Why am I wrong to like the Electoral College?

[Hercules56]

I like the Electoral College.

I forces candidates to pay attention to the needs of more folks, not just people in the big urban areas. Thereby reducing the sense of rural marginalization.

I also think it unites the country, since we all count.

Why am I wrong?

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

I like the Electoral College.

I forces candidates to pay attention to the needs of more folks, not just people in the big urban areas. Thereby reducing the sense of rural marginalization.

I also think it unites the country, since we all count.

Why am I wrong?

I honestly can't tell if you're serious or not.

Right now, they only people getting attention are the swing states, especially Pennsylvania. So 7 states - 18% of the total population - are effectively deciding this thing, and you could even say it's really PA, as without that one it's really hard for either candidate. So how you can say "since we all count" is beyond me.

If I still lived in OK, my vote wouldn't count for ****. Do you realize that there are over 5 million registered Republicans in California? That's more than the total population of something like *28* states. And how much "attention" does the GOP pay to them during the Presidential election?

 

[Mojo]

Why am I wrong?

Because it says "Hercules56" at the top left of your post?

 

[SteveAitch]

Because it says "Hercules56" at the top left of your post?

I was going to say, "because it (wrong) is your default position," but, yeah...

 

[crescent]

I like the Electoral College.

I forces candidates to pay attention to the needs of more fewer folks, not just excluding people in the big urban areas. Thereby reducing increasing the sense of rural urban and overall population marginalization.

I also think it unitesdivides the country, since we all count by ensuring that one rural person's vote is worth more than one urban person's vote.

Why am I wrong?

Corrected to match my perception of the EC.

A human is a human is a human. One person in Wyoming has no more nor less value than one person in L.A. and ought not to have greater political power. Ten people in L.A. may realistically have more political power than one person in Wyoming - but that's not disenfranchising the Wyoming person. It's just recognizing that one person has no more value than one other person, even if one is from a rural area and one is from an urban area.

 

[Hercules56]

Because it says "Hercules56" at the top left of your post?

That's pretty childish.

 

[Thermal]

I honestly can't tell if you're serious or not.

Right now, they only people getting attention are the swing states, especially Pennsylvania. 7 states - 18% of the total population - are effectively deciding this thing, and you could even say it's really PA, as without that one it's really hard for either candidate. So how you can say "since we all count" is beyond me.

If I still lived in OK, my vote wouldn't count for ****. Do you realize that there are over 5 million registered Republicans in California? That's more than the total population of something like *28* states. And how much "attention" does the GOP pay to them during the Presidential election?

Not really. I don't feel like that's a fair way of characterizing it. It's tight because the population is nearly split, not because swing states can go either way. Kind of like if you have three people voting, and one goes one way, the second the other way, then acting like the third guy decided it. He didn't. His vote was worth exactly what the other two counted as. These swing states are just that last voter, or the guy that scores the winning point in a game. It wasn't him; aaaaaall the other points made it a tie in the first place. The first point scored is as important as the last.

Eta: if my vote down at my local polling station happened to be the one that tipped my state to a win, and passed the electoral college requirements, would you say Thermal decided the election?

 

[Random]

Not really. I don't feel like that's a fair way of characterizing it. It's tight because the population is nearly split, not because swing states can go either way. Kind of like if you have three people voting, and one goes one way, the second the other way, then acting like the third guy decided it. He didn't. His vote was worth exactly what the other two counted as. These swing states are just that last voter, or the guy that scores the winning point in a game. It wasn't him; aaaaaall the other points made it a tie in the first place. The first point scored is as important as the last.

Eta: if my vote down at my local polling station happened to be the one that tipped my state to a win, and passed the electoral college requirements, would you say Thermal decided the election?

But that's the way it works, isn't it? Each campaign has a limited amount of resources and wants to use them most efficiently. It makes no sense for a Presidential candidate to try to spend resources in a state they are going to lose anyway, so they don't, and it becomes all about the swing states.

It's silly. Lots of people say that we need to keep the Electoral College so we don't ignore small states, while it is blindingly obvious that the small states are being ignored anyway. They are giving up a small vote that candidates would compete for in exchange for a slightly larger vote that candidates don't question. It's a suckers play.

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Not really. I don't feel like that's a fair way of characterizing it. It's tight because the population is nearly split, not because swing states can go either way. Kind of like if you have three people voting, and one goes one way, the second the other way, then acting like the third guy decided it. He didn't. His vote was worth exactly what the other two counted as. These swing states are just that last voter, or the guy that scores the winning point in a game. It wasn't him; aaaaaall the other points made it a tie in the first place. The first point scored is as important as the last.

Eta: if my vote down at my local polling station happened to be the one that tipped my state to a win, and passed the electoral college requirements, would you say Thermal decided the election?

I'm saying those 7 states are getting all the attention, election funds, and the process certainly isn't uniting the country, to comment on Hercules56 OP.

The argument here is whether or not the EC is a good thing or not. It currently gives a small subset of people a lot of influence over who ends up winning the race. We've all talked about how 40,000 people in 3 states could have flipped 2020 when Biden won the popular vote by what, 7 million votes? I mean I get what your analogies are trying to say, but there's a reason they are camping out in those states and not hopping around the country.

 

[dudalb]

Corrected to match my perception of the EC.

A human is a human is a human. One person in Wyoming has no more nor less value than one person in L.A. and ought not to have greater political power. Ten people in L.A. may realistically have more political power than one person in Wyoming - but that's not disenfranchising the Wyoming person. It's just recognizing that one person has no more value than one other person, even if one is from a rural area and one is from an urban area.

True, buy you have to have a way to keep the majority from totally tramping over the minority.
I am in favor of getting rid of the electorial college, but keeping the Senate.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Why am I wrong?

Because literally everything you said is objectively, provably, and factually wrong and a well worn, debunked a billion times Republican talking points from one of the biggest "I'm totally not a Republican" Republicans on the board and this is going to be the "I'm totally not against abortion but i'm against abortion" conversation with the nouns swapped out.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

True, buy you have to have a way to keep the majority from totally tramping over the minority.
I am in favor of getting rid of the electorial college, but keeping the Senate.

The popular vote is by definition a majority vote. It's not 'tramping over the minority', it's determining how many people are choosing something. All those ballot initiatives are also going to go to the majority, and the minority gets nothing.

 

[slyjoe]

The popular vote is by definition a majority vote. It's not 'tramping over the minority', it's determining how many people are choosing something. All those ballot initiatives are also going to go to the majority, and the minority gets nothing.

Exactly. We have about 500,000 elections in this country, and only ONE election weighs certain people's votes differently than others.

 

[Hercules56]

Because literally everything you said is objectively, provably, and factually wrong and a well worn, debunked a billion times Republican talking points from one of the biggest "I'm totally not a Republican" Republicans on the board and this is going to be the "I'm totally not against abortion but i'm against abortion" conversation with the nouns swapped out.

This thread isn't about abortion.

You haven't stated at all why you think I'm wrong about the EC.

 

[Hercules56]

So, I do support keeping the EC but I do think it should be reformed so that it's not "winner takes all", but each candidate wins those electoral votes he's entitled to based on their % of the state they won. Every state has the right to make that decision.

 

[Stacyhs]

The EC is undemocratic. One person; one vote.

 

[junkshop]

Corrected to match my perception of the EC.

A human is a human is a human. One person in Wyoming has no more nor less value than one person in L.A. and ought not to have greater political power. Ten people in L.A. may realistically have more political power than one person in Wyoming - but that's not disenfranchising the Wyoming person. It's just recognizing that one person has no more value than one other person, even if one is from a rural area and one is from an urban area.

True, buy you have to have a way to keep the majority from totally tramping over the minority.
I am in favor of getting rid of the electorial college, but keeping the Senate.

The EC is undemocratic. One person; one vote.

I don't know, but these all sound like arguments in favour sorry, favor of proportional representation*.

At least your upper house is elected.




*ETA: maybe not Stacyhs's one, in retrospect.

 

[Thermal]

This thread isn't about abortion.

You haven't stated at all why you think I'm wrong about the EC.

The EC was supposed to stop someone like Trump from.getting in. It seems not to be working anymore. In 2016, the people spoke and wanted Sec Clinton, but the EC was basically a de facto gerrymandering that screwed the people out of what they wanted.

 

[Trausti]

The EC was supposed to stop someone like Trump from.getting in. It seems not to be working anymore. In 2016, the people spoke and wanted Sec Clinton, but the EC was basically a de facto gerrymandering that screwed the people out of what they wanted.

?? If the founders intended that the president be chosen by national popular vote, they would have done that. This, after all, is the United States.

 

[Shadowdweller]

Because literally everything you said is objectively, provably, and factually wrong and a well worn, debunked a billion times Republican talking points from one of the biggest "I'm totally not a Republican" Republicans on the board and this is going to be the "I'm totally not against abortion but i'm against abortion" conversation with the nouns swapped out.

My dear Sir; or Madam; or Mx: While I am more or less generally in accord with your viewpoints, please, for the love of all that is sacred, consider breaking up your sentences into more reasonable sizes with appropriate punctuation. Minds are at risk!