Ed Electoral College

LTC8K6 said:
You are intentionally leaving out the other voters, though. You know that a popular vote election would be different. You know that you can't simply transfer the votes and claim that would be the result.
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What do you mean, "transfer the votes"?

LTC8K6 said:
Just as you are intentionally claiming, without evidence, that Trump is unfit for office and the EC should have "protected" the USA from him.
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Give me evidence Castro, Duerte or Chavez would be terrible US presidents.

LTC8K6 said:
You just keep parroting that the EC is worthless because it didn't do what you think it should have done.
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No, I keep saying that the EC is worthless because it's fundamentally unfair and undemocratic.

LTC8K6 said:
You also haven't offered any alternative to the EC that would have done what you think should have been done.
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Yes, I have. Popular vote. It would be fair.
 
psionl0 said:
I couldn't find much dating from 2012 but the US politics section is a big section. Nevertheless, I will concede that your position on the EC may be consistent for at least that length of time.

I am not defending the EC system (merely observing a sharp rise in the "EC bad" type posts since Trump's election). The winner take all system especially can give rise to unfair results and render some states irrelevant because of their predictable majority. It should have been seen as a logical consequence once parties dominated the political system since states would seek to maximize the effect of their votes in the election of the POTUS.

There are a number of ways the EC system could be reformed (I have suggested some myself) but possibly the worst reform would be a single national vote conducted under FPTP. At the very least, there should be runoff elections if the US were to go down that path.
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Do you think the highlighted could have to do with that this is the only time in history when the popular vote winner got significantly more votes than the popular vote loser, and still lost the election? When Gore lost the EC to Bush, he won the popular vote by about half a percentage point or 500k votes. Clinton beat Trump by a full two percentage points, and 3 million votes.
 
psionl0 said:
Since both candidates got a minority of the votes cast (< 50%) you would need a run off election to know which one was more popular.
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Did you quote the right post? I was highlighting the inherent unfairness of the loser getting that many more votes than the winner.
 
LTC8K6 said:
You are intentionally leaving out the other voters, though. You know that a popular vote election would be different. You know that you can't simply transfer the votes and claim that would be the result.
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But that's another advantage of switching to NPV: Gaming the EC would disappear and candidates would need to appeal to people instead of geography. If that produced a Donald Trump, then so be it; we as a nation should suffer the consequences of such stupidity.

LTC8K6 said:
Just as you are intentionally claiming, without evidence, that Trump is unfit for office and the EC should have "protected" the USA from him.
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If you weren't already convinced, I'd say we've got some pretty serious evidence of his unfitness now: Putin is attacking Western democracy, but the Boy King sees any attempt to even look into it as an attack on his fragile ego, and he is handling it with the maturity of a 12-year-old. Before even being sworn in, he has created an extremely dangerous situation. Unpresidented.

LTC8K6 said:
You just keep parroting that the EC is worthless because it didn't do what you think it should have done.
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If the EC were operating as the Founding Fathers intended, then it could have refused to elect Trump on the grounds that they found him unfit. If its only function these days is to pass along the states' electoral votes, then it is worthless -- states might as well just mail their results to Congress.

LTC8K6 said:
You also haven't offered any alternative to the EC that would have done what you think should have been done.
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But that's not really the issue. The issue is the EC system sucks and that NPV is far more democratic. In this particular election, since the final popular vote was actually pretty close to the last national polls (without considering EC), then I think this year NPV would have done what should have been done, but that's just not the point. As a Democrat, I'm a big fan of democracy.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Oh, stop! Are you all studying at the Logger College of Neener Neener Neener? Numerous of us, on these boards, have talking about the evils of the EC for a number of years. In my case, since 1960 when I was 10. You can find posts by me during a Democratic presidency (this last one) describing how totally unfair it has the potential to be. It is not the EC so much as it is "Winner Take All".
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Back in reality! You're not going to be able to change it. Once the illegal vot has been found out, the EC BS won't be heard from again.
 
uke2se said:
Did you quote the right post? I was highlighting the inherent unfairness of the loser getting that many more votes than the winner.
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Yes, but for all your whining about the "unfairness" of the result, you appear to have no problem with somebody getting elected even though they got less than half of the votes cast.
 
psionl0 said:
Yes, but for all your whining about the "unfairness" of the result, you appear to have no problem with somebody getting elected even though they got less than half of the votes cast.
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What makes you think so? Is that what we're discussing here or is it the undemocratic nature of the electoral college?
 
uke2se said:
Did you quote the right post? I was highlighting the inherent unfairness of the loser getting that many more votes than the winner.
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It's the effect of an imperfect solution to an imperfect system. Remove th EC and go for the popular vote and then you're juust changing the issue. I've felt in the past that the EC is heavily biased in favor of Democrats because of California and a few other states with the Highest EC counts. On the other hand the US is such a large country that the issues which affect urban areas - those areas that are more leaned to be liberal in politics - cab be entirely different than trying to deal with issues in say. . The mid west. That being said the EC doesnt always benefit the losing party either..
 
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Grizzly Bear said:
It's the effect of an imperfect solution to an imperfect system. Remove th EC and go for the popular vote and then you're juust changing the issue. I've felt in the past that the EC is heavily biased in favor of Democrats because of California and a few other states with the Highest EC counts. On the other hand the US is such a large country that the issues which affect urban areas - those areas that are more leaned to be liberal in politics - cab be entirely different than trying to deal with issues in say. . The mid west. That being said the EC doesnt always benefit the losing party either..
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That the electoral college would be heavily biased in favor of Democrats is simply laughable, given the disproportionate amount of EC votes that go to rural red states.

As for changing the issue, yes, it would be. It would be changing the issue from an undemocratic system to a democratic system.
 
psionl0 said:
No it wouldn't. A system that elects somebody who got less than half of the votes cast is not democratic.
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A system that selects someone with a plurality of votes isn't democratic? Surely, that's splitting some hairs, no?
 
psionl0 said:
No it wouldn't. A system that elects somebody who got less than half of the votes cast is not democratic.
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Yes, it is. Plurality of votes is good enough for most of us.

But if it sticks in your craw, you could do a second round of voting, choosing from the two who got the most votes in the previous round. Would fix your issue.
 
uke2se said:
That the electoral college would be heavily biased in favor of Democrats is simply laughable, given the disproportionate amount of EC votes that go to rural red states..
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If you look at California (55), Pennsylvania (21) and New York (31) which typically (except for a few elections in recent times) trend as blue states thats 107 electoral votes from three states. The only state that votes reliable red with anything near those is Texas. Which leaves republican candidates relying on swing states to get to 270. This is in part to do with the fact that the states with the highest EC count are also home to some of the most populous urban centers which themselves trend blue

And you're telling me i'm full of crap? .-.

I'm not calling it a bias because i think its rigged that way. Thats literally how the rep counts worknout bybstate populations
 
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fuelair said:
No, people who think/believe every vote should count exactly the same! My vote should count neither more or less than your vote. But, I take your point in one way: People who get more votes but lose because of the EC would logically feel that way - with perfectly rational reasoning!!!!!
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In an ideal world yes.... but place yourself in the context of a state that lacks a significant population and its own set of issues. Do you think your candidate would campaign as hard for your vote if your voice was less of a priority to them? Doubt it if they way they approach state EC allocations and priorities is any indication. I would tend to agree with one person and one vote but you are in effect accepting a trade off by either going the route of a representative republic as we are now and a raw democracy decided by popular vote.

I'd personally be more in favor of allocating EC's proportionally by the vote percentages. The winner take all set up for most states is what crimps the issue most people are concerned about in the context of the current system
 
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phiwum said:
A system that selects someone with a plurality of votes isn't democratic? Surely, that's splitting some hairs, no?
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And how low should the vote go before you question its democratic value?

In 1992 Bill Clinton won with only 43% of the national vote. 57% of the voters didn't want him. Other than the EC system, the main reason that Clinton won was because Ross Perot split the conservative vote.

Had there been a run-off election between Clinton and GHB, GHB would most likely have been the winner. Do you still argue that Clinton's election is more democratic?
 
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