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Amendment to get rid of the Electoral College?

Should Congress create an amendment to get rid of the Electoral College?

  • Yes

    Votes: 15 36.6%
  • No

    Votes: 19 46.3%
  • Yes, but it could never get passed.

    Votes: 4 9.8%
  • I have no opinion.

    Votes: 3 7.3%

  • Total voters
    41
If the EC must remain, then I'd prefer proportional allocation. So if candidate A gets 52% of the popular vote in CA, he'd get 29 EV; while candidate B would get 26 EV (assuming he got 48% of the vote).
Call your state legislators -- they're the only ones who can do that.
 
People are trying to get rid of the electoral college even though what they should be doing is writing their state legislators requesting that their state use a proportional system in divvying up electoral votes. Like Maine uses.

It's funny, that. The Democrats occasionally try to ram a ballot proposition through that would, in Colorado, for example, with 8 EC's force the state to make the distribution of electors, but they're adamantly opposed to anyone even thinking about doing that to California, with over 50 EC's.

Hypocrites, they are.
 
It's funny, that. The Democrats occasionally try to ram a ballot proposition through that would, in Colorado, for example, with 8 EC's force the state to make the distribution of electors, but they're adamantly opposed to anyone even thinking about doing that to California, with over 50 EC's.

Hypocrites, they are.
I did the math for the 2000/2004 election using proprtional allocation.

Bush wins bigger, both times. The red states are more red than the blue states are blue.
 
It's funny, that. The Democrats occasionally try to ram a ballot proposition through that would, in Colorado, for example, with 8 EC's force the state to make the distribution of electors, but they're adamantly opposed to anyone even thinking about doing that to California, with over 50 EC's.

Hypocrites, they are.

Personally, I only care what Illinois does. I want my "vote" to count in 2012, and if the system here isn't changed, it won't.
 
I did the math for the 2000/2004 election using proprtional allocation.

Bush wins bigger, both times. The red states are more red than the blue states are blue.

One thing a proportional vote tally might do is give a little more legitimacy to a third party candidate.
 
The people dont elect the President, and so that doesn't matter.

And... your criteria here is still flawed. State elections are held for the state electors, not the President. In that, the equality/inequality of any given vote is found within the state that holds the election -- and in that, all votes are equal.

No I just don't start with the assumption that our government is exactly as it should be. Why should the states elect the President?

One thing a proportional vote tally might do is give a little more legitimacy to a third party candidate.

No. People will still feel like voting 3rd party is like voting for their worst enemy, or not voting at all. This wouldn't change even if each state wasn't winner take all.

Proportional representation, which wouldn't apply to presidential elections, is where people vote for parties and, given a certain threshold of votes, the party wins seats. Say the threshold is 5%. If 5% of people vote green, then 5% of seats are filled with green party candidates. Then you might see something like 15% libertarian, 45% democrat, and 35% republican. The composition of the Congress would more closely reflect the preferences of the people given more than two choices, as opposed to in each district whichever party has the highest percentage takes all and everybody else's preferences are effectively ignored.
 
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No. People will still feel like voting 3rd party is like voting for their worst enemy, or not voting at all. This wouldn't change even if each state wasn't winner take all.

People don't feel that way at all. they feel, correctly, that a vote for a third party is a waste of time in the current system because the third party can NEVER get any EC votes.

Unfortunately, as it stands, people aren't interested in regaining the country form partisan nonsense because they're more interested in who Angelina Jolie is blowing this week than they are in how the two party system has become a fetid mass of donkephant manure that engulfs the nation.

Oh well.

Proportional representation, which wouldn't apply to presidential elections, is where people vote for parties and, given a certain threshold of votes, the party wins seats. Say the threshold is 5%. If 5% of people vote green, then 5% of seats are filled with green party candidates. Then you might see something like 15% libertarian, 45% democrat, and 35% republican. The composition of the Congress would more closely reflect the preferences of the people given more than two choices, as opposed to in each district whichever party has the highest percentage takes all and everybody else's preferences are effectively ignored.

A proportional allocation of a State's Electoral college votes wouldn't apply to presidential elections?!??!?! :confused:

Who knew?

The Electoral College - Reform Options

Please, if you aren't going to bother to follow the conversation, then have the decency to not bother replying.
 
Given that the President is the head of Government, elected by the states, and that the Federal Government governs over a Republic of sovereign states, the electoral college shoud have 50 memebers, one from each state, as under the Constitution, each state is equal.

Each state is equal, but each person is equal too, and under your system, the people of Alaska, who are represented by the government of alaska, have more say than I do, though the government of California. I personally think that the EV should go off of house seats. Lets end vote welfare.

People are trying to get rid of the electoral college even though what they should be doing is writing their state legislators requesting that their state use a proportional system in divvying up electoral votes. Like Maine uses.

If all the people in the "minority" parties for their states rallied for this, it would eventually pass. But too much focus is being placed on it being a national thing when it is totally a state thing.

Right now, in the current system, your vote can count. If your state altered the way they delegate the EC votes. They only talk about abolishing the EC in order to make you think they actyally care.

All that divying it up by districts would do would be to give us swing districts instead of swing states. I fail to see the real difference here.
 
All that divying it up by districts would do would be to give us swing districts instead of swing states. I fail to see the real difference here.

More of an opportunity to be heard. there would be many more swing districts than swing states.

Plus, I'm more in favor of a proportional allocation that a district based allocation. That would mean that there wouldn't even be swing districts.
 
More of an opportunity to be heard. there would be many more swing districts than swing states.

Plus, I'm more in favor of a proportional allocation that a district based allocation. That would mean that there wouldn't even be swing districts.

You mentioned Maine and Nebraska, those two do a district-based approach. And swing disctricts don't really make things better. Last year, 14 or so states were seriously contested by one side or the other. Everyone in those states were targeted, that's a lot of people. Do you really think it'd be that many if we go by districts, many of which are gerrymandered?
 
One thing a proportional vote tally might do is give a little more legitimacy to a third party candidate.
Good catch, I never thought about that angle, but this may become something in the next decade if Washington doesn't change, I think third party becomes viable then.
 
Good catch, I never thought about that angle, but this may become something in the next decade if Washington doesn't change, I think third party becomes viable then.

Haven't people been saying that for decades? It's never happened so far.
 
Haven't people been saying that for decades? It's never happened so far.

And as long as third parties remain as ridiculous as they are now it won't, ever.

Am I the only one here who is perfectly okay with that?
 
Haven't people been saying that for decades? It's never happened so far.
Difference now is that more people seem to be saying it. I'll admit that for third party viability it would take both parties to fall into extreme disfavor with a good block of their supporters, but this seems to be happening currently, only time will tell though.

And as long as third parties remain as ridiculous as they are now it won't, ever.

Am I the only one here who is perfectly okay with that?
I'm okay with two parties that stand for something solid, as it stands both parties are a mess at the moment, I'm okay with what's best for our country.
 
That's like asking if every adult American should be given a million dollars. It's just not going to happen.

It's sort of like debating how many angles can dance on the head of a pin.

It takes 3/4 of the States voting and approving to pass an Amendment. I say again....this is not going to happen.

Why would any one, other than Democrats that live in New York and California be for just a thing?
 
You mentioned Maine and Nebraska, those two do a district-based approach. And swing disctricts don't really make things better. Last year, 14 or so states were seriously contested by one side or the other. Everyone in those states were targeted, that's a lot of people. Do you really think it'd be that many if we go by districts, many of which are gerrymandered?

Yeah, that was an error on my part to mention Maine/Nebraska when I was really more in favor of a proportional allocation system.

But even still, I think it a district based system would target more people simply because the media outlets are not only district based. The TV and newspaper coverage often encompass many more districts than just the contested ones.

Take Chicago for example. The 10th district is historically a left-leaning swing district (represented by a republican since 2001). In order to target the 10th district, they would need to end up targeting ALL of the Chicagoland area districts that are covered by the same media outlets as well. The Chicagoland media area is not just Northeast Illinois. It reaches parts of Indian, Wisconsin and Michigan as well.

So targeting one swing district would vicariously cause about 10 million other people to receive the same degree of targeting as well.

At the very least, this will mean that more people are given the same attention that those 14 states did, and it would probably reach all 50 states to some degree.

So even if someone lives in a different district that wouldn't be contested, they are going to receive the same inundation of information that the people who are in the swing district will receive.

Plus, they will be MORE likely to have their vote actually count. Under the current system, someone in the 10th voting against the majority of the state, will not have their vote count. The rest of the Chicagoland area alone negates their vote.

So the benefits to having a district-based system still outweigh the benefits of the current system, although proportional allocation would be prefereable still in my opinion.

Quite frankly, I'm not interested in influencing Alabama's, Wyoming's, or California's systems. I only want to see a change to Illinois' system. If Alabama wants to make it winner take all, that should be their prerogative. If California wants to go by disticts, that should be their prerogative. If Wyoming wanted to give all of their votes to the Republicans on years when the groundhog sees it's shadow and all of them to the Democrats on the years it doesn't, so be it. It's none of my business.

My business is what Illinois does. I think the system was created to limit the influence of government on the individual based on proximity. I think this is a good system.

As time went on, the system got flipped around. Right now, there is no clear hierarchy of influence. The federal and state level authority has grown to include many things which it shouldn't include.

I believe in maximizing the authority locally and decreasing it as the sphere's of influence increase in size. The farther away from the individual the decisions are made, the less influence those decisions should have on that individual.
 
Each state is equal, but each person is equal too...
The states, not the people, elect the President, and so any argument regarding the quality of people is meaningless.
HOWever...
Under the current EC system, where elections within the states allow people to vote for their electors, each person's vote IS equal, as each person's vote has exactly the same weight as every other.
 
No I just don't start with the assumption that our government is exactly as it should be. Why should the states elect the President?
I addressed this earlier when I argued that each state shoud have one vote in the EC.
 
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Under the current EC system, where elections within the states allow people to vote for their electors, each person's vote IS equal, as each person's vote has exactly the same weight as every other.

Not really. A person's vote in Ohio or Florida has more value than my vote in Illinois under the current system. Their vote can be influential where my vote is just wasted in that it has zero influence whatsoever.

One could possibly argue that, every person within a given state has equal value to their vote, but the interstate comparison places more value on the votes of those individuals who live in swing states than those who live in solidly blue or red states.
 
Not really. A person's vote in Ohio or Florida has more value than my vote in Illinois under the current system.
No.

Remember that all elections are state elections. Your vote for President is not a vote for President, it is a vote for the allocation of your state's electors. In that, the relevant standard of value is among the other voters in your state, not those in other states, as you are not voting for their electors.

In that, everyone's votes are equal.

Now... your state may have more sway in the EC than another, but that's an issue regarding inequity between the states, not the people. To resolve that issue, given that all states are equal, I would reduce all states to one vote in the EC.
 
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