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How to Fix the Electoral College

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Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#81

Post by maxerickson »

627467 wrote: post #55
bwanab wrote: post #31

Historically the electoral college was a compromise that allowed for the counting of slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of taxation and voting without having them vote. Consider a state like South Carolina which at the time had about 50% of its population as black. How could the 3/5 of the 50% of the people get added to the total otherwise? Any method would be a hack, but this one had the benefit of being able…

> If you're American living in one of the majority of states that aren't "swing" states, I don't think you can escape the feeling when you vote for president that you're going through a kind of charade since the winner is going to be determined by some small number of voters in 6 states. I don't get the repeating of this perspective, didn't he win the popular vote this time? How did "small number of voters in 6 state…

Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin would be enough electoral college votes to change the election result. The combined margin in those states is currently about 250,000 votes.

So if a few hundred thousand people had decided the other way, the electoral college would have gone to Harris, without really changing the popular vote outcome.

You may be imputing a position that the poster you replied to didn't take (they said voting in a state with predictable outcome feels like a charade, without saying anything about how they vote).

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#82

Post by 627467 »

xnx wrote: post #60
627467 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it's always the sore losers who complain about this. There's are good reasons to keep the system as it is, regardless of who wins. But the discussion is always driven by losers.

> There's are good reasons to keep the system as it is, I've read some of the reasons, but none sound good to me. What do you like about the electoral college?

Think of the extra weight given as Affirmative Action. It isn't hard to get it. It is as socially progressive as any type of affirmative action. Plus, these tend to be remote underconnected areas: why should they be ruled by mobs from far away places who have nothing to do with their way of life? Why stay in an union if your way or life is overruled by others?

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#83

Post by fsckboy »

xnx wrote: post #76
fsckboy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the electoral college was a compromise made a long time ago that has two facets: the indirect nature of voting for representatives who vote for us (that was necessitated by preindustrial communication and transportation systems) and some extra weight given to smaller states to get them to agree to come into the union. That was the deal, no takesy-backsies. It is not going to change because those states that are disad…

> our elections get fought out in a small number of places which is an economically efficient way to do it. In theory shouldn't money spent go right up to the limit of expected return, whether there is one "swing state" or 50?

when i say economics, i'm not referring to money, i'm referring to human endeavor, human effort and human rewards (which, in terms of economics, are exactly what money represents) So, I meant that it's it economically beneficial that most people in the country don't need to care about elections because the system is taking their preferences into account already. There is little to be gained on margin from engaging many more people for only the slightest difference in outcome once in awhile. Since the forces of negative feedback actually move the centerlines wrt to the system we have, it's not clear that the long term results would even be different with a different system.

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#84

Post by tzs »

exabrial wrote: post #69
fsckboy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the electoral college was a compromise made a long time ago that has two facets: the indirect nature of voting for representatives who vote for us (that was necessitated by preindustrial communication and transportation systems) and some extra weight given to smaller states to get them to agree to come into the union. That was the deal, no takesy-backsies. It is not going to change because those states that are disad…

Wow I was pro-electoral college before reading your comment, but now I'm cemented in my view. What you're essentially saying is that the electoral college favors areas with more open minds willing to vote either direction, rather than hard core voting by party, and that is probably the greatest reason to keep it. Political parties _sometimes_ have the people or country's best interest in mind, but ultimately they are…

> What you're essentially saying is that the electoral college favors areas with more open minds willing to vote either direction

How did you draw that conclusion rather than concluding that it favors areas with the people most easily swayed by massive advertising campaigns?

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#85

Post by xnx »

627467 wrote: post #82
xnx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's are good reasons to keep the system as it is, I've read some of the reasons, but none sound good to me. What do you like about the electoral college?

Think of the extra weight given as Affirmative Action. It isn't hard to get it. It is as socially progressive as any type of affirmative action. Plus, these tend to be remote underconnected areas: why should they be ruled by mobs from far away places who have nothing to do with their way of life? Why stay in an union if your way or life is overruled by others?

> Why stay in an union if your way or life is overruled by others?

I understand why the electoral college is hard to change, but I don't know why high population states would want to be overruled by others.

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#86

Post by valval »

atmavatar wrote: post #73
Molitor5901 wrote: post #56

I still can't support changing the electoral college. A few cities deciding the election for everyone feels horribly unfair, and undemocratic. Maybe the EC isn't perfect, but it certainly forces politicians to at least care what people in Iowa, Vermont, and Nevada have to say. It works because of the state system.

Could you elaborate why it's more fair and democratic for a candidate losing the popular vote to win an election (e.g., 2000 and 2016)? Additionally, why is it more fair for a voter in Wyoming to have 3x the electoral impact of a voter in California? The latter is a particular problem borne from the fact that we've capped the size of the House at 435 in 1929, thus giving increasingly disproportionate power to low-pop…

The word “fair” would need to be defined first. Direct democracy is not used anywhere in the world because it’s problematic. Me and my friend can’t vote to beat you up and take your money even though it’s two votes against one. That would be immoral.

Large cities grow their own cultures. People become alike in some aspects, and adopt similar ideologies. There’s no guarantee those people know what’s best for some village far away. There’s also no guarantee they wouldn’t vote to raid that village and put it to the torch, with 30 million votes against 2000.

I think it’s fair that sparsely populated areas get say in nationwide topics as well. When it comes to your longing for a system “more democratic”, well, the US is a constitutional republic and the founding fathers thought about this stuff long and hard.

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#87

Post by bryanlarsen »

yongjik wrote: post #47
duxup wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the electors are restricted to what they can do to some extent, but can the individual state tell the electors to do something that conflicts with what their own voters may have overwhelmingly voted against? That seems like it would inevitably fall apart. Also present a lot of mystery about "they going to do it?" and then someone doesn't and someone else chooses something else. Talk about a mess for democracy ...

I can't find a table for this election, but for 2020, the most Republican state was Wyoming, with 27% (73k) still voting for Biden. Wyoming still got to ignore those 73k voters because the rule says the winner of the state takes it all. Similarly in the other direction: aside from DC, the most Democratic state was Vermont, which ignored its 31% of voters choosing Trump. Now consider that these are the most extreme st…

> There's no reason why it should fall apart any more than the electoral college should.

People will accept a flawed mechanism that's been used for 200 years far more readily than a new slightly-less-flawed-but-still-flawed mechanism.

And every voting mechanism has trade-offs, so every mechanism has flaws from certain perspectives.

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#88

Post by twoodfin »

yongjik wrote: post #77
duxup wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a winner takes all state by LAW isn't the same as just "agreeing" with the next door neighbor state that you will be a winner take all, based on a national popular vote, and tell electors to do something different ... That's not the same thing at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... In each of the seventeen states and DC, National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been passed by the state legislature, and signed by the executive branch, except for Hawaii (whose governor tried to veto it but it was overriden). The bills followed all the proper steps to be signed into respective state's laws. It's not some kind of "agreement." It's…

State laws incompatible with the Constitution are null & void.

“We’re going to award our electors according to a compact never approved by Congress and that by design disenfranchises some fraction of our citizens who voted in a Federal election.”

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#89

Post by 627467 »

xnx wrote: post #85
627467 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the extra weight given as Affirmative Action. It isn't hard to get it. It is as socially progressive as any type of affirmative action. Plus, these tend to be remote underconnected areas: why should they be ruled by mobs from far away places who have nothing to do with their way of life? Why stay in an union if your way or life is overruled by others?

> Why stay in an union if your way or life is overruled by others? I understand why the electoral college is hard to change, but I don't know why high population states would want to be overruled by others.

Why would US vote at UN general assembly be worth the same as China or India at 3 times it's population?

Re: How to Fix the Electoral College

#90

Post by yongjik »

scoofy wrote: post #75
litoE wrote: post #8

Another approach that is in the works is the so-called States Compact whereby each state would assign all its electors to the candidate that gets the most votes nationwide . This has the advantage that no change to the Constitution is needed. Currently, several States have agreed to this, and the Compact will be activated once enough States sign on that provide more than the 270 electoral votes required to win the el…

The problem with a popular-vote systems is that we have a decentralized system of elections. Most people don't take seriously that many states would be incentivizes to cheat or at least look the other way to boost the number of votes coming from their state. It's not election changing if one state, lets say accidentally, allows people to vote twice. It could effect their local outcomes, but if everyone votes twice, i…

It's the other way. Under EC the election is often decided by a single state with tiny margin, and because America does not have the good sense to use a national standard voting system, it falls to the eccentricity of the particular state (and its counties) doing whatever they think is adequate. Look up the "hanging chad" controversy of 2000 - paper punching machines might have not worked properly for a few hundred votes and it potentially decided the outcome of the nation.

Under popular vote, even the minimal vote margins are quite large because it's aggregated at the national scale - e.g., Kennedy defeated Nixon in 1960 with only 0.17% difference in popular vote, which was still 113K votes.

To sway that election, you would've had to organize across multiple states to find a way to smuggle 113K votes illegally, while not getting any suspicions from poll workers and people tabulating results. And non of your co-conspirators should ever divulge it. It's so ridiculous that it approaches "9/11 was an insider job" territory.

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