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The electoral college

How should presidents be elected

  • Popular vote

    Votes: 27 45.8%
  • Electoral college

    Votes: 32 54.2%

  • Total voters
    59
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls

Who cares who it is popular with.. it doesn't matter. Popular vote is the quickest way to (further) ruin the country. Mob voting. Horrible idea. Nobody with any common sense would support such nonsense.
 
Who cares who it is popular with.. it doesn't matter. Popular vote is the quickest way to (further) ruin the country. Mob voting. Horrible idea. Nobody with any common sense would support such nonsense.

You have no idea what you are talking about. It's not the voting method which fails you, but it's you, the people who vote who mess up because you vote in a 2 party system between candidates who suck. Universal vote and popular election is the only fair way to have each individual represented. The vote of a texan and a californian is less than the vote of a guy in small state whose state gets more electoral seats than it should because of the minimum of 3 per state. Not to mention that there are US territories who don't get to vote. The only place on the planet where the american population can't vote is within the USA itself in the territories. Popular vote would fix that since the whole idiocy of the electoral college would go away.
 
"Fly over" country is flown over. IGNORED. That's what it means.

80% of the states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That's more than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans, ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.

Your theory is that voters who vote for losing candidates have their votes ignored. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every vote is an important part of the political process and the political dialogue keeps us centered.
 
No. you're scenario is an exaggeration based upon unrealistic premises. What I present is basic mathematics in a very possible and plausible scenario. If you aren't going to take a discussion seriously then better end this chat here. I don't intend to waste any more of my time and energy in making a blind person see the very obvious and stupid faults the electoral college has.

Your premise is not plausible and that is the first time you expressed that it was.

And don't get upset with me because the Electoral College isn't going away.
 
Your theory is that voters who vote for losing candidates have their votes ignored. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every vote is an important part of the political process and the political dialogue keeps us centered.

Follow the money.

Where you live should not determine how much, if at all, your vote matters.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), ensures that the candidates, after the conventions, will not reach out to about 80% of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

Minority party votes in each state are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate. In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).

Now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don't matter to candidates. Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
 
And if 6 candidates are on the ballot and the one with the majority votes wins with lets day, 30% of the vote, how well will that go over? Rare? Sure, but as someone else said, it is "perfectly possible"..

With the current system of electing the President, no state requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state's electoral votes.

Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation's 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.

If an Electoral College type of arrangement were essential for avoiding a proliferation of candidates and people being elected with low percentages of the vote, we should see evidence of these conjectured outcomes in elections that do not employ such an arrangement. In elections in which the winner is the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by that office, historical evidence shows that there is no massive proliferation of third-party candidates and candidates do not win with small percentages. For example, in 905 elections for governor in the last 60 years, the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote in over 91% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 45% of the vote in 98% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 40% of the vote in 99% of the elections. No winning candidate received less than 35% of the popular vote.

Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote.-- including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912 and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).

Americans do not view the absence of run-offs in the current system as a major problem. If, at some time in the future, the public demands run-offs, that change can be implemented at that time.

And, FYI, with the current system, it could only take winning a plurality of the popular vote in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's
 
I'd be perfectly fine with the congressional district based system used in Nebraska and Maine.

Maine and Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

A survey of Maine voters showed 77% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
In a follow-up question presenting a three-way choice among various methods of awarding Maine’s electoral votes,
* 71% favored a national popular vote;
* 21% favored Maine’s current system of awarding its electoral votes by congressional district; and
* 8% favored the statewide winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of Maine’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide).
***

A survey of Nebraska voters showed 74% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
In a follow-up question presenting a three-way choice among various methods of awarding Nebraska’s electoral votes,
* 60% favored a national popular vote;
* 28% favored Nebraska’s current system of awarding its electoral votes by congressional district; and
* 13% favored the statewide winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of Nebraska’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide).

NationalPopularVote

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts.

The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state. With the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws (whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Nationwide, there are now only 35 "battleground" districts that were competitive in the 2012 presidential election. With the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 80% of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 92% of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.

Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.

Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.

Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.

A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.
 
If you're going to vote, please explain your answer.

I support the electoral college.I do not want California,New York and a few other extremely populated states making decisions for the whole entire country.
 
Maine and Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

A survey of Maine voters showed 77% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
In a follow-up question presenting a three-way choice among various methods of awarding Maine’s electoral votes,
* 71% favored a national popular vote;
* 21% favored Maine’s current system of awarding its electoral votes by congressional district; and
* 8% favored the statewide winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of Maine’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide).
***

A survey of Nebraska voters showed 74% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
In a follow-up question presenting a three-way choice among various methods of awarding Nebraska’s electoral votes,
* 60% favored a national popular vote;
* 28% favored Nebraska’s current system of awarding its electoral votes by congressional district; and
* 13% favored the statewide winner-take-all system (i.e., awarding all of Nebraska’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes statewide).

NationalPopularVote

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts.

The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state. With the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws (whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. Nationwide, there are now only 35 "battleground" districts that were competitive in the 2012 presidential election. With the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 80% of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 92% of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.

Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.

Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.

Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.

A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.

I don't read massive cutting and pasting of poll data. Have a point to make, express it yourself. If polls mattered, we would just use them to replace voting.
 
I support the electoral college.I do not want California,New York and a few other extremely populated states making decisions for the whole entire country.

But you're fine with Florida and Ohio doing so?

Moving away from winner takes all does no such thing.
 
I support the electoral college.I do not want California,New York and a few other extremely populated states making decisions for the whole entire country.

I live in New York and I don't want the liberals making decisions for the entire state in national elections
 
You have no idea what you are talking about.

Quite a senseless rant you have going there. No doubt driven by you living in a location that is overpopulated. I've always heard such overcrowding can cause psychosis.
 
Though both popular vote and electoral college are both actions of democracy, only the electoral college protects Federalism.
Federalism- A system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units. It is essential to liberty for all. The concept is not respected on the left and the right has become in recent years more pragmatic in their approach to the need for and the restoring of Federalism.
 
Though both popular vote and electoral college are both actions of democracy, only the electoral college protects Federalism.
Federalism- A system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units. It is essential to liberty for all. The concept is not respected on the left and the right has become in recent years more pragmatic in their approach to the need for and the restoring of Federalism.

And just how does the Electoral College accomplish this goal?
 
I live in New York and I don't want the liberals making decisions for the entire state in national elections

Then you probably shouldn't be living in states where there is a large city that votes Democrat.
 
And just how does the Electoral College accomplish this goal?

As structured now, it doesn't. due to winner take all in most states It was intended to mimic the makeup of Congress as there was not a way at the time to have an accurate way of collecting votes on a national scale...
 
Though both popular vote and electoral college are both actions of democracy, only the electoral college protects Federalism.
Federalism- A system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units. It is essential to liberty for all. The concept is not respected on the left and the right has become in recent years more pragmatic in their approach to the need for and the restoring of Federalism.

With the Electoral College and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interests within the confines of the Constitution. The National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.

The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps for their party’s presidential candidate. That is not what the Founders intended.

During the course of campaigns, candidates are educated and campaign about the local, regional, and state issues most important to the handful of battleground states they need to win. They take this knowledge and prioritization with them once they are elected. Candidates need to be educated and care about all of our states.

The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.

80% of the states and people were just spectators to the presidential election. That's more than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans.

Policies important to the citizens of non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections

The National Popular Vote bill preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections. It changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College.

Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. When states with a combined total of at least 270 electoral votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes.

States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.

Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).
 
Then you probably shouldn't be living in states where there is a large city that votes Democrat.

If big cities controlled the outcome of elections, the governors and U.S. Senators would be Democratic in virtually every state with a significant city.

Even in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don't campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don't control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn't have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles. If Los Angeles cannot control statewide elections in California, it can hardly control a nationwide election.

In fact, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland together cannot control a statewide election in California.

Similarly, Republicans dominate Texas politics without carrying big cities such as Dallas and Houston.

There are numerous other examples of Republicans who won races for governor and U.S. Senator in other states that have big cities (e.g., New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts) without ever carrying the big cities of their respective states.

With a national popular vote, every vote everywhere will be equally important politically. There will be nothing special about a vote cast in a big city or big state. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.
 
I support the electoral college.I do not want California,New York and a few other extremely populated states making decisions for the whole entire country.

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes, it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states include five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826

To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
 
The most ridiculous thing is that we were responding to a walking RSS feed or one of those robotic "internet chicks" that randomly messaged you on your IM client.
 
Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.

I think what the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would do is worse. If we ever had a serious third party challenger, a candidate could win with around 30-40% of the vote. Imagine if we had a national scenario like Maine had in 2010. Despite 62% of the people voting for someone ranging from slightly liberal to very liberal a tea party conservative was elected governor. It's better to have it go to congress decide it than to have a President elected that a large majority of people don't want.
 
Then you probably shouldn't be living in states where there is a large city that votes Democrat.

Problem is, that is most cities. Those that do not, will eventually get there.
 
I think what the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would do is worse. If we ever had a serious third party challenger, a candidate could win with around 30-40% of the vote. Imagine if we had a national scenario like Maine had in 2010. Despite 62% of the people voting for someone ranging from slightly liberal to very liberal a tea party conservative was elected governor. It's better to have it go to congress decide it than to have a President elected that a large majority of people don't want.

If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Candidates would have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn't be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as waitress mom voters in Ohio.

With the current system of electing the President, no state requires that a presidential candidate receive anything more than the most popular votes in order to receive all of the state's electoral votes.

Not a single legislative bill has been introduced in any state legislature in recent decades (among the more than 100,000 bills that are introduced in every two-year period by the nation's 7,300 state legislators) proposing to change the existing universal practice of the states to award electoral votes to the candidate who receives a plurality (as opposed to absolute majority) of the votes (statewide or district-wide). There is no evidence of any public sentiment in favor of imposing such a requirement.

If an Electoral College type of arrangement were essential for avoiding a proliferation of candidates and people being elected with low percentages of the vote, we should see evidence of these conjectured outcomes in elections that do not employ such an arrangement. In elections in which the winner is the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by that office, historical evidence shows that there is no proliferation of third-party candidates and candidates do not win with small percentages. For example, in 905 elections for governor in the last 60 years, the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote in over 91% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 45% of the vote in 98% of the elections. The winning candidate received more than 40% of the vote in 99% of the elections. No winning candidate received less than 35% of the popular vote.

Since 1824 there have been 16 presidential elections in which a candidate was elected or reelected without gaining a majority of the popular vote.-- including Lincoln (1860), Wilson (1912, and 1916), Truman (1948), Kennedy (1960), Nixon (1968), and Clinton (1992 and 1996).

Americans do not view the absence of run-offs in the current system as a major problem. If, at some time in the future, the public demands run-offs, that change can be implemented at that time.

Remember . . . with the current system, it could only take winning a plurality of the popular vote in the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes.

In a contingent election, the U.S. House of Representatives would choose the President (with each state having one vote). In the House, each state is entitled to cast one vote for President (with equally divided states being unable to cast a vote). In the Senate, each Senator is entitled to cast one vote for Vice President. Approval of Congress now is at less than 10%.
 
And just how does the Electoral College accomplish this goal?

Well heymarket lets look how long it has been successfully in place for starters....... America's election systems have operated smoothly for more than 200
years because the Electoral College accomplishes its intended purposes. America's presidential election process preserves federalism, prevents electoral chaos by creating definitive electoral outcomes, promotes coalition building among different regions of the country, and prevents tyrannical or unreasonable
rule. It further protects the freedom of individuals in small and sparsely populated states from the tyranny of the majority in a national election for President. I don't care if you are left, right, up , down or in-between, that should be a concern to all.



Contrary to modern perceptions, the founding generation did not intend to create a direct democracy. To the contrary, the Founders deliberately created a republic -- or, arguably, a republican democracy -- that would incorporate a spirit of compromise and deliberation into decision-making. Such a form of government, the Founders believed, would allow them to achieve two potentially conflicting objectives: avoiding the "tyranny of the majority" inherent in pure democratic systems, while allowing the "sense of the people" to be reflected in the new American government. A republican government, organized on federalist principles, would allow the delegates to achieve the most difficult of their tasks by enabling large and small sovereign states to live peacefully alongside each other.

The author(s) of the Constitution (Madison often called the father of the Constitution) had studied the history of many failed democratic systems, and they wanted to create a different form of government. Indeed, James Madison, delegate from Virginia, argued that unrestrained majorities such as those found in pure democracies tend toward tyranny. Madison stated it this way:

[In a pure democracy], [a] common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.


Know the failures of democracies from history, the Founders were still strong advocates for self-government, and they often spoke of the need to allow the will of the people to operate in the new government that they were crafting. "Not withstanding the oppressions & injustice experienced among us from democracy," Virginia delegate George Mason declared ( after experiencing the tyrannical democracy from Mother England), "the genius of the people must be consulted." James Madison agreed. The Electoral College was considered to fit perfectly within this republican, federalist government that had been created. The system would allow majorities to rule, but only while they were reasonable, broad-based, and not tyrannical while allowing all states no matter how small a voice.
 
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Well heymarket lets look how long it has been successfully in place for starters.......

I would imagine that the four men who finished first in the vote of the people and their supporters may not be so generous in your characterization of success.

It further protects the freedom of individuals in small and sparsely populated states from the tyranny of the majority in a national election for President.

How is the winner of an election suddenly the "tyranny of the majority"? It seems you prefer the tyranny of the minority.

Contrary to modern perceptions, the founding generation did not intend to create a direct democracy.

Nor would the removal of the electoral college suddenly make us a direct democracy. Your point is irrelevant.

The author(s) of the Constitution (Madison often called the father of the Constitution) had studied the history of many failed democratic systems, and they wanted to create a different form of government. Indeed, James Madison, delegate from Virginia, argued that unrestrained majorities such as those found in pure democracies tend toward tyranny.

The Constitution was the work of 55 men. I would love to read about the findings of nations which had PURE DEMOCRACIES before 1787. Please do list them and their weaknesses.

Know the failures of democracies from history

But you have provided us with no specific examples - only vague personal pontifications of others.

The Electoral College was considered to fit perfectly within this republican, federalist government that had been created. The system would allow majorities to rule, but only while they were reasonable, broad-based, and not tyrannical while allowing all states no matter how small a voice.

My compliments on your abilities with a phrase. It is very well stated. Unfortunately for you, the EC has nothing at all to do with reason as it is based purely on mathematics which are a whole different ball of wax.
 
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