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Electoral college vs Popular vote

PeteEU said:
It wont change since EC is the only way the GOP can win the White House. If it came down to a popular vote slog, then turn out would be key and considering there are way more Democrats than Republicans then the Dems would have the White House in most elections. With the EC, the GOP low population red states have far more power than they actually deserve.
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Clearly the founding fathers had the democrats and the republicans in mind when they instituted the Electoral College. As for your red state/blue state assertion. For every Wyoming there is a Rhode Island, Alaska has Hawaii, North Dakota has Vermont, South Dakota has Delaware, and we'll just lump Montana with the District of Columbia. Even New Hampshire and Maine tend to balance each other out even though they have 3 R Senators between them.

Those are the small 11 states + DC paired off electorally.
 
The EC is one of the last vestiges of the protections for the elites against the will of the people. It is a relic of the 1700's and the mindset that the landed elites must have an ace card up their sleeve just in case the great unwashed get out of hand. Of course, getting out of hand meant actually having a government run for the benefit of all the people. And the mindset of the landed gentry was that such things simply cannot be tolerated.

We need to get rid of it once and for all time.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
Clearly the founding fathers had the democrats and the republicans in mind when they instituted the Electoral College.
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The founding fathers were a bunch of rich white slave owners living in a time where getting information from one town to another could take days and from one end of the country to another could take weeks. The electoral college was sensible back then based on the situation they were in. It is not sensible today when both people of colour and women can vote and we have high speed communication.

As for your red state/blue state assertion. For every Wyoming there is a Rhode Island, Alaska has Hawaii, North Dakota has Vermont, South Dakota has Delaware, and we'll just lump Montana with the District of Columbia. Even New Hampshire and Maine tend to balance each other out even though they have 3 R Senators between them.

Those are the small 11 states + DC paired off electorally.
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Disagree fully. A red state like Iowa, has far more political power than say Oregon, or Hawaii. The whole mid west red state belt has far more political power than Hawaii, Oregon, New Hampshire and so on.. combined. And DC HA! give me a break. They are not even allowed to run their own affairs without meddling by the US congress.. usually by red state politicians. Also the gerrymandering of districts has been massive in the red states over the last decade or so, so they will in most cases always give a red majority going to Washington, and hence improving the GOP chance of gaining power in Congress. Texas is a classic example.

Sorry but the EC system, like most of the US electoral system is out dated and corrupted.. in some areas it makes the Iranian system look democratic.
 
PeteEU said:
The founding fathers were a bunch of rich white slave owners living in a time where getting information from one town to another could take days and from one end of the country to another could take weeks. The electoral college was sensible back then based on the situation they were in. It is not sensible today when both people of colour and women can vote and we have high speed communication.



Disagree fully. A red state like Iowa, has far more political power than say Oregon, or Hawaii. The whole mid west red state belt has far more political power than Hawaii, Oregon, New Hampshire and so on.. combined. And DC HA! give me a break. They are not even allowed to run their own affairs without meddling by the US congress.. usually by red state politicians. Also the gerrymandering of districts has been massive in the red states over the last decade or so, so they will in most cases always give a red majority going to Washington, and hence improving the GOP chance of gaining power in Congress. Texas is a classic example.

Sorry but the EC system, like most of the US electoral system is out dated and corrupted.. in some areas it makes the Iranian system look democratic.
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The appropriate addition of all citizens to the voting rolls didn't change the dynamics of interest in local issues that are represented by states. The Electoral College isn't changing and you can't accept that. Fine, there is probably a very long list of things you don't accept.

Assuming you refer to Iowa because of their caucuses, perhaps that part is true, but electorally Oregon and Iowa have the same political power--5 representatives and 2 senators. Your views are continually slanted into red state/blue state somehow translating to good and evil and yet somehow "your" side is always the good side. I don't know about you but I enjoyed the fact that two incumbent democratic California representatives almost came to blows yesterday because they are competing for the same district due to California's redistricting. California has been such a mess for years (a Blue state, by your criteria) that they have turned over such things as redistricting and Top-2 candidates in Primary go on to the general election regardless of party which I think are good ideas.

As for the District of Columbia your "meddling" is represented here: Article I, Section 8: "To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States"

To mess up your point further. I was interested in seeing that there was an Amendment called the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment which would have given the District full representation in Congress, the Electoral College and how the Constitution is amended. It failed to be ratified. One of the states voting for it, IOWA.
 
upsideguy said:
A national recount (Florida 2000 style) would be quite an event.... in fact, it would be a mess; a constitutional crisis. The 50 independent elections, which are implied by the electoral college, ensure the issues of individual states are addressed; is consistent with the spirit of the 10th amendment; and is a practical way to administer a national election as any close "sub-elections" are isolated and thus more easily recounted (if you call Florida 2000 an easy recount).
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Yes, exactly.
 
molten_dragon said:
Huh? Replacing the Electoral College with the popular vote would require you win a plurality of the votes in the entire country. It wouldn't matter any more what state you lived in.
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Exactly my point thanks
 
The electoral college is silly and completely unnecessary. Let's address the common arguments against it:

"This is a partisan effort to benefit the Democrats (or the Republicans)."
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Recent history does not bear this out. Neither party really has much of a consistent edge in the electoral college. If we want to see which party benefited from the electoral college in each election, you need to look at the tipping point state (i.e. the state that would allow either candidate to win, assuming they each won all the states in which they did better than that state), then compare that state's vote to the national vote. Here's the tipping point state for each of the last five elections, and how much each party benefited from the electoral college relative to the popular vote:

2008 - Colorado - Dem +1.7%
2004 - Ohio - Dem +0.4%
2000 - Florida - Rep +0.5%
1996 - Pennsylvania - Dem +0.7%
1992 - Tennessee - Rep +0.8%

As you can see, neither party has a consistent edge in the electoral college...and neither party has a very big edge anyway.

"This will unfairly disadvantage rural people."
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False. In a popular vote system, every vote counts exactly the same, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Roundhead, Ohio. Our current system is what unfairly weights some individuals' vote more heavily than others.

"Candidates will ignore most states and just concentrate on the biggest population centers."
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Even if that were true (and there's no reason to think it is), it isn't as though the current system is any more fair. Under the electoral college, candidates STILL ignore most states and focus on a completely arbitrary collection of "swing states."

"Think of what happened in Florida in 2000. Do we want a nationwide recount?"
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Statisticians will confirm that this is virtually impossible. What happened in Florida was already quite unlikely, from a statistical perspective. But about 20 times more votes were cast nationwide in 2000 than in Florida, making it vanishingly unlikely that we would ever need to do a national recount.
 
If the polling holds true...and who knows what will happen in the next three weeks...but it is now likely that ROMNEY will actually win the popular vote and Obama will retain the presidency based on the votes from the electoral college. Should that happen...I wonder what the response will be from opposing sides...
 
VanceMack said:
If the polling holds true...and who knows what will happen in the next three weeks...but it is now likely that ROMNEY will actually win the popular vote and Obama will retain the presidency based on the votes from the electoral college. Should that happen...I wonder what the response will be from opposing sides...
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Hell, I'll say the same thing I thought when Democrats wouldn't stop complaining: Deal with it. Democracy needs to be contained.
 
VanceMack said:
If the polling holds true...and who knows what will happen in the next three weeks...but it is now likely that ROMNEY will actually win the popular vote and Obama will retain the presidency based on the votes from the electoral college. Should that happen...I wonder what the response will be from opposing sides...
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My response would not change - dump the damn thing and go to straight popular vote.
 
I think if you are going to reform the electoral college you also have to reform the relationship between states and the federal government.
 
We should raffle off the job. Buy as many tickets as you want--winning number gets it.
 
upsideguy said:
A national recount (Florida 2000 style) would be quite an event.... in fact, it would be a mess; a constitutional crisis. The 50 independent elections, which are implied by the electoral college, ensure the issues of individual states are addressed; is consistent with the spirit of the 10th amendment; and is a practical way to administer a national election as any close "sub-elections" are isolated and thus more easily recounted (if you call Florida 2000 an easy recount).
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There is another alternative. Winner take all at the Congressional district level instead of the state level.
 
haymarket said:
The EC is one of the last vestiges of the protections for the elites against the will of the people. It is a relic of the 1700's and the mindset that the landed elites must have an ace card up their sleeve just in case the great unwashed get out of hand. Of course, getting out of hand meant actually having a government run for the benefit of all the people. And the mindset of the landed gentry was that such things simply cannot be tolerated.

We need to get rid of it once and for all time.
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Can I get an AMEN to that. AMEN
 
johnny_rebson said:
There is another alternative. Winner take all at the Congressional district level instead of the state level.
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That would be even worse. At least the state boundaries don't change based on the political whims of the incumbents.
 
Kandahar said:
That would be even worse. At least the state boundaries don't change based on the political whims of the incumbents.
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So if a candidate loses a state 51% to 49%, they should get nothing out of it?
 
No, keep the electoral college. It is in place to prevent large states/cities from running the country. The top 5 most populous states, for example, make up more than 1/3 of the total U.S. population.
 
Rainman05 said:
I personally find the idea of an electoral college quite useless nowadays.

I don't know the math exactly for the USA but it seems to me rather silly that if you win the states with the most electoral college seats, you win the election don't you? Lets say, 10 states had more electoral college seats than the rest of the states in the USA, if you win those 10 states, you're home free. You win the election despite the rest of the country saying something else. Despite 40 states saying something else

With popular vote, you don't get that situation. So why does there still exist an electoral college?

The only other country I know who still has an electoral college is Germany. It would be great if the germans on DP would tell us how exactly the electoral college works in Germany and if it does indeed tend to overrule the people, as it has happened in the USA 3x now.
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The problem is not the Electorial college. Its purpose is to make sure the likes of the people of N.Dakota and Rhode Island get a say who governs the country. The problem is the way the eiectors are allocated in most of the states. IE winner takes ALL. So if some one in a state wins by one vote they get ALL of the electors. The number of electors per state is the same as the number of represintives and senators combined. I think the best way to do this is to have the districts for each rep which also happen to be the district for each elector determine the winner. So a canidate that wins the state would get all the electors from all the ditricts they won plus the two extra for winning the state. The loser would get the ones for the ditricts they won. Thats the way they do it in Nebraska so it should probably work fine in other states. As far as the redidtricting issue goes, it its tied to the congresional districts anyhow so that doesnt change. The only chang would be the winners of the staes dont get all the votes of the state they win. Which means they have to win MORE states. California would be in play again, because believe it or not most of the state by AREA is conservative, and just less than half the population. That means the presidntial canidates would have to actually make stops here to snag some of the 53 plus two electorial votes for a total of 55. New York would be in play becuase out in the hills of New York they are quite conservative. Texas would be in play because of the San Antonio and Houston for the democrates. The winner take all system is a perversion of the system.
 
johnny_rebson said:
So if a candidate loses a state 51% to 49%, they should get nothing out of it?
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I'm all for a popular vote so that they get 49% out of it. But a district-level approach would be worse than a state-level approach for the simple reason that incumbents redraw the districts however they like, but can't redraw the states.
 
haymarket said:
My response would not change - dump the damn thing and go to straight popular vote.
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I respect that. As a states rights person, I prefer 1 state, one vote. Nothing is perfect. But at least you are consistent.
 
VanceMack said:
I respect that. As a states rights person, I prefer 1 state, one vote. Nothing is perfect. But at least you are consistent.
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Thank you. As an American, I prefer one person one vote - and where they live matters not to me. All votes should be equal and worth the same.
 
haymarket said:
Thank you. As an American, I prefer one person one vote - and where they live matters not to me. All votes should be equal and worth the same.
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31+ states shouldnt be dictated to by 19...especially when so many of those states have demonstrated zero fiscal responsibility. Hell...I could go one further...no state vote should count unless you have a balanced budget and can adequately provide for the needs of your own citizens.
 
VanceMack said:
31+ states shouldnt be dictated to by 19...especially when so many of those states have demonstrated zero fiscal responsibility. Hell...I could go one further...no state vote should count unless you have a balanced budget and can adequately provide for the needs of your own citizens.
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Do you realize what a field day somebody could have with your last eleven words?
 
haymarket said:
Do you realize what a field day somebody could have with your last eleven words?
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Have a ball. Its a universal sentiment. I noticed you stopped with 11 and didnt include the balanced budget part.
 
Kandahar said:
I'm all for a popular vote so that they get 49% out of it. But a district-level approach would be worse than a state-level approach for the simple reason that incumbents redraw the districts however they like, but can't redraw the states.
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Electoriaral college votes are based on represinative district votes. The districts reapportionment problem would remain the same.
 
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