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Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

dvorak.substack.com

41–50 of 90 posts

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#41

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.

I think they are indirectly referring to the NPVIC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... So banished - no, circumvented - possibly.

Of course, the most populous states are the most in favor of NPVIC. I would expect that most of the states that are going to approve it have already done so; I expect that there will be very little further movement.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#42
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the only real place where power still remains with the Republicans is the Senate" And the Supreme Court, and many lower courts, which have been packed with Republicans. Not to mention the military and the police, and probably the intelligence agencies too.

Technically, they are judges at court and should rule according to the law not their political leanings. I am aware that is not necessarily true, but it is also in the self-interest of the judges to be perceived as impartial, otherwise they loose their authority. Police, military and intelligence agencies are government agencies, and are part of the executive. They should do their job irregardless of who is in power.…

"Technically, they are judges at court and should rule according to the law not their political leanings."

If that were true you wouldn't have liberals appointing liberal judges and conservatives appointing conservatives, and fighting tooth and nail over it.

Also, the Supreme Court effectively makes the law, not just follows it, and that's true to some extent of lower courts as well, as most cases never make it to the SC.

It's not a coincidence that now that we have a conservative Supreme Court it's widely expected that Roe v Wade is going to get overturned soon. The law didn't change, but who's on the SC did.

"They should do their job irregardless of who is in power."

They have a lot leeway as to how to do their job, and many of them will use their power to pursue vendettas against people they don't like, as we saw with Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Bagram, black sites around the world, and all the torture and murder that the police engage in.

Prison guards and employees of ICE and Homeland Security are also probably mostly Republicans, and it's hard to argue that their politics and world view doesn't affect the way they do their job or why they are in those jobs in the first place.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#43
The elephant in the room is voter fraud. If we switch to raw vote count then it takes just one loosely regulated precinct to flood the election with fraudulent votes to win the election, and anyone can do this. Sure, this time around one group may win the fraud vote, but next time it will be another group, and the the best fraudsters will conspire to run the country and we will cease to be a democracy and become a kleptocracy. At least with the electoral college the fraud has to be much better organized and spread more across the country.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#44

> This dichotomy between the two types of states along with constant usage of the terms "divisive" and "divisiveness" by the media (and now the politicians themselves) promotes the notion that we are splitting apart along political lines in ways that we've never witnessed before. This is hardly true as any history professor will attest. Citation needed

Well, there was that whole Civil War thing. We are less divided than that, at a minimum.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#45
post #35
post #14

Given that republicans have lost the popular vote in every election since 2000 I don't see them getting on board with going to a straight popular vote anytime in the near future to determine the Presidential election.

George Bush (Republican) won the popular vote in 2004. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidentia...

Ahh - touche - one time out of 6 - not looking like good odds for Republicans to be in favor of going the popular vote route.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#46

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…

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.

> 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.

It does act to prevent the rural areas from becoming totally neglected hinterlands, help them implement polices that may be necessary because of the different conditions of non-urban areas.

That said, I do think the current bargain tips the balance too much, so I'm now in favor of abolishing the Electoral College, and giving the House an advise-and-consent role (in addition to that of the Senate), at least for judges. These smaller states can keep their extra representation in the Senate.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#47
post #18
post #9

While I'd like to agree with him here, if John C Dvorak says it's true, you can bet against it nearly 100% successfully. Look at some of these doozies... [1] [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak

It's amazing how many "media personalities" are basically always wrong on the subject they "specialize" in, and yet they get invited back again and again. I guess that's the whole Gell-Mann Amnesia thing.

Just the face of media disinformation being more apparent for industry practitioners.

Society as a whole has a major dearth of healthy skepticism - perhaps because a consumerist economy doesn't benefit from skeptics, and more from true believers.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#48
If the president is elected by popular vote, then significant amounts of voting fraud in any one state becomes a national issue. So does significant amounts of voter suppression. Opening that can of worms to be fought on a national scale... well, be careful what you wish for.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#49

NPVIC is state level-electoral meddling exactly on a par with what 45 tried in Michigan and Georgia, and aiming for the same outcome. The democrats pushing for it are not trying to correct some abstract statistical imbalance or make it easier for third party candidates to get seats: they are trying to swing elections in those states democratic, pure and simple.

How is it state level meddling? It is up to the states to legislate how to appoint their electors: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S1-C2-1...

Trump was not trying to change the respective laws in the states, but to get someone to change the outcome where they were not in his favour. _After the fact_.

The NPVIC is designed that any change can only come in effect well before an election.

Re: Why the Electoral College Will Be Banished

#50
post #39
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?

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 rendered meaningless?
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