powers over the federal government that are specifically provided by our Constitution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights . When you vote in local elections, you are in effect in control of certain outcomes within your state, as accorded by our Constitution. The federal election d…

In Canada we do this because it allows more representation in minority populations provinces. Very small provinces or Quebec get slightly overrepresented in seats. Rural areas have less people per riding but greater distances makes it logical to do that. If the person who represents you has to travel 100 miles by plane to meet up with small 500 people villiages compared to walking a few blocks in a big city to reach everyone. It doesn't make sense to make them ridings/counties equal.

On that same note the 500 person community will have different needs compared to other 500 person communities in the same riding. In a big city the issues will be very similiar citywide.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#167

Post by peapicker » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #125

peapicker wrote: post #71

Firstly, I'm an independent - I actually have a great deal of issues with both major parties. My concern with abandoning the college starts with this observation: Swing states are the states most likely to have divided government. And if divided government is good for anything, it is accountability. So with the Electoral College system, when we do wind up with a razor-thin margin in an election, it is likely to happe…

The MP's in the UK are elected by popular vote though. I agree you would have to have the same standard for voter registration. One way of improving the current system (from an outsiders pov) would be to make electors all faithless and having parties switch to One member one vote and do a way with registering.

And the electors of a congressional district are elected by popular vote of their state already. Kind of like an MP.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#168

Post by MadWombat » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #134

jonathankoren wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reinforce this idea, my city has 3x the population of Wyoming. I grew up rural, but I long ago moved to an urban life. Politicians — and to be honest rural folk themselves — often try to enforce the idea that rural life is somehow more genuine. You’ll hear this as “Real America”, or how city folks don’t understand how “the Real World works”, or are some how “out of touch”. Which is fundamentally a completely bizar…

> when the majority of Americans (and I believe the world in general now) live an urban life. I think you're underestimating the figures. 80.7% of Americans lived in urban areas according to the 2010 census. Estimates for the entire world are over 50% for over a decade now (since 2007, to be more accurate). It increases slowly but steadily, so we were at about 55.27% in 2018. It's going to be about 68% by 2050 and ab…

"It's going to be about 68% by 2050 and about 85% by 2100"

If the trend doesn't change for the next 80 years. Which is a big if.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#169

Post by ur-whale » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

The real core issue is the president and the federal govt has way too much power. There is no reason why a centralized authority should decide on policy for both rural and urban communities and for states as deeply different as Louisiana and Washington state.

If political power was surrendered back down to where it naturally belongs, i.e. to the state, or even better to the city level, and the fed was stripped and left with little to no political power, this whole electoral college charade would become entirely moot.

Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete

#170

Post by thwythwy » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #150

The Connecticut Compromise is good and all, but I think it's about time we discard it as an artifact of the days when communication was difficult and states had expectations around operating as semi-autonomous bodies. States used to be a strong identity tie than the nation but our general mindset has shifted toward identifying as Americans before Delawareans.

Long live Delaware! You otherins shant try to come on err land and regalate err corporate forms.