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Electoral College Reform (with actual poll this time)

Which electoral college method do you prefer for your state?

  • Winner Take All

    Votes: 9 19.6%

  • Nebraska Congressional District Method

    Votes: 4 8.7%

  • Maine Ranked Voting Method

    Votes: 7 15.2%

  • Appointed by State Legislature

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Proposed Virginia Congressional District Method

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Eliminate the Electoral College overall

    Votes: 16 34.8%

  • Other

    Votes: 10 21.7%
  • Total voters
    46
  • Poll closed .
Cardinal said:
Again, all you’re doing is revealing your ignorance and the fact that you’ve never read Federalist #68. Come back after you’ve read it.
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I keep telling you, that projector is going to wear out from all the use.

Fact: Popular vote was rejected.
Fact: Hamilton liked the resulting system, calling it excellent.

Deal with it.
 
Jay59 said:
I keep telling you, that projector is going to wear out from all the use.

Fact: Popular vote was rejected.
Fact: Hamilton liked the resulting system, calling it excellent.

Deal with it.
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Really? Quote him calling it “excellent,” as well as why he considered it “excellent.”
 
wellwisher said:
The EC makes it harder to cheat and rig the election. Popular vote would only require you rig or win California, NY, Texas and maybe Illinois. The EC will require triple the amount of rigging. This math frustrates the Democrats.
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You just described the EC system. The popular vote means that there would be no California, NY, Texas or Illinois.

It would be nice if people researched an issue for longer than four seconds before expressing a strong opinion on it.
 
wellwisher said:
The EC makes it harder to cheat and rig the election. Popular vote would only require you rig or win California, NY, Texas and maybe Illinois. The EC will require triple the amount of rigging. This math frustrates the Democrats.
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I am not a Democrat or a liberal, but your math is wrong. Lets review:

328 million - U.S Population
40 million - California
29 million - Texas
19 million - NY
12 million - Illinois & Pennsylvania
21 million - Florida

If you take the top 6 highest populated states -- California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, New York, Penn -- and total them up, you get about 133-134 million residents. That's 41% of the country.

If political party A wins over those 6 states and political party B camps out in 44 states and Washington D.C, political party B would dominate the electoral college and win over 55% of the popular vote.

Part of the reasoning behind the EC was to give more power to the smaller states and less power to the large states.
 
Cardinal said:
Really? Quote him calling it “excellent,” as well as why he considered it “excellent.”
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:SNAP: (The light went out on your projector)

It's in #68 :roll:

THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.​

:lamo
 
Jay59 said:
:SNAP: (The light went out on your projector)

It's in #68 :roll:

THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.1 I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.​

:lamo
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You forgot part 2: why the manner of choosing the President is excellent.
 
Cardinal said:
You just described the EC system. The popular vote means that there would be no California, NY, Texas or Illinois.

It would be nice if people researched an issue for longer than four seconds before expressing a strong opinion on it.
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It seems like the poster was told that winning over California, NY and Texas would guarantee a popular vote win, but when you actually look at the math, it doesn't add up. And it's not even close.

As we have seen time and again, the lowest populated states have ZERO campaign events. The statistics and history show that campaigns are focused on the highest populated swing states, and they are mostly located in the mid-west and eastern coast line.

Of course, if we did my idea, each vote would be counted the same and each state would hold equal vote.
 
BrotherFease said:
It seems like the poster was told that winning over California, NY and Texas would guarantee a popular vote win, but when you actually look at the math, it doesn't add up. And it's not even close.

As we have seen time and again, the lowest populated states have ZERO campaign events. The statistics and history show that campaigns are focused on the highest populated swing states, and they are mostly located in the mid-west and eastern coast line.

Of course, if we did my idea, each vote would be counted the same and each state would hold equal vote.
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It’s a lot worse than simply “not adding up.” It’s literally a description of the EC system. Their argument against the popular vote is specifically an argument against the Electoral College.
 
Cardinal said:
It’s a lot worse than simply “not adding up.” It’s literally a description of the EC system. Their argument against the popular vote is specifically an argument against the Electoral College.
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Not description, design.

The founders considered and rejected the popular vote, which is an issue you still have not addresses. We have a Senate, which is not tied to population, for the same reason.

Here is another way to look at it. Trump won if you count states, if you count counties, if you count precincts.

election-2016-county-map.png
 
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pinqy said:
Currently, all states except Nebraska and Maine use a Winner-Take-All system where whoever with a the popular vote in the state receives all that states electoral votes.

Nebraska uses a Congressional District method where a candidate record one electoral vote for each district won, and the two remains votes go to the winner of the state-owned popular vote.

Maine will use a ranked vote/congressional district method where voters vote for multiple candidates for President and vice President in order of preference. In the first round of voting, if no candidate has a majority, then the votes for the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated and all 1st choice votes for that candidate will be replaced by that voter's second chor. This will repeat until there is a majority winner in each district and separately at the state level for the final two votes.

For the first few elections, at least some of the state legislatures would appoint the electors without a popular vote.

A few years ago a Congressional district variation was proposed in Virginia where the two extra votes would be give to the candidate who won the most districts, not popular vote.
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The electoral college was designed to (1) prevent foreign subversion of our electoral process and (2) to prevent the people from electing a charismatic tyrant.

In 2016, the EC proved how bad it was at both. Time to abolish it.
 
Jay59 said:
Not description, design.

We have a Senate which, is not tied to population, for the same reason.

Here is another way to look at it. Trump won if you count states, if you count counties, if you count precincts.

election-2016-county-map.png
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That’s not a coherent response to anything that anybody said.
 
Cardinal said:
That’s not a coherent response to anything that anybody said.
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What was that? The light on your projector burned out.

Are you ever going to address the fact that the founders rejected the popular vote?
 
Phys251 said:
The electoral college was designed to (1) prevent foreign subversion of our electoral process and (2) to prevent the people from electing a charismatic tyrant.

In 2016, the EC proved how bad it was at both. Time to abolish it.
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And to disproportionately benefit slave states by taking advantage of the Three Fifths Compromise. It’s a relic.
 
Jay59 said:
What was that? The light on your projector burned out.

Are you ever going to address the fact that the founders rejected the popular vote?
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Glad to see you back on topic. Now go back to fed 68 and tell us why they rejected it.
 
Wayne Jr said:
Do you support Giant Duche or Turd Sandwich this time around?
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LOL. Is there any point in asking which one is which?

I'll probably vote 3rd party this time.
 
Jay59 said:
Not description, design.

The founders considered and rejected the popular vote, which is an issue you still have not addresses. We have a Senate, which is not tied to population, for the same reason.

Here is another way to look at it. Trump won if you count states, if you count counties, if you count precincts.

election-2016-county-map.png
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I didn't know land counted as people.
 
BrotherFease said:
I didn't know land counted as people.
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What your’e looking at is actually a satellite feed of millions of people covered in red or blue paint, which shows how many Republicans there are versus Democrats.
 
Just have a question for this board, why do we want to change the electoral college?

If the belief here is that electors should be picked based on the national popular vote, rather than the state popular vote, then the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) seems to solve that issue. I do not see a single option listed for that.

If the belief that it's unDemocratic, I would argue that's the point. The EC was designed to give small states more power and larger states less power, and giving states leverage on how they want to elect a President.

I think of it like baseball. The rules state that the team with the most runs, wins the baseball game. It doesn't matter if one team gets more hits than the other, it matters who gets the most runs at the end of the game. Only 5 out of the 58 presidential elections has the national popular vote winner and the electoral college winner gone to different candidates. If we had the national popular vote in 2016, then the campaign strategies would be different. You can't really say one way or the other, what could have happened, if Clinton and Trump were told they had to win the national popular vote.
 
Eliminate the electoral college, it's an outdated institution that has no place in today's America.
 
molten_dragon said:
Eliminate the electoral college, it's an outdated institution that has no place in today's America.
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The closest thing you're going to get is the NPVIC system. The EC is part of the fabric of our constitutional system. Hilary Clinton winning by 2.5 million votes doesn't really show it doesn't work, because the system was never designed to honor the national popular vote. It is like saying it's unfair that the team with the most hits can logically lose a baseball game. I am fine with keeping the system as is, or signing onto the NPVIC system.
 
Wayne Jr said:
And thus, the problem.
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Doesn't seem like as big a problem as a smaller state carrying outsize clout. Proportional representation of some form would help balance it out, because it's true you don't want a small state to have no clout at all either, but a handful of country folk cannot go on calling the shots for everyone.
 
BrotherFease said:
I didn't know land counted as people.
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Well put. Another thing that map shows is that rural voters supported Trump, the cities did not, and we're left with white, rural minority rule.

Just what the slave-owning landholders had planned for.
 
BrotherFease said:
I didn't know land counted as people.
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Reference - Senate, US

Cardinal said:
Glad to see you back on topic. Now go back to fed 68 and tell us why they rejected it.
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That has nothing to do with it. They rejected popular vote long before #68.

Again, the ball is in your court and has been for some time. Are you done spouting irrelevancies?
 
uptower said:
Doesn't seem like as big a problem as a smaller state carrying outsize clout. Proportional representation of some form would help balance it out, because it's true you don't want a small state to have no clout at all either, but a handful of country folk cannot go on calling the shots for everyone.
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It's not just about how many people there are, but how much land they control.
 
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