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New York does away with Electoral College

Lutherf said:
The Constitution doesn't grant the states power. The states grant certain powers to the federal government via the Constitution. Why is it that so many people fail to understand that most basic concept?
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I realize what the consitution grants. But how does this lead to anything you posted earlier?
 
Lutherf said:
Democracy is simply a step toward totalitarianism. The sad part is that most people won't realize that we've stepped off that cliff even after we hit bottom.
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Tell me Lutherf, how do you feel knowing that the only meaningful ballot you cast for federal elections are for house representatives? So half of the legislative branch.
Because the senators are elected by the state legislatures and the president is elected by electors, again, state electors where it's all or nothing.

You talk about "direct democracy" as in, the tyranny of the masses because you incorrectly assume democracy to always mean direct democracy. Fine.
Direct democracy is that if you are in a state and you vote democrat but 50% + 1 voted republican, all the votes that went to democrat mean nothing anymore because all the electors from that state go to the republicans. So you're nullifying 50% -1 of the population in that state. As opposed to real democracy without the electoral college where each of the votes would matter. So the tyranny of the masses exists in each state when there is a presidential election now. How about them apples?

And did u watch the video? How you can win with just 22% of the population? Here, I'll post it again just for you.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Why? What purpose does it represent!? If the POTUS is supposed to represent the county as a WHOLE why should one state get more votes than anohter thus deciding an election in which it supposed to represent the country as a whole?
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Around and around we go. You ask that which you were already told.
You even quoted it. D'Oh!
"The purpose was to give the individual States representation as a State. That has not been overcome, nor could it. "​
The President is the President of the Union of States. Do you really not understand that? Do you really not understand what the term "President of the United States of America" means?
It is the States that elect whom they want to represent them in the Union. Not the People.


TheDemSocialist said:
How so?
Still waiting on that answer...
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Still asking for that which you were already told. :doh


TheDemSocialist said:
Direct demoracy means you as an individual citizen has the right to vote for a speicifc policy... Example, lets say a vote comes up on if crack cocaine should be legal, meaning you have the right to go to a congress and vote yes or no a long with everyone else. That is direct democracy.
Indirect means simply, you vote for someone to represent you in a congress/office. If we moved to popular vote of a POTUS that still means its a indirect democracy..
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Oh spare us the bs.
We are specifically talking about the election of a President.
Doing away with the Electoral College makes it a direct vote of the People, not the indirect representation it currently is.


TheDemSocialist said:
Nope. Really not at all.
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:doh Yes really. Indirect to direct, is a fundamental change.


TheDemSocialist said:
Uhh the popular will is followed.
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iLOL That is not an advantage.


TheDemSocialist said:
The controversy of 2000 would of never happened....
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More absurdities.
There was nothing wrong with what happened.
The system operated as it should.



TheDemSocialist said:
I'm not being silly, since the the Commission of Presidential Debates is ran by GOP and Democratic officials, and since the USSC has basically unlimmitted $$ in the elections I wouldnt fear any socialists getting popular in the race soon..
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Yes you are being silly. Any incremental step towards socialistic policy is what you support.
 
Excon said:
It isn't ineffective or outdated.

I think the main problem here is folks do not understand why our Republic was set up the way it was, and instead simply just think it is only about representation of the people as a whole, when it is about a mixture of direct and indirect representation.
You remove the indirect representation, you fundamentally change what this Nation is.
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We have been doing just that since the 1800's because Democracy makes more sense now than it did when the Constitution was written. Their really had not been any Democracies in the 1700's so the founders chose to use "safety nets" like the electoral college. We have long abandoned the choosing of Senators by State legislatures and the electoral college is not really functional in the way it was envisioned either. It's high time we swept away the last vestiges of the 18th century in our political system.
 
Lutherf said:
The Constitution doesn't grant the states power. The states grant certain powers to the federal government via the Constitution. Why is it that so many people fail to understand that most basic concept?
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And why is that? Could it be that in order to get the States to ratify and join the union the founders granted inordinate power to the States? Could it also be that as time went by the elected representatives and Supreme Court reduced those powers to strengthen the union and the country? We are no longer a federation of individual States and haven't been for a long long time.
 
iguanaman said:
We are no longer a federation of individual States and haven't been for a long long time.
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Wtf?
The hell we aren't.


iguanaman said:
We have been doing just that since the 1800's because Democracy makes more sense now than it did when the Constitution was written. Their really had not been any Democracies in the 1700's so the founders chose to use "safety nets" like the electoral college. We have long abandoned the choosing of Senators by State legislatures and the electoral college is not really functional in the way it was envisioned either. It's high time we swept away the last vestiges of the 18th century in our political system.
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Democracy, as in direct democracy, is seen as the same as it was then.
Inherently flawed.
Nor is it time to seep anything away.
 
Excon said:
We are a Republic.
We were set up that way so their would not be any direct democracy.
The Electoral College is neither outdated or irrational. It serves its purpose, which apparently idiots wish to undermine with such agreements.
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The delegates in the electoral college don't even have to vote the way the people want then to so it's not really a democracy or a Republic, but rather some oligarchical bastardization.

Removing another layer between the citizens and the decision makers would be a great step for democracy and an accurate representation of our wants.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
The delegates in the electoral college don't even have to vote the way the people want then to so it's not really a democracy or a Republic, but rather some oligarchical bastardization.
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That is indirect.
 
Excon said:
That is indirect.
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So let me get this straight : when you look at the American political system you think "Man, this is perfect the way it is and the citizens are well represented by their politicians."?

The rest of us see a major problem that needs fixing and doing the same thing but expecting different results is more optimistic than realist.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
So let me get this straight : when you look at the American political system you think "Man, this is perfect the way it is and the citizens are well represented by their politicians."?
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Either you understand the separation between the governments involved, the Union as it was established and it's purpose, or you don't.
I happen to see something that works as it is supposed to.
In addition, I happen to think that indirect representation serves a better purpose than direct.


RabidAlpaca said:
The rest of us [...]
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The rest of us?
:naughty
No, a certain subset of the population sees such. Hardly any of them with a full understanding in the purpose of the EC, and many with just a dislike of the indirect nature of the Electoral College.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Video @: [/FONT][/COLOR]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_35DiUNLZI
More found @: New York joins campaign to end Electoral College role in presidential elections - NY Daily News

Honestly, I think we should get rid of the electoral college. I believe it only makes sense. If we are a democracy, why not be a democracy that elects its highest leader? I mean it only makes sense.. I mean I know what some people are going to say, "hey we arent a democracy, we are a republic!". But you can be a republic and a democracy at the same time. The electoral college is outdated and irrational with our political climate and system.
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I think this agreement will hold up only so long as the participating states statewide elections match the popular vote. The next time the popular vote goes against NY state they will back out because the citizens of the state will rightly argue that they were not represented.
 
Paschendale said:
One of the main reasons for the electoral college is because information traveled at the speed of horse in 1789. No accurate winner could be selected with any haste and the potential for mistakes was enormous. Putting the election in tiers (electoral district > state > nation) helped ensure an accurate result. In the age of telephones, computers, and the internet, there is no such need.

The real effect of the electoral college is that presidents have to campaign for states, instead of campaigning for the entire nation. This is horrendously stupid. No single state's interests should hold such a large sway. And even worse, only a few state's interests end up having that sway. Presidents should be concerned with national issues, not state ones. And everyone's vote should count the same, not strengthened or weakened based on the completely fictional concern that large states vote homogeneously and can run the entire nation.
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It seems to me that the exact opposite is true.

If we were to do away with the electoral college there would be no need for a candidate to go to places like Wisconsin, New Mexico, or Nevada.(aka swing states) Instead, the focus would shift towards large population centers and those places would then hold even more "sway" than they do now. The "effect" that you think would be negated by doing away with the electoral college would actually be magnified.

And we should also stop pretending and just call this thing what it really is. It's partisan Democrats trying to gain an advantage. They know that by doing away with the electoral college they only need to focus their efforts on large urban centers... areas that they have historically done very well in anyway. While the Republicans would be busy trying to cover nearly every square inch of rural America, the Democrats could focus their efforts into a select few regions. It's a "bang for the buck" thing along the same lines as gerrymandering.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
So we direclty elect our senators and representative but if we elect the POTUS, the oh Christ we are on our way to totalitarianism! Please Lutherf with our separation of power and checks and balances in place, please explain how you reach this conclusion...
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What i means is that your state no longer elects the president. It means another state elects the president. if you vote for your candidate you vote has no say whatsoever.
the electorials are going to go to whoever wins the popular vote.

so while the majority of people could vote for person A it won't matter if person B has more votes across the nation. it means that smaller states don't get a say at all.
if we switched to a popular vote then CA, TX, PA, FL, NY decide who the president is because they contain >50% of the nations populations.
so all i need to do is try and campaign in those states.

This was a reason the that the electorial college was implimented to begin with. States in the south complained that they wouldn't get a voice or vote for president due to the heavily populated north.
 
The electoral college isn't going anywhere. Any state that joins this compact can easily withdraw. When the majority in a state goes for candidate D and their electoral votes go to candidate R, there will be serious howling.

There is still nothing to prevent faithless electors so put that in your pipe and smoke it.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
I mean the founders were not perfect by anyway, why is it so shocking to get rid of something that is ineffective and outdated?
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What is ineffective about it?


TheDemSocialist said:
So if a POTUS is elected by popular vote that means "socialism is going to come!" :doh I wish! In my dreams! In reality it means Al Gore would of been elected.. Ohh what a "socialist!" :lamo Get ****ing real!
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Direct democracy is mob rule, which is fine and dandy if you happen to be in the mob. If you're not a member of the majority mob, then you are essentially ****ed. The system we have was formed to prevent the mob from ruling, and that is a desirable thing. Mob mentality is ugly, and mob power is even worse.
 
I'm not in favor of getting rid of the electoral college, but I don't feel strongly about it and if it's voted out then I'm fine with it.

But I find this particular method to be extremely distasteful and wrong. For all the complaints that the electoral college devalues the votes of some individuals in a state, this would do so even greater. If 80% of a state went towards one candidate, but the popular vote went another way, then that states population would essentially have been deprived of their ability to vote in the federal system of note in this country. That's amazingly wrong in my mind.

If you want to get rid of it then go about the actions to get rid of it. Actions like this however just seem like foot stomping temper tantrums that set up more harm than good.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Video @: [/FONT][/COLOR]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_35DiUNLZI
More found @: New York joins campaign to end Electoral College role in presidential elections - NY Daily News

Honestly, I think we should get rid of the electoral college. I believe it only makes sense. If we are a democracy, why not be a democracy that elects its highest leader? I mean it only makes sense.. I mean I know what some people are going to say, "hey we arent a democracy, we are a republic!". But you can be a republic and a democracy at the same time. The electoral college is outdated and irrational with our political climate and system.
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Until a Conservative gets 51% of the vote, then you'll be begging for the electoral college to be applied.
 
Lutherf said:
It's not outdated.

The result of dissolution of the electoral college will be the removal of one more hedge against federal supremacy. Little by little the states are ceding their power and their responsibilities to the federal government. In time the states will become nothing more than the answer to a trivia question and state governments will be strictly figurative. There will be no restraints on the federal government which will become more and more insulated from the people who will have less and less autonomy as we transition from a nation based on natural rights into one based on civil rights.
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Honestly at this stage of the game I'm not so sure doing away with states would be all that bad. The federal government is already supreme and the states have lost enough autonomy that we're very nearly at the point where states are virtually nothing more than another taxing authority and bureaucracy that can make your life miserable.

In theory the electoral college protects smaller states by giving them the ability to throw all their electoral votes to one candidate. In reality since most states are winner-takes-all, states that are comfortably blue or red and pretty much ignored by candidates in favor of the so called battleground states. A large minority of US citizens are effectively disenfranchised because they happen to be members of the minority party in the state that they live in.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Video @: [/FONT][/COLOR]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_35DiUNLZI
More found @: New York joins campaign to end Electoral College role in presidential elections - NY Daily News

Honestly, I think we should get rid of the electoral college. I believe it only makes sense. If we are a democracy, why not be a democracy that elects its highest leader? I mean it only makes sense.. I mean I know what some people are going to say, "hey we arent a democracy, we are a republic!". But you can be a republic and a democracy at the same time. The electoral college is outdated and irrational with our political climate and system.
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The electoral college was established for reason and that was to temper popularism somewhat while allowing the less populated states to have some amount of input into the system. We are a democratic republic even with the EC and I see no reason to get rid of the EC.
 
By all means, let's let Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York decide all things for all people in all places.
 
Ikari said:
The electoral college was established for reason and that was to temper popularism somewhat while allowing the less populated states to have some amount of input into the system. We are a democratic republic even with the EC and I see no reason to get rid of the EC.
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Good point! But you're also missing an important aspect of the design of the EC. It's a way to help reinforce the idea of Balance of Powers. The House is designed to be the voice of the People, the Senate is the voice of the States. As you said, combining the two prevents either the People from enforcing the dictatorship of the 51% or the large States simply riding roughshod over the will of the people. We need both perspectives involved in this decision.
 
Rainman05 said:
Tell me Lutherf, how do you feel knowing that the only meaningful ballot you cast for federal elections are for house representatives? So half of the legislative branch.
Because the senators are elected by the state legislatures and the president is elected by electors, again, state electors where it's all or nothing.

You talk about "direct democracy" as in, the tyranny of the masses because you incorrectly assume democracy to always mean direct democracy. Fine.
Direct democracy is that if you are in a state and you vote democrat but 50% + 1 voted republican, all the votes that went to democrat mean nothing anymore because all the electors from that state go to the republicans. So you're nullifying 50% -1 of the population in that state. As opposed to real democracy without the electoral college where each of the votes would matter. So the tyranny of the masses exists in each state when there is a presidential election now. How about them apples?

And did u watch the video? How you can win with just 22% of the population? Here, I'll post it again just for you.
Click to expand...

I appreciate you posting the video again as my eyesight and comprehension are lost without youtube.

Our system of government was designed from the ground up to put the majority of the political power (and political responsibility) in the hands of the people of the states. The idea was that if we made the political units at the local level the most responsible for the most stuff then the people would be most able to hold them accountable. As one ascended the political ladder there was supposed to be less responsibility delegated to government, not more.

The problem we are having in this country isn't due to the electoral college. It's due to the people ceding too much power to two political parties who both, at their core, only want more political power. In Europe you guys probably just look at this as a novelty. You've ALWAYS had a political class but in America it's a relatively new thing and some of us are VERY resistant to the concept. They seem to be making an end run around the whole concept of the Constitution and LOTS of people are cheering it on. Hell, you can see it in this thread. Half the damned respondents seem to think our government was designed and should best be handled as a "top down" structure. They're perfectly happy being pawns in the game.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Video @: [/FONT][/COLOR]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_35DiUNLZI
More found @: New York joins campaign to end Electoral College role in presidential elections - NY Daily News

Honestly, I think we should get rid of the electoral college. I believe it only makes sense. If we are a democracy, why not be a democracy that elects its highest leader? I mean it only makes sense.. I mean I know what some people are going to say, "hey we arent a democracy, we are a republic!". But you can be a republic and a democracy at the same time. The electoral college is outdated and irrational with our political climate and system.
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I vehemently disagree. Democracy is mob rule. I despise mobs of any form.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
The electoral college isn't going anywhere. Any state that joins this compact can easily withdraw. When the majority in a state goes for candidate D and their electoral votes go to candidate R, there will be serious howling.

There is still nothing to prevent faithless electors so put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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That's not what's going to happen.

In a state like NY you'll see NYC, Albany and Buffalo vote Democrat. Everyone else will vote Republican but it will still only be 35-40% of the total votes cast and all electors will go to the Democrats. There's really no good reason to even put a presidential candidate on the ballot as it's going to go to the majority party in the state no matter what.
 
Lutherf said:
That's not what's going to happen.

In a state like NY you'll see NYC, Albany and Buffalo vote Democrat. Everyone else will vote Republican but it will still only be 35-40% of the total votes cast and all electors will go to the Democrats. There's really no good reason to even put a presidential candidate on the ballot as it's going to go to the majority party in the state no matter what.
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On this thread, NY electoral votes will go to whichever candidate got the most individual votes nationally regardless of how NY voted.
 
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