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15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
861–870 of 932 posts
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#862Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice response. With actual data. Of course I am not sure the folks in the San Jaoquin Valley (who produce all that food) would be colored blue if they were an independent state. I don't buy the slave argument -- I think the electoral college was created for the same reason we have two senators per state. Of course those states with large slave populations would have been colored blue, but that is another history folk…
And if the San Jaoquin Valley became its own state conservative votes in San Jaoquin valley and San Fransico would count more if they were seperate states. Which is the whole point. It's telling that my point about economics and representation got turned into a blue / red thing. >> I don't buy that slave arguement.. And you are a historian? The slave states that were large like Virginia wanted the electoral college,…
It seems the electoral college was exploited by slave owners, but what I challenge is that is was created for that purpose. It articles see the electoral college was a vestige of slavery, but that does not seem like a reasonable conclusion. The sources you give all have a serious bias and a vested interest in seeing the electoral college disbanded.
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#863Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably being facetious, but I have heard some version of this argument before. It's akin to saying "give us what we want or we'll hold the country hostage." In reality, free markets being a thing, this wouldn't happen. We can import from other countries and they need to sell their goods to live.
Do you want to eat unregulated Chinese mystery meat? Not that I agree with the sentiment of 'holding the urban areas hostage' but the US and the world need the agricultural production of the central US
California actually provides most of the produce (vegetables fruits and nuts) for the nation. The midwestern corn / soy / beef states are focused on producing bulk commodities for export to other countries.
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#864Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument seems confused to me, but maybe I don’t quite understand, can you elaborate? We do have state level democracy. The electoral college’s purpose is solely for presidential elections, not for local elections. Why shouldn’t we have a democracy for presidential elections? Your reasons given (local control) don’t apply to federal elections. Even with the electoral college, we’re pretty close to democratic rep…
Read the 10th amendment.
Okay, I read the sentence again, and I appreciate you reading my comment and responding to me, but I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Maybe you could elaborate?
The 10th amendment says that when there isn’t already a constitutional directive or a conflicting state law, then either the states or the people can make their own new rules, right?
The electoral college is a constitutional directive, but are you saying you’re favor of an amendment abolishing the electoral college, and suggesting the 10th amendment provides grounds for “the people” to democratically elect a president?
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#865Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Minority" does not always mean skin colour. John Stuart Mill wrote about the tyranny of the majority[0] in 1850's England∗, which I'll hazard a guess was 99% white, even with steamboats and the British Empire reaching right around the world. ∗and he appears to refer to it as a well established idiom so I suspect it goes further back [0] On Liberty https://www.bartleby.com/130/1.html
Well, there's that Constitution you Muricans keep harping on about :D On a more serious note, really, your Constitution should help with that.
Well, I'm British, and it should and does :)
As to it being their constitution, we're really talking about the Bill of Rights, and that was an updated version of the 1689 British Bill of Rights.
It's sad how we no longer have it, and that people in the past had more rights than we have now. American Constitutionalists are right to dig their heels in over anything that looks like it will encroach on their rights.
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#866Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because, without embarrassment at the facetiousness of the straightforward answer, it's a tyranny i.e. it (possibly) restricts or removes the liberty of individuals, sometimes with a big dollop of direct harm like violence. Do you disagree?
And why do you think that tyranny of the minority is better?
Tyranny of the minority is normally just called tyranny, and we know what that looks like.
It's not this.
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#867Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a shame most of these comments are debating the merits of the Electoral College, skipping right past the much more interesting & relevant argument of whether the NPV compact is constitutional. I agree with you that it’s not. States can indeed choose electors with any constitutional method they wish, but if they hold a statewide election, it has to be a fair election or it will run afoul of the 14th Amendment.
How is NPV "unfair"? It is more in the spirit of the 14th than the winner-take-all system, where your vote means more or less depending on where you live (which was a core part of the 14th amendment logic of Gore v Bush)
States don’t get to hold elections for statewide officials (e.g. electors) where some votes are effectively discarded because of some fact external to that state election. Adding up votes from other states isn’t materially different in that regard than performing an augury.
For the same reason, the Western states couldn’t engage in a pact to elect their governors by party slate (especially without triggering the interstate compacts clause).
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#868Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a false dichotomy. The alternative isn't tyranny of the minority, it's a system that takes account of the views of everyone, by forcing candidates to appeal to a wide spectrum of the electorate.
If you want a system to appeal to a wide spectrum of the electorate, there are a large number of dimensions that are far better then geographic address. Gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. For some reason, though, I never see supporters of the electoral college feel that it's right and proper to give equal political power to social minority groups (Only geographical minority groups. As if where you live…
Because states are political units. If you don’t like the laws of one state you can move to another, and this extends to the state's voting power when choosing a president.
As to your innovation in voting, if you accept immutable aspects of identity as the basis for voting rights you're opening the door to some terrible ideas, like ethno-states and Jim Crow laws. Again, without embarrassment at the facetiousness, I'm also not sure how actually making the Jews have more power in 1930s Germany would've solved their problems. Would've probably fuelled grievances: "Hey, Adolf, you know that Jews really do run Germany?" Eeek!
The best way to protect minorities is by the protected freedoms of speech and to bear arms, not by weighting votes by arbitrarily chosen characteristics.
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#869Earlier quoted context omitted.
My recollection from civics was that the college is to prevent populist candidates from winning. Someone very popular only in densely populated areas may have an agenda that hurts rural ones (eg, noting that federal taxes disproportionately go to rural areas for things like maintaining highways, make it “fair” and leave rural people with shit roads and diminished services).
That assumes that "only appeals to cities" is the only type of populist that we need protection from. The electoral college does nothing to protect against things like "only appeals to white people" or "only appeals to Christians" populists, which were not a big concern for America's founders or the much whiter and more Christian rural population today.
Huh? Somehow I doubt the rural population is less white or Christian back in those days.
Re: 15 states are trying to make the electoral college obselete
#870Earlier quoted context omitted.
That assumes that "only appeals to cities" is the only type of populist that we need protection from. The electoral college does nothing to protect against things like "only appeals to white people" or "only appeals to Christians" populists, which were not a big concern for America's founders or the much whiter and more Christian rural population today.
Huh? Somehow I doubt the rural population is less white or Christian back in those days.
English and its ambiguous grammar... I mean when the founding fathers designed the electoral college, they wouldn't have been concerned about it taking power away from minority groups. In addition, the people in rural areas today who are so concerned about removing the electoral college giving more power to cities are not concerned about how the electoral college disenfranchises minorities because they are much less likely to be minorities or have many close friends who are than people in cities and suburbs so it's not something they'd normally think about.