Ed Electoral College

stevea said:
The electoral college was, in part, created precisely to avoid that.
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But now : you have the worst of both world. You have chosen to have people vote for elector , but then again not every voter has the same weight, and many state have a winner take all, rather than proportional.

Which effectively means it is not democratic, as democrats in minority dem state winner take all can go sleep during election day, and vice versa for republican. And yet still some state have more vote proportionally to their population than other.

Frankly by now you should simply state that the people vote do not count and go back to having the people not having a hand into presidential election, as it was originally, or go all the way and have 1 vote == 1 person.

But that bastard system ? It is awful. Terribly awful.
 
LTC8K6 said:
I don't want the country to be ruled by the popular vote in California, Texas, Florida, and New York, though.

What would be done to address that?
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It wouldn't be. It would be ruled by the majority vote of the USA.
 
uke2se said:
It wouldn't be. It would be ruled by the majority vote of the USA.
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Sounds good to me. :thumbsup: Woulda saved us a lot of disastrous consequences in 2000, too. There's still no end in sight for the damage caused by that catastrophe, and now the EC gives us Donald Trump? The system is clearly broken, but it's hard to fix an undemocratic system when there's an undemocratic roadblock in the way. I still think the best hope is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
 
WilliamSeger said:
Sounds good to me. :thumbsup: Woulda saved us a lot of disastrous consequences in 2000, too. There's still no end in sight for the damage caused by that catastrophe, and now the EC gives us Donald Trump? The system is clearly broken, but it's hard to fix an undemocratic system when there's an undemocratic roadblock in the way. I still think the best hope is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
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Don't give up on naked protests in the street!
 
The more important question to ask is if Clinton had won the electoral college and Trump had won the popular vote, would the Left still feel this way?
Chris B.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
The more important question to ask is if Clinton had won the electoral college and Trump had won the popular vote, would the Left still feel this way?
Chris B.
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Here's what Tweetmaster General thought in 2012:
He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7 2012

The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!

This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!
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Any my favorite:
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.
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It is a silly thread really. Other than silly laws that certain states could implement there is no way around this other than a constitutional amendment. Which would fall flat. If not, why not?
 
Resume said:
Me too. Why do you think he changed his mind about the electoral college? Do you think he's just another say anything hypocrite politician?
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No, I think he was a Democrat but switched sides. In the US, everyone has the opportunity to wise up. Chris B.
 
RobLister said:
It is a silly thread really. Other than silly laws that certain states could implement there is no way around this other than a constitutional amendment. Which would fall flat. If not, why not?
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No, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact renders the Electoral College system effectively irrelevant, without a Constitutional amendment, as soon as the participating states' electoral votes total 270 or more, and it would not go into effect except in elections where it would make a difference. Not silly at all.
 
LTC8K6 said:
I don't want the country to be ruled by the popular vote in California, Texas, Florida, and New York, though.

What would be done to address that?
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And now you have a country dominated by a few swing state with other names, and less population.

How is that any better ?

At least with 1 vote== 1 person, you get the real choice of America, rather than the choice of a few million people in Iowa and Ohio.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
The more important question to ask is if Clinton had won the electoral college and Trump had won the popular vote, would the Left still feel this way?
Chris B.
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Well, I suppose that's the more important question to ask if your intent is to dodge the question at hand. Otherwise, it's irrelevant.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
No, I think he was a Democrat but switched sides. In the US, everyone has the opportunity to wise up. Chris B.
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He was a Republican in 2012, thats why he was ranting about the EC. He thought Romney had won the popular vote.
 
phiwum said:
No, it's a plain fact. A vote in a low population state produces a greater difference in the outcome than a vote in a high population state. We may debate whether this is good thing or not, but the sense in which low-pop states are over-represented is not a matter of controversy.
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"Over-represented" is a value judgement. It's exactly the side of the debate that says it's a bad thing. Low-pop states are only "over-represented" relative to a subjectively-chosen "correct" level of representation. Under the current system, the current representation *is* the correct level of representation.

Babbylonian said:
That's some high-level gibberish right there. A fundamental principle of a democratic "value system" is one person, one vote. Valuing some votes differently from others goes against that, full stop.
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There's a value system that says that the states in the Union should retain some degree of sovereignty regardless of relative population. This is not at odds with democratic principles, it just draws the boundaries of federal authority and influence differently than you would like. Which is fine, because value systems are subjective and debatable.

Or they would be debatable, if people were interested in debating them rather than insisting that their own preferences for sovereign boundaries were objective facts rather than opinions.

And this isn't a new idea, either. The worth of the electoral college has been questioned since just about forever, and not just when an evil narcissist ends up benefiting from it.
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Of course it has. Because it's the product of one of several competing value systems. These things should be debated. Not presented as mathematical truths.

crescent said:
Actually, it's just math.

Values have nothing to do with it. Plain, boring old math.
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"Over-represented" is not a mathematical term. It's a subjective interpretation applied to data. It's a value judgement.
 
theprestige said:
"Over-represented" is a value judgement. It's exactly the side of the debate that says it's a bad thing. Low-pop states are only "over-represented" relative to a subjectively-chosen "correct" level of representation. Under the current system, the current representation *is* the correct level of representation.
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In terms of voter-representation (i.e., whether one voter's vote "counts" for as much as another), there's no subjectivity here. Lower population states are over-represented. We may wonder whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the basic facts are clear.

Obviously, when the nation was founded, they decided that over-representation of low-population states was a good thing. Maybe they were right, maybe not, but it is silly to pretend that a value-neutral term like "over-represented" is a biased term.
 
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