2016 Postmortem
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If you abolish the EC
Everyone's votes will be worth the exact same. I know this is a novel idea, but I think one we could all agree on.
The senate is representative gov't. The rural states have massive power in the senate.
There is no reason every single persons vote should not have equal weight when voting for president of the United States.
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uponit7771
(90,347 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)The small states will not agree to it. Why would a small state give up the small bit of power they have.
Its never going to happen.
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)our tyranny of the minority will endure. You go, Founders!
Nancyswidower
(182 posts)EC and 2 Senators is to protect the minority...small areas...
beaglelover
(3,486 posts)popular vote only.
Raster
(20,998 posts)...to their their noses at California.
How did zombie-eyed Granny-starver, Paul Ryan, refer to this last election? Revenge of the fly-over states.
Fuck him and fuck them!
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)I mean it's like the candidates are always there all the time and give no shits about any other state.
Oh....wait....that never happens.
I grew up in ND. Nobody gives a shit about normally and that doesn't change during the election cycle. Every talks about how much power they have, but that's just noise.
Raster
(20,998 posts)...is their over-weighted EC representation. That's it.
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)Much more than enough. The EC is just piling on.
musicblind
(4,484 posts)Martin Eden
(12,870 posts)... but the Electoral College can be effectively eliminated if states totaling 270 electoral votes elect to award all their EC votes to the winner of the popular vote (doesn't come into effect until states totaling 270 or more make this the law in their states).
It's a way to bypass the recalcitrance of the small states wielding national influence disproportionate to their population.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)"no state shall, without the consent of Congress enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power"
Martin Eden
(12,870 posts)This idea has been around for more than a decade, and this is the first time I've heard it might be challenged constitutionally.
musicblind
(4,484 posts)because states have complete say over how they choose to award their Electoral Votes.
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)Then it'll be gone so fast it'll make your head spin!!
MurrayDelph
(5,299 posts)First of all, it should be proportional, both the number of votes each state has, to better represent the population of the state.
Second, it should be proportional to the percentage each candidate gets in the state. So that if the Republican candidate gets 30% of the popular vote in that state, he or she would get 30% of the EC delegates.
By modifying the EC this way, the Russians (or Republicans) would have to hack all 50 states, rather than just pushing a few million more votes for their candidate than there are voters in just a few states.
Flavius Aetius
(33 posts)If we did this the power would reside with the large states and cities, Show me 38 states that would vote for that, only takes 13 to stop it. I can list at least 25 at minimum off the top of my head.
Nancyswidower
(182 posts)I as a NY'er.. do not like the idea that NY or California can be the single deciding factor for POTUS...and we all know the 2+mill pop votes Sec.Clinton is ahead is coastal...
Won't happen in any of our life times...thankfully.
LiberalFighter
(50,950 posts)The only way a small group of states can determine the outcome of an election is if all of the voters vote the same way.
Nancyswidower
(182 posts)Took 3 states to give us the Trumpanzee...
LiberalFighter
(50,950 posts)An electoral college that allowed as you say three states to elect Trumpass. They by themselves didn't allow it to happen. But they were key states that had more importance than the rest of the country and the people. And you think that it is better to have a few states where the process is winner take all vs. one that is based on actual individual votes?
And in your previous comment you are against New York or California to be the deciding factor in the outcome of an election if we used the national popular vote to decide the outcome. Please explain how either could decide and why did you select just those two states which typically go blue? Especially when Florida and Texas had more people vote than New York.
There were over 127 million votes cast between Clinton and Trump. For New York or California to be the single state to decide the outcome of the election under a popular vote it would require California to cast over half of the 127 million votes all for the winning candidate. That is over 63.5 million votes. California only has a population of 39.1 million followed by Texas with 27.4 million. Even if California had over 63.5 million eligible voters they are not all going to vote for the same candidate.
Under a popular vote there is no scenario that would allow even 2 to 4 states to decide the outcome of an election. The top 4 states had a combined election turnout of 36,958,666 votes. That includes all of the third party votes. But if they were to all vote for one candidate it would had only been 58% of what was needed to win.
On the electoral college system. That allows a state with only 3 electoral votes having each of their votes equal to 86,262 votes compared to California's votes equal to 250,365 votes. That means a vote by a Californian is only equal to 1/3 the vote of a Wyoming voter.
And to be clear there is not going to be any state that will have all of their voters voting for the same candidate regardless of how bad they are. As demonstrated by this election with Trump.
Nancyswidower
(182 posts)Yes.
Let's say for arguments sake.. you just take out California's vote....Sec. Clinton looses the Pop vote.
LiberalFighter
(50,950 posts)Or maybe you have a problem with Californians being able to vote. Or maybe you have a problem understanding that voters in California by themselves wouldn't decide the election. Or maybe you have a problem with every voter having their vote count the same as everyone instead of only 1/3. All in all you must have a problem with fair elections.
Nancyswidower
(182 posts)You say...."Or maybe you have a problem with every voter having their vote count the same as everyone instead of only 1/3"....
You can't back that claim....to make it is to NOT know how the EC works...and why I don't want you or yours to change it.
We aren't a democracy....we are a Republic...a Representative Republic...we have a Constitution for a reason....specifically so that the Federal Govt couldn't over ride the states..OR more importantly..the People...
If we go to a Popular vote for POTUS...why not every law proposed by Congress...make everything a public referendum...simple majority....do you have a clue how THAT works out....remember Prop 8 in California? Took courts to fix that....
The EC was ingenious....and it will be the method of POTUS elections Long after we are gone....our form of Govt will outlast ...hell has outlasted any true democracy.
There will be no Pop vote for POTUS before my great grand kids vote
Response to Nancyswidower (Reply #12)
Jake Stern This message was self-deleted by its author.
JustinL
(722 posts)Pantagruel
(2,580 posts)Seriously doubt a recount will change any results in a meaningful way but no harm in doing it.
Facts- Trump won for a number of reasons:
1- Way more racists came out from under their rocks than I could have imagined. I want to think we're better than that- we're not to our eternal shame.
2-Voter suppression efforts by the GOP at a minimum, probably kept 2-5 million Dem voters from voting.
3-Electoral College is antiquated, unfair and a real threat to democracy.
4- HRC most qualified candidate maybe ever but virtually zero charisma.
As I see it, best chance to convince electors to deny Trump is to stress the EC issue.
The only way to get the GOP to move on changing the EC is to make it cost them.
Take away their Trump win and watch how fast they vote to eliminate the Electoral College.
That's the approach I'd take to convincing electors to consider being "Faithless".
Flavius Aetius
(33 posts)When the vote of the electors goes to the Senate then the Huns can challenge each vote of the electors for being faithless. If they throw them out then the House votes for president, controlled by you guessed it the fucking Huns!!!!!
radius777
(3,635 posts)The founders implemented the EC to protect a weaker minority from the majority, as they were afraid of powerful states (at the time) like VA and MA having too much influence. And also to get smaller states to join the Union.
The problem with this is that our world has changed, and many of the most powerless live in and around metro areas, i.e PoC, women, immigrants, poor, gays, etc - i.e. the types of voters who overwhelmingly vote Dem.
Actual human votes should matter more than land, and rural white regions have far more power than they should have, and are what is holding us back from advancing.
The EC is just part of this problem. Congress and especially the senate is also designed in a way to devalue blue votes. Why should large diverse (and wealth producing) states like CA and NY have only two votes in the senate - the same as small red rural states?
To me, the entire system is 'taxation without representation', where blue votes simply don't matter like red votes, who are holding back the country bigly.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)Shows again how much power the States had in the Union (vs the people at large).
TuslaUltra
(75 posts)this idea of "states rights" has been shown to be a foil for BS before...
beaglelover
(3,486 posts)in the last 15 years. Every persons vote should count the same.
aidbo
(2,328 posts)California has 53 members in the house with a population of around 39 million people. That means that each rep represents approximately 735 thousand Californians.
While Wyoming has 1 rep in the house for ~580 thousand people.
If Californians had the same representation in the House as Wyomingites (had to look that up) they'd have (39 million divided by 580 thousand) about 67 reps.
So California would have 69 votes in the EC instead of 55.
If Democrats could craft a message around disproportionate representation in the house, this might be something that could gain traction. The most populous states are way under represented compared to sparsely populated states, that includes red states like Texas too, so it has bipartisan flavor. When you add senators which already favors smaller population states, then you get an even more tilted playing field in the electoral college.
Because of the electoral college, a Wyomingite's vote has nearly 4 times the power of a Californian's vote.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)There's no good reason for the House of Representatives to be the same size they were in 1911-a time when the country's population was less than a third of what it is now.
Instead, it should be 1 representative for every 700,000 people(with every state of less than 700,000 people retaining the current single seat they hold in the House(this would give us a chamber with about 458 or 459 seats, a manageable increase in the membership of the chamber). And it would return the House to its intended role of offering representation by population.
Doing that would also significantly correct the current democratic deficit in the Electoral college, since electoral votes are apportioned on the basis of the congressional and senatorial representation of each state.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And there's no significant group of people here who are defending the EC.
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)It might be an interesting goal and worthy of discussion, but will affect nothing right now.
All that would have been needed for Hillary Clinton to have won was more people voting for her in more states. Simple, huh?
That ship has sailed, though. People stayed home. People skipped the presidential election part of their ballot. People voted uselessly for third party candidates.
We lost. It's unfair that we lost. The Electoral College is an unfair way to choose a President. But, that's all in the past now. We blew it is what happened. We simply didn't do our job as voters.
Now we will pay the price for that.
