The US National Popular Vote is a little bit closer

[TomC]

5 times in 200 years. Normally that would not be considered a terrible common occurrence.

Did you mean to say 5 times in 59 elections?

That is indeed far TOO common an occurance.

What's more important to me is 5 times over 250 years, but 2 of them were in the last couple of decades.
It's the trend, not the totality.
Tom

 

[Gospel]

The people whose "will and consent" was needed were the Founding Fathers, as the representatives of Americans, and winners of the recent war - A war which was far from over, as subsequent events in 1812 were to show.

They had no concerns whatsoever that the Americans who were in charge of America would ever become tyrants. That's a modern re-interpretation of their words that is now part of the American National Myth. I am not at all surprised that you wholeheartedly believe it. That doesn't make it any more true.

When a newly empowered government is under attack from many sides, and is far from secure in its power, the last thing it worries about is that a future instance of itself might become tyrannical. The big worry was that a future government might capitulate to one of these threats - in this case, to a resumption of English rule.

The federalist papers. Herd of them? Particularly Federalist No. 51, written by James Madison in 1788? Just 12 years after America declared independence?

^^^^ This ^^^^
And see also the Anti-Federalist Papers. "Founding Fathers" includes not only the ruling faction bilby refers to, but also the opposition figures who were able to shove a Bill of Rights down the throats of the unwilling Federalists.

To my knowledge without those pesky dissenters called Anti-Federalist I might not be free today. They're the reason the Bill of Rights is a thing. I mean granted for them I'm unintended consequences but it's all good.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't see why. Anybody who wants to cast other people's proxy votes registers with the government as a potential legislator. She gets issued a unique ID number which she publicizes. To vote, anybody who wants her to be his proxy types the number into a voting machine. The voting machines are all connected to vote-counting central by a network using a cryptographically secure protocol. The central computers figure out how many proxies each potential legislator holds. Anybody with less than, say, 100,000 proxies doesn't get a seat in the legislature, but that doesn't mean her voters are out of luck; it means their proxy holder is told she needs to re-proxy them to somebody else, forming a tree-structure of representation. Computers are great at understanding tree structures. In the actual legislature, everybody with a seat casts the votes of herself and all the voters she directly or indirectly holds the proxies of. The numbers of votes would be so big you'd need a computer to tell whether a bill passes, but computers are cheap.

You wouldn't even need to schedule elections. Anybody could walk into a voting booth any time she likes and change who she gives her proxy to. If you're a policy-junkie and you like paying attention to such things and your representative is about to vote-trade your interests away, you can transfer your proxy to somebody else on the spot. (Not that you'd need to, provided you gave your proxy to some very like-minded person. He may only represent 1,000 voters but he can still represent them very well -- he can pay attention to the progress of bills for you, and transfer his 1,000 votes en masse to a more acceptable legislator when the need arises.)

(One gotcha is that the thousands or millions of low-level proxy holders would need to be told how many proxies they hold only approximately. Giving them exact numbers would compromise the secret ballot.)

You're basically stealing my proposal. The differences I see:

1) Your 100,000 threshold is meaningless and counterproductive. You simply keep taking the person with the lowest number of votes and pushing them up to whoever they have selected as a proxy. Repeat until the list is reduced to the number of representatives you want, there is no numeric threshold. Depending on how people assign proxies you could get representatives with small but dedicated followings. I would expect more such people to serve because a group's power is completely independent of how many they have in the legislature so long as they have at least one.

2) I see no reason for anyone to know how many proxies they hold. The vote totals will of course give everyone a pretty good idea of the number for each legislator.

3) While I would permit changing at any time I would put some lag in the process (say, takes effect on the 1st) and I would set a schedule to reseat the legislature even though the voting power updates sooner.

 

[Gospel]

That promotes direct democracy and fosters a more diverse representation, reflecting the wide spectrum of our society. Unacceptable!

Next you're gonna expect a regular legislative turnover schedule, allowing citizens the opportunity to reevaluate their satisfaction with their representatives and make changes if they find their representation unsatisfactory?

This is all crazy talk!

 

[bilby]

How many elections was that true, where the EC and popular vote did not agree?

Four. If you want the gory details, Wikipedia knows all.
In addition to those four, John Quincy Adams lost both the popular vote and the EC; he became president by the state-counting vote in the House of Representatives.

5 times in 200 years. Normally that would not be considered a terrible common occurrence.

Elections for President are only once every four years; It's about one in every twelve elections.

 

[Emily Lake]

I remain undecided on this popular vote business. I say, let's wait until we hit a demographic equilibrium, a 50/50 split between diverse communities and our white compatriots. Kna mean? Then we can consider the popular vote. As it stands, there's an overabundance of eccentric folks across the political spectrum. Liberals, conservatives—you name it!

Like I said earlier... I could get behind a popular vote, but ONLY under a different voting system. Not with FPTP. Not the least of which is the ability of a majority with bad ideas to ruin it for everyone.

If you only have one president at a time, then all possible fair voting systems for presidents are effectively FPTP.

No, this is false.

 

[Emily Lake]

Like I said earlier... I could get behind a popular vote, but ONLY under a different voting system. Not with FPTP. Not the least of which is the ability of a majority with bad ideas to ruin it for everyone.

If you only have one president at a time, then all possible fair voting systems for presidents are effectively FPTP.

Why is that? I know of numerous non-FPTP voting and vote-counting methods.

• FPTP - vote for only one candidate
• Approval - can vote for more than one candidate
• Range, rated, score - like approval, but votes can have partial strength
• Ranked - rank the candidates from most to least preferred

For FPTP, approval, and rated voting, one adds up all the votes, though for rated voting, there is an alternative called "majority judgment", which is to compare the median votes for each candidate. Cumulative voting is a variation of rated voting where each voter's total vote is at most some value.

For ranked voting, the most common procedure is instant runoff -- the winner is whichever candidate has a majority of top preferences, and if no candidate does so, then drop the candidate with the fewest top preferences and redo the count with that candidate ignored. Repeat until some candidate gets a majority.

An alternative is the Borda count, translating rankings into ratings with first preference = (number of candidates), second preference = (number of candidates) - 1, etc. and counting as for a rated vote.

Another is Condorcet methods. These turn the election into a virtual round robin, finding the number of times the voters rank each candidate above each other candidate, the "Condorcet matrix". One then tries to find the Cordorcet winner, the one who beats all the others in one-on-one contests. With circular preferences, there won't be a Condorcet winner, and there are various algorithms for finding a winner in such a case, some of them rather complicated.

My favored approach is straightforward Approval. It encourages more candidates, as well as more parties, so gives voice to a larger diversity of views. It's also most likely to result in a candidate that is acceptable to the largest number of people, so prevents a lot of infighting and oppositional behavior. Nothing is perfect, but I like this best.

I don't have any particular preference in the event of a tie.

I'd also really love to see VP be unpaired from President. I'd love to see the VP be the second place winner.

 

[Emily Lake]

If you are looking to fix this by abolishing the Senate and the EC then you've already given up.

Neither Rhea nor I are looking for that.
We aren't talking about the Senate in this thread, except as an occasional derail. And we're not talking about abolishing the EC.
What we're talking about, specifically, is making the POTUS an elected position. One that represents the American people better than the best liars and cheats.
Which is the current reality.
Tom

As long as we have FPTP, the president is only going to represent at best half the people, and is still going to be the best liar and cheat.

FPTP encourages divisive partisanship, and inevitably turns into a two-party oppositional system.

 

[Emily Lake]

But unless “conservative identification” is synonymous with “enthusiasm for fascism”

I think it has largely been for a few years now. There are only two kinds of people who could support a Trump led GOP: Enthusiastic fascists, and people who are utterly clueless.

Perhaps I am making too many charitable assumptions about the level of utter cluelessness in America; Maybe all this "conservative identification" is nothing more unpleasant than common or garden cluelessness writ large. Maybe fascism has always depended more on cluelessness than on enthusiasm. But in a democracy, I am underconvinced that that's an excuse.

THE OTHER PARTY IS EVIL!!!! THEY'RE BAD!!!!! THEY NEED TO BE ELIMINATED!!!!!

 

[Emily Lake]

Because you have a two party system.

In a two party race, you either have FPTP, or you have a system that allows the less popular candidate to win (eg an electoral college system that gives some voters far more power than others, based on which state they live in).

You've got the cart before the horse. We have a two party system because we have FPTP.

 

[TomC]

Elections for President are only once every four years; It's about one in every twelve elections.

However, since the late 90s, when the Democrats went center-right, it's been 2 of 6.
In one out of three POTUS elections, the EC overruled the American people. Add the gerrymandering and voter suppression and flat out insurrection.

Yeah, the USA has a huge problem supporting basic democracy. It's referred to generically as "Republicans".
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

To my knowledge without those pesky dissenters called Anti-Federalist I might not be free today. They're the reason the Bill of Rights is a thing. I mean granted for them I'm unintended consequences but it's all good.

Hey now, Toni and Rhea and I were unintended consequences too.

 

[TomC]

If you are looking to fix this by abolishing the Senate and the EC then you've already given up.

Neither Rhea nor I are looking for that.
We aren't talking about the Senate in this thread, except as an occasional derail. And we're not talking about abolishing the EC.
What we're talking about, specifically, is making the POTUS an elected position. One that represents the American people better than the best liars and cheats.
Which is the current reality.
Tom

As long as we have FPTP, the president is only going to represent at best half the people, and is still going to be the best liar and cheat.

FPTP encourages divisive partisanship, and inevitably turns into a two-party oppositional system.

But here in the US, we don't even have a system as good as FPTP, concerning POTUS.

Second place finisher in the People's Election can still easily start nominating SCOTUS judges from the Oval office.
Tom

 

[bilby]

But unless “conservative identification” is synonymous with “enthusiasm for fascism”

I think it has largely been for a few years now. There are only two kinds of people who could support a Trump led GOP: Enthusiastic fascists, and people who are utterly clueless.

Perhaps I am making too many charitable assumptions about the level of utter cluelessness in America; Maybe all this "conservative identification" is nothing more unpleasant than common or garden cluelessness writ large. Maybe fascism has always depended more on cluelessness than on enthusiasm. But in a democracy, I am underconvinced that that's an excuse.

THE OTHER PARTY IS EVIL!!!! THEY'RE BAD!!!!! THEY NEED TO BE ELIMINATED!!!!!

Accusing someone of criminal behaviour isn't unreasonable when they are engaging in criminal behaviour; This remains true even in an environment where people habitually make unreasonable accusations against non-criminals.

 

[Toni]

How many elections was that true, where the EC and popular vote did not agree?

Four. If you want the gory details, Wikipedia knows all.
In addition to those four, John Quincy Adams lost both the popular vote and the EC; he became president by the state-counting vote in the House of Representatives.

5 times in 200 years. Normally that would not be considered a terrible common occurrence.

Elections for President are only once every four years; It's about one in every twelve elections.

There are actually just 2 clusters of EC vote total not reflecting the popular vote. Those cases have all been very close elections.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

5 times in 200 years. Normally that would not be considered a terrible common occurrence.

Did you mean to say 5 times in 59 elections?

That is indeed far TOO common an occurance.

What's more important to me is 5 times over 250 years, but 2 of them were in the last couple of decades.
It's the trend, not the totality.
Tom

The first time the popular vote and the EC vote did not agree should have been a red flag and the system should have been changed.

 

[TomC]

The first time the popular vote and the EC vote did not agree should have been a red flag and the system should have been changed.

And risk giving the British a beachhead in the colonies?
All the Founding Fathers had to do "whatever necessary" to keep the colonies united, on pain of death.

Imagine how long Benjamin Franklin would have survived after South Carolina decided to leave the Insurrection, and the British military got access to Charleston Harbour. Not long.

The Founding Fathers were international criminals, at the time. Violent Insurrectionists. And lots of colonists weren't on board with this unScriptural "democracy" thing. They were referred to as Loyalists. They believed in The Divine Right of Kings, that is "God put George III on the throne, only God can remove him."

I honestly doubt that had the Declaration of Independence been put to a free and fair vote, a popular referendum, it would have passed.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

But unless “conservative identification” is synonymous with “enthusiasm for fascism”

I think it has largely been for a few years now. There are only two kinds of people who could support a Trump led GOP: Enthusiastic fascists, and people who are utterly clueless.

Perhaps I am making too many charitable assumptions about the level of utter cluelessness in America; Maybe all this "conservative identification" is nothing more unpleasant than common or garden cluelessness writ large. Maybe fascism has always depended more on cluelessness than on enthusiasm. But in a democracy, I am underconvinced that that's an excuse.

THE OTHER PARTY IS EVIL!!!! THEY'RE BAD!!!!! THEY NEED TO BE ELIMINATED!!!!!

Accusing someone of criminal behaviour isn't unreasonable when they are engaging in criminal behaviour; This remains true even in an environment where people habitually make unreasonable accusations against non-criminals.

You're not accusing an individual of criminal behavior though. You're denigrating all republicans as being either evil fascists or clueless morons, with no in between and no nuance. You're decided that all conservatives love Trump, and that anyone who prefers Trump to Biden for any reason at all is either evil or dumb.

I stand by my characterization of your post as tribalistic nonsense.

 

[Emily Lake]

How many elections was that true, where the EC and popular vote did not agree?

Four. If you want the gory details, Wikipedia knows all.
In addition to those four, John Quincy Adams lost both the popular vote and the EC; he became president by the state-counting vote in the House of Representatives.

5 times in 200 years. Normally that would not be considered a terrible common occurrence.

Elections for President are only once every four years; It's about one in every twelve elections.

There are actually just 2 clusters of EC vote total not reflecting the popular vote. Those cases have all been very close elections.

IIRC, 2016 was the largest gap in popular vote that went the other way on EC... and that one's a bit strange. Clinton won the overall popular vote by a fair bit less than she won California.

 

[Emily Lake]

The first time the popular vote and the EC vote did not agree should have been a red flag and the system should have been changed.

And risk giving the British a beachhead in the colonies?
All the Founding Fathers had to do "whatever necessary" to keep the colonies united, on pain of death.

Imagine how long Benjamin Franklin would have survived after South Carolina decided to leave the Insurrection, and the British military got access to Charleston Harbour. Not long.

The Founding Fathers were international criminals, at the time. Violent Insurrectionists. And lots of colonists weren't on board with this unScriptural "democracy" thing. They were referred to as Loyalists. They believed in The Divine Right of Kings, that is "God put George III on the throne, only God can remove him."

I honestly doubt that had the Declaration of Independence been put to a free and fair vote, a popular referendum, it would have passed.
Tom

And a large chunk of those loyalists founded... Canada.