The US National Popular Vote is a little bit closer

[Toni]

Wyoming and California have the same number of senators. The number of representatives to the House are proportional to the population of each individual state. The number of electoral votes are also proportional to the population of each state.

But electoral votes only count with regards to the election of the POTUS, once every 4 years.

I guess I'm not making myself clear. I understand all that, but it appears to me that an argument you are making about reservations for doing away with the electoral college is that rural areas might be ignored in government. I agree that's a concern - I'm also saying how the senate is organised addresses that making the electoral college redundant. As things are right now, out of the House, Senate an Presidency only 1 out of the 3 truly care about the will of the people. It's my opinion that 2 out the 3 should be such and the third (whether the presidency or senate) be used as a check on "tyranny of the majority".

To put a check on what attitudes?
That everyone's vote for president should count equally?

To use a simple analogy - if 3 million people live in a city and 500,000 people live in rural areas, every rural initiative will most likely get voted down. The "check" for that is to have representatives represent a fixed amount of the population whilst seats in the senate are fixed from state to state.

The Senate alone doesn’t do enough to balance the disparity in influence of urban vs rural.

 

[Patooka]

The Senate alone doesn’t do enough to balance the disparity in influence of urban vs rural.

Sorry to hear that.

 

[Politesse]

Color me suspicious. The elections in 2000 and 2016 were won by Republicans via the EC vote, and this change is being pushed by Democrats. Would the Democrats be pushing the NPV, or even just be in favor of it, if it was the Democrats who won in 2000 and 2016 via the EC? I'm guessing the answer is no, which makes me think the purpose of it has less to do with any principal of election fairness and more about wanting "my side to win". Its like the Democrats lost twice at the game of chess, and instead of improving their strategy for future games, they want to change the rules of chess instead.

We're not supposed to talk about that part.

You can talk about it. It makes you look stupidly partisan. Not everyone shares your partisanship.

The reason that Republicans as a group oppose free and fair elections is because they don't reflect American values and have such low integrity. If everyone's vote for president counted equally, the GOP/TeaParty would be left in the dust.

Maybe then the American people could get on dealing with the huge problems we have.


The chess game analogy is ridiculous. The "rules" aren't the same for both sides as things are. What National Popular Vote is attempting to accomplish is leveling the playing field.
Tom

Elections are fair if they favor Democrats and unfair if they favor Republicans.

A lot of people imagine there is such a thing as "one person, one vote", and they aren't all Democrats. They're wrong, but it's a pretty idea.

Republican politicians, however, are pretty open these days about their intentions with regard to the concept of a popular vote. They cannot win it, so they do not want it.

If you do favor the concept of an empowered popular vote, and the popular vote always favors the Democratic candidate, then yes, every election that doesn't go to that candidate, at least if it's on account of anti-populist 18th century flim-flammery, seems pretty unreasonable.

 

[Politesse]

CA would like to get its hands on water from the Great Lakes, rather than curb its own water use, an enormous amount of which is for agricultural crops.

I've never heard of any such proposal. What Senators back it?

 

[Politesse]

I’ve spent most of my life living in small towns but I’ve also spent some time in major cities—and enjoyed my big city time. But one thing I noticed was that each major city really seemed to see itself as the center…if not the universe, of their little ( or not so little) corner of the universe. To them, the concerns of small town hicks ( all racists, of course) and backwards farmers are…trivial. Beneath their notice.

Door swings both ways. I grew up in a little town, and never met anyone there who gave two shits about the fate of anyone who lived in a city, unless they were originally from a city themselves or kin to someone who was.

But that also illustrates why this argument is nonsense. Most people in every state live in cities. Yes, Wyoming too; rural though it is, more than half of Wyoming's residents live in one of her eleven cities. And on the flip side, every state has vast swathes of countryside. Like the one I grew up in, in California. The poor hicks I grew up with - in California - aren't empowered in any way by this scheme to give Wyoming and Montana extra votes. Votewise, they are every bit as disempowered as the poor urban Black folks. Who cares about the rights of our farmers? Yet, our farmers feed the rest of the country, demonstrably. Guess that doesn't win them anything but a lemon in their eye? That they picked yesterday?

As long as electoral votes are assigned by state, urban centers will always have the advantage. Because in all states, more people live in the city than in the country. Pretending there is an absolute demographic difference between red states and blue states doesn't change that reality, in any of those states. If you want to apportion votes based on whether or not the voter lives in a city or not, we need to scrap the electoral college altogether, and ignore state boundaries in favor of sociological ones. I hope I don't need to explain why that would be a disaster in practice.

 

[lpetrich]

I’ve spent most of my life living in small towns but I’ve also spent some time in major cities—and enjoyed my big city time. But one thing I noticed was that each major city really seemed to see itself as the center…if not the universe, of their little ( or not so little) corner of the universe. To them, the concerns of small town hicks ( all racists, of course) and backwards farmers are…trivial. Beneath their notice.

There is a simple solution: weight people's votes by how many people live near them -- the fewer people, the higher weight.

Why stop at people who live in thinly-populated areas? Why not also give extra weight to racial and ethnic minorities?

So it would be one sociopolitical bloc one vote.

 

[TomC]

There is a simple solution: weight people's votes by how many people live near them -- the fewer people, the higher weight.

Why stop at people who live in thinly-populated areas? Why not also give extra weight to racial and ethnic minorities?

So it would be one sociopolitical bloc one vote.

How about free and fair elections for President? How about that?

Whoever gets the most votes for president from the American people is the President. Why do Republicans keep insisting that democracy is a bad idea?
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Elections are fair when everybody's voice is equally heard.

That's not the tread topic.

Yes, it is the thread topic.

The thread topic is national popular vote. TomC posted about everyone's voice being heard. That's not the same.

The national popular vote is "everyone's voices being heard".

That's on topic.

 

[Harry Bosch]

There is a simple solution: weight people's votes by how many people live near them -- the fewer people, the higher weight.

Why stop at people who live in thinly-populated areas? Why not also give extra weight to racial and ethnic minorities?

So it would be one sociopolitical bloc one vote.

How about free and fair elections for President? How about that?

Whoever gets the most votes for president from the American people is the President. Why do Republicans keep insisting that democracy is a bad idea?
Tom

It's simple, there are fewer republicans than dems. It's been that way for a long time. However, the reps have always been more united. The dems more nuanced. It's easy for people on the left to get offended by some politician on the left and either not vote or vote third party. Republicans can do anything they want, and they get the turnout.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I cannot help but be concerned that lower population states (including MInnesota) will give up what little power and influence they have if we go to popular vote for POTUS elections. Why does this matter? Well, the concerns of large population states such as CA, TX, and NY are often quite different than those of less populous states. One issue that leaps to mind is with regards to water rights. CA would like to get its hands on water from the Great Lakes, rather than curb its own water use, an enormous amount of which is for agricultural crops.

Yeah, California can't because Canada (also... physics).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There is a simple solution: weight people's votes by how many people live near them -- the fewer people, the higher weight.

Why stop at people who live in thinly-populated areas? Why not also give extra weight to racial and ethnic minorities?

So it would be one sociopolitical bloc one vote.

How about free and fair elections for President? How about that?

Whoever gets the most votes for president from the American people is the President. Why do Republicans keep insisting that democracy is a bad idea?
Tom

That ain't the Republicans, that's the Founding Fathers who only provided the common man with money the right to directly elect Representatives to the House.

Currently, the electoral college is the only way for the GOP to get to the White House (has been since 1992 except once). So they aren't going to change the constitution, which again, is what is needed to go to a simple popular vote.

Personally, I think our nation and Democracy would benefit a lot more from a contracted primary season starting in August of the General Election year and moving Election Day to the weekend.

 

[Jayjay]

Personally, I think our nation and Democracy would benefit a lot more from a contracted primary season starting in August of the General Election year and moving Election Day to the weekend.

Wouldn't a contracted primary season give a huge benefit to the incumbent of the other party, who'd have the luxury of fund raising and campaigning much longer than the ones who have to go through the primary?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Personally, I think our nation and Democracy would benefit a lot more from a contracted primary season starting in August of the General Election year and moving Election Day to the weekend.

Wouldn't a contracted primary season give a huge benefit to the incumbent of the other party, who'd have the luxury of fund raising and campaigning much longer than the ones who have to go through the primary?

No, it wouldn't. We don't need 11 months for someone to get the message out. If Canada can snap an election in a month, I think the the US can as well. Over 5 weeks is long enough to get things moving. Our overly protracted primary election season is torturous!

 

[TomC]

It's simple, there are fewer republicans than dems. It's been that way for a long time. However, the reps have always been more united. The dems more nuanced. It's easy for people on the left to get offended by some politician on the left and either not vote or vote third party. Republicans can do anything they want, and they get the turnout

This is true.
Also, liberals tend to come from low turnout demographics. Black people, women, and especially young people tend to skew Democrat. But they don't vote in the percentages conservative voters do.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

It's simple, there are fewer republicans than dems. It's been that way for a long time. However, the reps have always been more united. The dems more nuanced. It's easy for people on the left to get offended by some politician on the left and either not vote or vote third party. Republicans can do anything they want, and they get the turnout

This is true.
Also, liberals tend to come from low turnout demographics. Black people, women, and especially young people tend to skew Democrat. But they don't vote in the percentages conservative voters do.
Tom

They’re also slightly less inclined to cheat.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Would someone show how a candidate can win the popular vote for president but lost the election in the EC because of "winner-take-all?" I admit to having trouble understanding how this could happen. What I need to see is numbers in an example. I know it happens, I just need to see how. Consider me cognitively challenged.

 

[Gospel]

Republicans have been just as resistant to the idea of a national popular vote as they were to the idea of a black president. After all, they went absolutely cuckoo for cocoa afro puff Obama after 2008. The fact Hillary Clinton won the popular vote over a Republican in 2016 says a lot about those fools.

Real talk? Republicans need to stop throwing tantrums and start acting like adults. The world is changing, and if they don't adapt, they will be left behind.

 

[TomC]

Would someone show how a candidate can win the popular vote for president but lost the election in the EC because of "winner-take-all?" I admit to having trouble understanding how this could happen. What I need to see is numbers in an example. I know it happens, I just need to see how. Consider me cognitively challenged.

It's simple.
In 2016, Clinton got ~3M more votes in the popular election. Trump squeaked out razor thin margins in enough states to win the EC. Clinton's biggest disasters were losing Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The margins were tiny, one state a fraction of 1%, but all the EC delegates from those states went to Trump.
There's also the fact that small states have much greater EC voting power than big ones. A vote in Wyoming is worth almost four in California.
Tom

 

[lpetrich]

Here is a super simplified example. Let's say that the US has three states with these populations and Congressional delegations:

• Oceania -- population 20M -- House 4 -- Senate 2 -- EC 6
• Flatland -- population 10M -- House 2 -- Senate 2 -- EC 4
• Montana -- population 5M -- House 1 -- Senate 2 -- EC 3

Note that the number of electors each state has is the sum of the numbers of that state's Reps and Senators.

Oceania votes for Team Blue and Flatland and Montana for Team Red.

• Popular Vote: Blue 20M, Red 15M
• Electoral Vote: Blue 6, Red 7

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There's also the fact that small states have much greater EC voting power than big ones. A vote in Wyoming is worth almost four in California.

Please explain how this is so. Electoral votes are apportioned by population and based on the latest census. If that is so how can a Wyoming voter have more voting power than a voter in California?

Here is a super simplified example. Let's say that the US has three states with these populations and Congressional delegations:

• Oceania -- population 20M -- House 4 -- Senate 2 -- EC 6
• Flatland -- population 10M -- House 2 -- Senate 2 -- EC 4
• Montana -- population 5M -- House 1 -- Senate 2 -- EC 3

Note that the number of electors each state has is the sum of the numbers of that state's Reps and Senators.

Oceania votes for Team Blue and Flatland and Montana for Team Red.

• Popular Vote: Blue 20M, Red 15M
• Electoral Vote: Blue 6, Red 7

Nothing I read about how Electoral Votes are apportioned - by population - says anything about the U.S. Senate. Are you saying that each state has two additional electoral votes that are not based on population? How could I not have read that somewhere?

ETA: Okay, it says ...representatives in "Congress".... Now I get it.