Electoral College vs Simple Majority; Communities vs the Individual

(Part One)

There’s a lot of discussion going on about the electoral college and the popular vote in light of this election. I wanted to potentially look at this in a different fashion than many seem to be.

Most seem to be speaking about the individual and lamenting the fact that everyone’s vote isn’t “weighted” the same on a national scale. The call seems to be for a pure democracy, a pure “majority rules” method of voting for the entire country. They feel this would be more fair and equitable, simply suggesting that people are the singular unit that needs to be looked at here to give weight to voting.

However, I feel like there is perhaps an issue with that. Specifically, it ignores the nature of tribalism with regards to humans. In this particular instance, I’m speaking of tribalism from the notion that any time you take a group of people and put them in proximity of each other, a dominant view point on any given thing will begin to emerge. This happens for a variety of reasons…those who feel that way gravitate to others like them, “learned” belief due to the prevalence around you, shared experiences leading to those views, etc…but ultimately, the key thing is that it does happen. On it’s own, this isn’t a problem. However, when viewing a country, it does create a potential conundrum. The reason for this is that while a majority of the population lives in close community with each other, the majority of communities are not filled with the majority of the people.

Going with a pure popular vote system across the entire nation would place a handful of cities, of communities, across the entire United States in the absolute drivers seat. Due to the pure population numbers of those cities, whatever the dominating cultural lean of those places are at the time is largely going to determine the election. This is not only an issue due to the potential “tyranny of the majority” situation, but it also further isolates the vast majority of other communities from the political process. At the moment there’s political incentive to visit multiple states, and multiple areas of every state. This is due to the realities of our electoral system.

On a state level, you tend to run into one or two extremely large population centers, with dozens of less populated communities throughout. On that micro level, where a pure democratic system is in place, there’s greater potential for either side to potentially win out over the other. However, as you start expanding the model nationally, the reality is that the ability for those population centers to be over taken by the individuals within the disparate other communities becomes much less of a possibility.

While I understand the feeling of disenfranchisement by those within population centers feeling like their votes don’t matter, I also recognize the potential for disenfranchisement by those hundreds of communities across the US who would be regulated to irrelevancy with a pure democratic system as well.

So when speaking about “communities”, let’s look at something here….

There are 19,505 incorporated towns, villages, and cities (TVCs) in this country. Of those TVCs, 84% of them have a population under 10,000 people. When going up to 50,000 or below, you’re look at 96% of all towns, villages, and cities. You are talking about 18,751 potential communities; communities that, speaking from a popular vote perspective, would largely be irrelevant in terms of how a campaign would strategize where to focus campaign resources/time as well as likely the end result of the election. (TVC data)

Now this data may get waved off by some, because it’s very broad. A TVC under 10,000 people, for instance, could be 90 people or 9,000. There’s no good 1:1 comparison in terms of actual numbers. So let’s illustrate this a different way.

(Part Two)

The United States OMB had defined 382 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States. These are counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban core of at least 50,000 people, plus the adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with it. Essentially, not just looking at the hard and fast boundaries of the “city”, but looking at the broad metropolitan community. (MSA data)

The United States population is 318.9 million people. Meanwhile, 273.4 million people live within one of these MSAs. So right off the bat, there’s 14% of the US population that is not actually taken into account when we look at the following data.

The top 10% of MSAs (38) make up 59% of the total MSA population. The 25% of MSAs account for 77% of the total population. Think about that; one quarter of the broader communities account for three quarters of the population.

A move to pure democratic voting across the country would do nothing but further fragment this country and increase the feeling of disenfranchisement across the land. It'd be deeming a few individual communities across the entire United States as the arbiters of who decides the highest office in the land. You would have a situation where hundreds, if not thousands, of various communities stretched throughout this country would be looking around at themselves going “we didn’t vote for this person, so who did”? And this disenfranchisement would only grow with the reality that Presidential candidates would spend less and less time anywhere NEAR such people.

Take myself for example. My home town of Daleville is part of the Roanoke Virginia MSA, which is the 159th largest in the country. It received visits multiple visits from Donald Trump as well as visits from Mike Pence, Tim Kaine, and Chelsea Clinton on behalf of her mother. Why was this? Northern Virginia is a massive population center, but it is the only one of massive significance in Virginia. As such, it’s still reasonably possible to flip the state to your favor if you can form a large enough coalition in the rest of the state while doing well enough in NOVA. That is why Virginia is currently a battle ground state, and that is why a tiny metro area such as Roanoke will get multiple visits from important campaign figures. This allows the various people from the mountains of Franklin County or the farms out in Botetourt to actually feel connected directly to the political system.

There are communities like this throughout the entire nation that actually garner attention, and form a feeling of connection to the electoral process, because of the realities of the electoral college keeping pure democratic voting isolated into a state by state fashion. If we were a pure national democratic voting system, such a thing would be foolish for any campaign to do. You don’t need Roanoke or Lynchburg to “flip” Virginia. You don’t need to worry about Virginia at all; you’d instead be looking for what massive population centers are more likely for you to be able to “flip” because that’s going to give you more bang for your buck.

(Part Three)

The reality is that no matter how you formulate the voting system, there will always be some side that loses and that side will always have individuals that feel disenfranchised or that their vote “matters”. Instead of many people focused in a dozen or so cities looking around at each other going “Who elected this person”, you’d instead have fewer people but spread across hundreds of communities looking at each other going “who elected this person”. To claim one is inherently better than the other, or that one is inherently more “fair” than the other, is just foolishness imho. Having an opinion on which you think is better or more fair is reasonable, but acting as if such a thing is an unquestioned objective truth is not.

For me, I'm of the opinion that the disenfranchisement which would come from the eradication of the electoral college would be sizably larger than what we have now. Now, even though some may think that it didn’t matter, the massive cities and urban areas still garnered massive amounts of the political attention. Rallies and appearances in places like New York or Chicago or Philadelphia were hardly lacking and the people in those cities absolutely still had the ability to still feel directly connected to the election. And they all still had the potential for significant impact on the election as well, with such a large population that could conceivably help bring about some of the largest electoral votes that are available. I personally believe the negative impact to our political process, and the political engagement of the nation as a whole, would be more profound via the elimination of the EC than by keeping it. The hybrid system we have in place, allowing pure democracy on a smaller level but allowing for more deference to communities across the entire US when talking about the impact on a national scale, is the better system.

That the Founders did not intend for there to be a one to one relationship between voters and power in Washington, DC can be seen in the creation of the Senate. No matter how small and sparsely populated a state may be they still get 2 senators, no matter how big and populous a state may be they only get 2 senators, and any law must pass the Senate and the House. This arrangement was part of what was required for the original states to agree to form a union.

States get one electoral college vote for each Senator in Congress, too. So Wyoming has three votes when its population would justify only one vote.

Question for you, would going back to the original system were winner take all did not predominate but rather electoral votes were distributed based on who won each district and then if they won the majority of the state they got the two extra electoral votes would that be the better compromise and a bit more reflective of the popular vote thus putting more states and communities in play than is the current state of play.

A second question would implementing Iowa's redistricting plan which eliminates gerrymandering, both for national and state and local office, be good or bad in your opinion.

PirateMk1 said:

Question for you, would going back to the original system were winner take all did not predominate but rather electoral votes were distributed based on who won each district and then if they won the majority of the state they got the two extra electoral votes would that be the better compromise and a bit more reflective of the popular vote thus putting more states and communities in play than is the current state of play.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how it'd necessarily "fix" the issue or anything, but I would definitely say I'd be more open to the notion of doing something like Maine or New Hampshire (I think those are the ones that split up) as opposed to going straight popular vote. That said, I don't necessarily see an extremely strong need to massively shift the system at this point; at least, not a need that would be strong enough to muster the necessary constitutional support to institute such a change.

PirateMk1 said:

A second question would implementing Iowa's redistricting plan which eliminates gerrymandering, both for national and state and local office, be good or bad in your opinion.

Click to expand...

Gerrymandering opens up a whole different avenue of discussion that I think would largely muddle the water in terms of what's actually being discussed on this topic and could easily be a topic all it's own, so I hope you'll understand that I'm going to just decline to even go down that road of discussion at this time in this thread.

Zyphlin said:

I'm not sure how it'd necessarily "fix" the issue or anything, but I would definitely say I'd be more open to the notion of doing something like Maine or New Hampshire (I think those are the ones that split up) as opposed to going straight popular vote. That said, I don't necessarily see an extremely strong need to massively shift the system at this point; at least, not a need that would be strong enough to muster the necessary constitutional support to institute such a change.





Gerrymandering opens up a whole different avenue of discussion that I think would largely muddle the water in terms of what's actually being discussed on this topic and could easily be a topic all it's own, so I hope you'll understand that I'm going to just decline to even go down that road of discussion at this time in this thread.

Click to expand...

The state you are thinking of is Nebraska. All the winner take all was implemented by the states themselves without an amendment.

Understand on the gerrymandering we will leave it for later. Question withdrawn.

The state of Texas is moving toward one day .. perhaps soon .. giving an edge to the Democrats. Florida is even closer.

This is happening due to the great increase in metropolitan populations that, in this day and age and two-party dominance polarization, increases the ranks of the Democrats.

When that happens, the EC will indeed become functionally irrelevant.

The shift, and it will likely be a final one, will put the identity politics victory in the hands of the Democrats every time .. and, sadly, American politics appears locked in this sad battle of identity politics.

The EC was created to keep the states relevant. Our founders not only were greatly concerned about a foreign power (like England) but a domestic power (like our own state union) from becoming dominant over the state communities.

So when Florida and Texas complete their transition, the majority of the states, in the traditional demographic, will become irrelevant in the Presidential election.

This would not make our framers happy.

Indeed, one political party, having perpetual power over all the nation, is also, arguably, a dominant power over the states that the writers of our Constitution were concerned about.

So in all their wisdom, they realized they couldn't foresee every possible form of such powers that would render the states unacceptably powerless, and thus they added the amendment process.

Today, with mass and global communications, the geography is less likely to determine perspective. Throughout the country this past Tuesday, it was crystal clear that it was, indeed, cities v. rural, not this or that state v. this or that state in geography, industry, attitude, etc.

I believe it is time we did something to prevent the pending irrelevancy of the EC.

My solution is to enact a Constitutional Amendment, to factor population per square mile into the count of the Presidential vote to determine which candidate wins the state.

Precincts (or state counties) that are densely populated would have a factor less than one used to multiply against the total vote count for each candidate.

Precincts (or state counties) that are sparsely populated would have a factor greater than one used to multiply against the total vote count for each candidate.

An analysis of precincts nationwide would determine the calibration population density equal to one relative to each state.

This would bring geography -- of which states are composed -- back into play .. and thus would bring the states back into play ..

.. And that would keep the EC relevant.

The relevance of the EC is philosophically foundational to the creation of our country and states rights.

We must keep it in play.

Ontologuy said:

The state of Texas is moving toward one day .. perhaps soon .. giving an edge to the Democrats. Florida is even closer.

This is happening due to the great increase in metropolitan populations that, in this day and age and two-party dominance polarization, increases the ranks of the Democrats.

When that happens, the EC will indeed become functionally irrelevant.

The shift, and it will likely be a final one, will put the identity politics victory in the hands of the Democrats every time .. and, sadly, American politics appears locked in this sad battle of identity politics.

The EC was created to keep the states relevant. Our founders not only were greatly concerned about a foreign power (like England) but a domestic power (like our own state union) from becoming dominant over the state communities.

So when Florida and Texas complete their transition, the majority of the states, in the traditional demographic, will become irrelevant in the Presidential election.

This would not make our framers happy.

Indeed, one political party, having perpetual power over all the nation, is also, arguably, a dominant power over the states that the writers of our Constitution were concerned about.

So in all their wisdom, they realized they couldn't foresee every possible form of such powers that would render the states unacceptably powerless, and thus they added the amendment process.

Today, with mass and global communications, the geography is less likely to determine perspective. Throughout the country this past Tuesday, it was crystal clear that it was, indeed, cities v. rural, not this or that state v. this or that state in geography, industry, attitude, etc.

I believe it is time we did something to prevent the pending irrelevancy of the EC.

My solution is to enact a Constitutional Amendment, to factor population per square mile into the count of the Presidential vote to determine which candidate wins the state.

Precincts (or state counties) that are densely populated would have a factor less than one used to multiply against the total vote count for each candidate.

Precincts (or state counties) that are sparsely populated would have a factor greater than one used to multiply against the total vote count for each candidate.

An analysis of precincts nationwide would determine the calibration population density equal to one relative to each state.

This would bring geography -- of which states are composed -- back into play .. and thus would bring the states back into play ..

.. And that would keep the EC relevant.

The relevance of the EC is philosophically foundational to the creation of our country and states rights.

We must keep it in play.

Click to expand...

I thinks its easier to solve by eliminating winner take all. It puts all the states back in play.

PirateMk1 said:

The state you are thinking of is Nebraska. All the winner take all was implemented by the states themselves without an amendment.

Click to expand...

I definitely think states choosing to go to a distribution based on districts, with the majority winning their 2 electoral votes, would be interesting and perhaps a more equitable and palatable system for those on both sides of the EC/Popular divide. Though DC would need to be re-examined as to how it would partake in such a process. However, I don't really know if that'd be viewed as much of a worthwhile "compromise" position for the pro-pop vote people; though perhaps I'm wrong.

Zyphlin said:

I'm not sure how it'd necessarily "fix" the issue or anything, but I would definitely say I'd be more open to the notion of doing something like Maine or New Hampshire (I think those are the ones that split up) as opposed to going straight popular vote. That said, I don't necessarily see an extremely strong need to massively shift the system at this point; at least, not a need that would be strong enough to muster the necessary constitutional support to institute such a change.

Gerrymandering opens up a whole different avenue of discussion that I think would largely muddle the water in terms of what's actually being discussed on this topic and could easily be a topic all it's own, so I hope you'll understand that I'm going to just decline to even go down that road of discussion at this time in this thread.

Click to expand...

From your posts, it is clear that American system is so convoluted that only a few experts have a complete grasp of this abomination.

There is a rule that if you (editorial) are the only one, you are a village genius or a village idiot. In this case, the US looks like a village idiot more and more. Add to this Tuesday voting instead of Saturday and Sunday the rest of the world chose and the picture is even less flattering.

The entire American system is based on one premise: voters cannot be trusted. Hence, during primaries, voters do not vote for the candidates. Later, voters are not allowed to vote for president, either. They can only vote for the EC voters. Who the hell elects the EC voters? Who elects those who elect the EC voters? Who knows.

Bottom line: at no time, are Americans allowed to vote for president. Period. Nothing to be proud of.

This madness does not need to exist any more when we are all equal - the big equalizers being TV, radio, Internet, smart phones and the car. Those inventions put an end to the concept of "rural America".

Today, a Wall Steet genious has access to the same information as does a farmer in the middle of Iowa.

I do agree that eliminating the Electoral College would put the Individual at the mercy of the Society. That is why I am opposed to eliminating the EC, further reinforced that this was the year of the change candidate. If the Status Quo had won, it would not have reflected where the general populous was at this point of time.

Zyphlin said:

I definitely think states choosing to go to a distribution based on districts, with the majority winning their 2 electoral votes, would be interesting and perhaps a more equitable and palatable system for those on both sides of the EC/Popular divide. Though DC would need to be re-examined as to how it would partake in such a process. However, I don't really know if that'd be viewed as much of a worthwhile "compromise" position for the pro-pop vote people; though perhaps I'm wrong.

Click to expand...

If they want it more equitable then that's what the need to do and that's where the compromise is for now. Unfortunately Ontology Guy is right that EC in its current form is going to lock in the popular vote pretty soon as the demographics change in Florida and Texas especially with winner take all systems in most states. Going back to the original system will stall that eventuality but the urban population is eventually going to overwhelm the rural populations. As to the solution then I haven't a clue.

legalimmigrant said:

From your posts, it is clear that American system is so convoluted that only a few experts have a complete grasp of this abomination.

There is a rule that if you (editorial) are the only one, you are a village genius or a village idiot. In this case, the US looks like a village idiot more and more. Add to this Tuesday voting instead of Saturday and Sunday the rest of the world chose and the picture is even less flattering.

The entire American system is based on one premise: voters cannot be trusted. Hence, during primaries, voters do not vote for the candidates. Later, voters are not allowed to vote for president, either. They can only vote for the EC voters. Who the hell elects the EC voters? Who elects those who elect the EC voters? Who knows.

Bottom line: at no time, are Americans allowed to vote for president. Period. Nothing to be proud of.

This madness does not need to exist any more when we are all equal - the big equalizers being TV, radio, Internet, smart phones and the car. Those inventions put an end to the concept of "rural America".

Today, a Wall Steet genious has access to the same information as does a farmer in the middle of Iowa.

Click to expand...

Rural America exists and I live there by choice. Yet for some damn reason the urbanites insist on imposing their will on me. If I was left alone I wouldn't care who was voted in. Problem is I am not being left alone, hence why I resist, and insist on the Electoral College.

PirateMk1 said:

Question for you, would going back to the original system were winner take all did not predominate but rather electoral votes were distributed based on who won each district and then if they won the majority of the state they got the two extra electoral votes would that be the better compromise and a bit more reflective of the popular vote thus putting more states and communities in play than is the current state of play.

Click to expand...

That is determined on a state by state basis. Currently I think Maine and Nebraska use the system you're talking about, the rest use winner take all. They went to winner take all because they felt their state's influence was being diluted. Considering New York and California, there would be far fewer blue votes in the electoral college if they went to your system. Texas is all gerrymandered so that there would be fewer blue votes than you might think.

"Today, with mass and global communications, the geography is less likely to determine perspective. Throughout the country this past Tuesday, it was crystal clear that it was, indeed, cities v. rural, not this or that state v. this or that state in geography, industry, attitude, etc"/// quoted from ONTOLOGUY.

"I thinks its easier to solve by eliminating winner take all. It puts all the states back in play"//// quoted from PIRATE MK1.

To the above quoted thoughts I give my LIKE. Interesting discussion.

PirateMk1 said:

Rural America exists and I live there by choice. Yet for some damn reason the urbanites insist on imposing their will on me. If I was left alone I wouldn't care who was voted in. Problem is I am not being left alone, hence why I resist, and insist on the Electoral College.

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What specifically did they impose on you?

legalimmigrant said:

What specifically did they impose on you?

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I am in the process of moving from California. Lots have things have been imposed on me, mainly CARB related and has cost me much directly in the order of mid 6 figures just in direct equipment replacement costs, which are not imposed on me in the other 47 lower mainland states. I cant afford to hire the attorneys necessary to get reimbursed under the takings laws or get a special deal the major companies get. Don't get me started on all the taxes and the fricken PGE bastards and how the coast hoses the central valley which I am leaving via the public utilities commission. The coasts and major cities only have the two lower tiers in electricity while we have four and the top tier is over triple the top tier he cities and coasts have. You begin to understand now? Don't worry that's just the tip of the iceberg, and why I finally said **** it I am outta here, to a place that appreciates my way of life and will leave me the **** alone. I used to be a Californian, now I am a Montanan.

Without the Electoral College we become a Direct Democracy rather than a Republic. That change is prohibited by the Constitution.

PirateMk1 said:

I am in the process of moving from California. Lots have things have been imposed on me, mainly CARB related and has cost me much directly in the order of mid 6 figures just in direct equipment replacement costs, which are not imposed on me in the other 47 lower mainland states. I cant afford to hire the attorneys necessary to get reimbursed under the takings laws or get a special deal the major companies get. Don't get me started on all the taxes and the fricken PGE bastards and how the coast hoses the central valley which I am leaving via the public utilities commission. The coasts and major cities only have the two lower tiers in electricity while we have four and the top tier is over triple the top tier he cities and coasts have. You begin to understand now? Don't worry that's just the tip of the iceberg, and why I finally said **** it I am outta here, to a place that appreciates my way of life and will leave me the **** alone. I used to be a Californian, now I am a Montanan.

Click to expand...

You're moving to Montana? Are you also going into the dental floss business?

Lutherf said:

You're moving to Montana? Are you also going into the dental floss business?

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I think something just flew right over my head. :mrgreen:

PirateMk1 said:

I think something just flew right over my head. :mrgreen:

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It was a little on the esoteric side.

Frank Zappa did a song called "Moving to Montana" where the subject decides to move to Montana and become a dental floss tycoon.

Lutherf said:

It was a little on the esoteric side.

Frank Zappa did a song called "Moving to Montana" where the subject decides to move to Montana and become a dental floss tycoon.

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Ahhhh. So dental floss did fly over my head. :lamo I'm not into dental floss unless it needs to be moved somewhere. I will do that happily for confiscatory rates.