Time to scrap the fucking Electoral College!

[LordKiran]

I read this recently and found it interesting:

The Founding Fathers Did Not Trust You: The Electoral College (Part 1)


The Founding Fathers Did Not Trust You: The Electoral College (Part 2)

Every four years Americans rediscover the Electoral College, and every four years there are anguished calls to get rid of it because it is undemocratic because it sits athwart the will of the people like some giant boulder in the path of democracy, limiting the ability of the Common Man (and, since 1920, the Common Woman) to select the leader of their choice.

To which the Founding Fathers would have responded, “And?”

I find it unreasonable to suggest "The founding fathers did not trust us" when the purpose for electoral college was due to the way the nation was set up at the time the electoral college was implemented.

Individual states were more like sovereign nations at the start of our nation's history so it made sense for each nation to hold it's own election and then send delegations to the capital to cast votes on behalf of a given state.


if anything indicates that the founding fathers didn't trust us, its that the vote was initially supposed to be for the wealthy elites and nobody else.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Instead,get rid of the stupid first Tuesday in November election day.When 98% lived on farms and Saturday was market day and Sunday was church.Monday was travel day to the county seat to vote.Harvest was over,time to give thanks.Fuck tradition!

Good idea. Let's have our election on April 16th.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I read this recently and found it interesting:

The Founding Fathers Did Not Trust You: The Electoral College (Part 1)


The Founding Fathers Did Not Trust You: The Electoral College (Part 2)

I find it unreasonable to suggest "The founding fathers did not trust us" when the purpose for electoral college was due to the way the nation was set up at the time the electoral college was implemented.

Individual states were more like sovereign nations at the start of our nation's history so it made sense for each nation to hold it's own election and then send delegations to the capital to cast votes on behalf of a given state.


if anything indicates that the founding fathers didn't trust us, its that the vote was initially supposed to be for the wealthy elites and nobody else.

The Founding Fathers gave direct electoral power to the people for Representatives in the House. We did not receive power to elect the President or the Senate. That isn't too big a vote of confidence to the general property owning white public.

 

[LordKiran]

That's because elections for the house are elections for officials who represent you on the most local level, senators and presidents encompass larger areas that are too big to bring it all together when the fastest mode of transit is a boat or a horse.

 

[bilby]

That's because elections for the house are elections for officials who represent you on the most local level, senators and presidents encompass larger areas that are too big to bring it all together when the fastest mode of transit is a boat or a horse.

That's not the reason. Washington DC is the same distance from anywhere else in the US whether you are a Congressman or a President.

The reason that the public don't select the President is because the Founding Fathers believed that this would be a dangerous thing to do, as it would place excessive power in the hands of the people. They wanted to have a body that could review and (if necessary) reject the peoples' choice, if the people made the mistake of selecting a bad President because of his charisma, rather than his ability.

 

[Blahface]

Even if you agree with the intent of the electoral college, the founders did a shit job at implementing it.

Why not have the electors use some form of ranked voting and why not have them all meet at one spot instead of each state mailing in the ballots? You could have all the candidates and the delegates meet in one place and the candidates could make their case to the delegates.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Even if you agree with the intent of the electoral college, the founders did a shit job at implementing it.

Why not have the electors use some form of ranked voting and why not have them all meet at one spot instead of each state mailing in the ballots? You could have all the candidates and the delegates meet in one place and the candidates could make their case to the delegates.

My biggest problem with the EC is it's randomness. Every single state does it differently. It is random. Some follow the rules, others do not. The guy in Washington might ruin it for everyone, because he's mad.

 

[SimpleDon]

Hillary has so much working against her: Wikiputinleaks; the FBI, and etc. But now a scumbag elector has decided that he won't follow the rules and cast his vote for HRC:

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d3a1...ngton-state-elector-says-he-wont-vote-clinton

It's laughable that the only thing our government can do to this asshole is to fine him a $1,000.

I think that we need to scrap the EC. It's too archaic. It relies on individuals to make the correct decision. I think that we should elect the president who gets the most votes. Period.

Any system which for whatever reason does not allow the electorate to vote directly for the candidates will inhibit the democratic process to that degree. Europe has proportional representation while the UK allows candidates to stand for individual seats but not proportional representation which some wish to change to allow the percentage of votes and not just seats to determine representation in parliament.

What is the use of the electoral college anyway. I looks like tits on a boar hog as I can't see why this would be useful.

All of you are thinking too small. Why stop at the Electoral College?

Why not just rid of the 18th century and now worse than useless ideas of multiple, largely redundant, middle tiers of government; states, townships, counties and all of the regional special use authorities, water, sewage, etc.

While the federal government has decreased in size since 1970 these not quite local, between governments have more than doubled, on a per capita basis. You can see that they were required in the 18th and into the 19th century. when the horse and buggy defined the pinnacle of transportation speed and when communication was carried out through the mail. But we can cross the country in four hours and have virtually instantaneous communications today.

These are also the least scrutinized and therefore the most corrupt and least responsive levels of government.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Any system which for whatever reason does not allow the electorate to vote directly for the candidates will inhibit the democratic process to that degree. Europe has proportional representation while the UK allows candidates to stand for individual seats but not proportional representation which some wish to change to allow the percentage of votes and not just seats to determine representation in parliament.

What is the use of the electoral college anyway. I looks like tits on a boar hog as I can't see why this would be useful.

All of you are thinking too small. Why stop at the Electoral College?

Why not just rid of the 18th century and now worse than useless ideas of multiple, largely redundant, middle tiers of government; states, townships, counties and all of the regional special use authorities, water, sewage, etc.

While the federal government has decreased in size since 1970 these not quite local, between governments have more than doubled, on a per capita basis. You can see that they were required in the 18th and into the 19th century. when the horse and buggy defined the pinnacle of transportation speed and when communication was carried out through the mail. But we can cross the country in four hours and have virtually instantaneous communications today.

These are also the least scrutinized and therefore the most corrupt and least responsive levels of government.

I hope that I don't sound too bitter! But I'm just so disgusted. More democrats voted yesterday than republicans. We won the popular vote. By a good margin. And yet the republicans control the presidency, the house, the senate, the supreme court, most governships, and most state legislatures. We don't live in a democracy, we live in a society where our vote doesn't count.

 

[credoconsolans]

All of you are thinking too small. Why stop at the Electoral College?

Why not just rid of the 18th century and now worse than useless ideas of multiple, largely redundant, middle tiers of government; states, townships, counties and all of the regional special use authorities, water, sewage, etc.

While the federal government has decreased in size since 1970 these not quite local, between governments have more than doubled, on a per capita basis. You can see that they were required in the 18th and into the 19th century. when the horse and buggy defined the pinnacle of transportation speed and when communication was carried out through the mail. But we can cross the country in four hours and have virtually instantaneous communications today.

These are also the least scrutinized and therefore the most corrupt and least responsive levels of government.

I hope that I don't sound too bitter! But I'm just so disgusted. More democrats voted yesterday than republicans. We won the popular vote. By a good margin. And yet the republicans control the presidency, the house, the senate, the supreme court, most governships, and most state legislatures. We don't live in a democracy, we live in a society where our vote doesn't count.

Word on that, though we're not a democracy.

 

[Juma]

Yes you do. A democracy with an overly complex viting system.

But really: the reason that the result is counter intuitive is that it was so very even.

Why is that? What mechanism makes the outcome be 50/50 each time?

What is the provability for that?

There is no natural law that makes it so.

 

[Derec]

Hillary has so much working against her: Wikiputinleaks; the FBI, and etc. But now a scumbag elector has decided that he won't follow the rules and cast his vote for HRC:

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d3a1...ngton-state-elector-says-he-wont-vote-clinton

It's laughable that the only thing our government can do to this asshole is to fine him a $1,000.

I think that we need to scrap the EC. It's too archaic. It relies on individuals to make the correct decision. I think that we should elect the president who gets the most votes. Period.

President elect agrees with you.

And I agree. It's not so much that it has the possibility of faithless electors, or that the person with popular vote might still lose the EC count (Hillary 2016), but that it distorts the whole election. The popular vote would not look like it does if we had election by popular vote. People in safe states would be more likely to come out and vote if they felt their votes counted. The campaigns would spread their attention and promises around more than to a handful of battleground states. It would change the entire landscape of presidential politics. And if we went whole hog and mandated a majority (rather than FPTP and plurality) of votes with a runoff (like for example in France), people could vote their conscience in the first round without fear of playing the spoiler.

 

[Derec]

I doubt that the Electoral College is going anywhere. I don't think that you can convince 3/4 of the state legislatures to agree with abolishing it. Those small red states in the middle of the country would likely refuse to ratify such an amendment, even if it could get the 2/3 votes in both the House & Senate.

I do not disagree that they would not, but they should. On paper their influence might be greater because they have fewer people per EV, but in reality most of them have very little influence because they are safe. Better to have "one man one vote" than virtually no influence because they are not a swing state. Does any campaigning occur in Wyoming or Vermont as it is? That "+2" bonus for EVs over the number of congressional districts is not helping them get attention as it is. So it's not like they would lose influence if EC was scrapped.

As for the faithless elector, if he's the only one from a state won by Clinton, it would only matter if HRC's electoral vote is 269 without him. I do think it's wrong for him to deviate from his state's vote, but it may not matter if HRC can get 270 without him.

Another Washington elector said the same. Hillary won Washington, so Bernie might get an electoral vote or two.

 

[Derec]

One major drawback of switching to popular vote would be the concentration of campaign resources in high-population areas.

So? That's where most people are.

Low-population states might never see the candidates.

They already don't, unless they happen to be swing states.

I wonder if some hybrid of the two is possible.

I doubt it.

 

[Jayjay]

I do not disagree that they would not, but they should. On paper their influence might be greater because they have fewer people per EV, but in reality most of them have very little influence because they are safe. Better to have "one man one vote" than virtually no influence because they are not a swing state. Does any campaigning occur in Wyoming or Vermont as it is? That "+2" bonus for EVs over the number of congressional districts is not helping them get attention as it is. So it's not like they would lose influence if EC was scrapped.

You are forgetting that in non-swing states the legislatures are in the hands of the same party who gets the state's EVs. That party loses influence, if they have to give up on having 100% of their EVs to their candidate, as opposed to splitting their vote 60-40 or 70-30 with the minority.

 

[Derec]

[Q
You are forgetting that in non-swing states the legislatures are in the hands of the same party who gets the state's EVs. That party loses influence, if they have to give up on having 100% of their EVs to their candidate, as opposed to splitting their vote 60-40 or 70-30 with the minority.

I don't think they do. If it is a foregone conclusion that all votes of say Wyoming count toward the Republicans, then there is no influence. If certain things can shift the vote from 60-40 to 70-30 than that gives you influence. Some delta is better than no delta at all.

 

[ZiprHead]

Petition to abolish electoral college

 

[blastula]

There is a proposal in the works already. National Popular Vote

 

[Terrell]

There is a proposal in the works already. National Popular Vote

How do you make sure that, should this be passed in enough states, that they all hold to the bargain? It wouldn't surprise me in the least if more than a few states renege on this if they think it's in their interests to do so.

 

[blastula]

It would be the law of their state and would be a compact between states. If a state tried to get out it after an election, it would be quite a legal brouhaha.

Any member state may withdraw from this agreement, except that a withdrawal occurring six months or less before the end of a President' s term shall not become effective until a President or Vice President shall have been qualified to serve the next term.