Electoral College: Keep It or Scrap It

[Junkhead]

I have a family member who did not vote because:
--- neither major party candidate represented his values and viewpoint
--- in his state one candidate was clearly going to win, so it did not matter

Voting democratically means every voter has a stake in the outcome and their votes have equal weight.

Sadly, I do agree with this to a degree. If your state is solidly red (or blue), and you support the opposite, what does it do to vote? Popular vote should take it. Why should a vote be nullified by not agreeing with the state's majority?

 

[Buster Bluth]

I believe strongly in the electoral college. It forces candidates to address the needs and interests of diverse groups across the country. Instead of winning a majority, and risking a tyranny of the majority, it empowers relatively small groups because of their geographic prevalence. Thus a national candidate with the electoral college has to win dairy farmers in Wisconsion, LDS followers in Utah, Hispanics in Arizona, etc... The candidates must build a coalition of minorities rather than just appealing to a half dozen major urban centers. It is one of the final bulwarks of our federal system.

There is more dairy production in California than any other state, more LDS members in California than any state other than Utah, and more Hispanics in California than any other state....and their vote is pretty meaningless considering how Blue the state will likely be.

If you want to win a national popular vote you have to build a coalition of anyone and everyone, not selectively choose your policies based on 1) corn and soybean farmers of Iowa, 2) Libertarian-leaning Conservatives of New Hampshire, 3) blue collar workers specifically in Ohio, etc.

A candidate wouldn't "appeal to a half dozen major urban centers," they simply don't have to population to get to 50%. They would need to spread their message, and their policies, nation-wide in an effort to simply drive votes from anyone equally.

I opposed the electoral college before 2016 and frankly the election didn't discourage or encourage my opinion one way or the other. It's strictly philosophical. If you think arbitrary political boundaries should decide the leader of the free world, that's your opinion. If you think citizens of the nation as a whole should, that's an opinion I share. I don't give a flying fuck what the Founders compromised on in the 18th century, we're a far more unified and "smaller" country now given the impacts of technology on our cultures.

 

[IrishinSyria]

Redraw the States

Play with this map a little to get a sense of what Buster's talking about re: arbitrary boundaries. Only moving adjacent counties (i.e. moving a county on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin from Illinois to Wisconsin) it's possible to get EV totals of 400+ for Trump and 400+ for Clinton. You need to swap 3 adjacent counties to change the outcome of the election.

The system as is absolutely plays into identity politics and penalizes politicians who aren't strategic with how they target voters.

 

[Legacy]

Sadly, I do agree with this to a degree. If your state is solidly red (or blue), and you support the opposite, what does it do to vote? Popular vote should take it. Why should a vote be nullified by not agreeing with the state's majority?

If he had to vote, I suspect he would have voted with the majority in his state. He played close attention to the whole process and like many was increasingly dissatisfied. Voting his conscience evolved into choosing not to vote. I don't think the thirty second incessant media assaults on the other candidate helped at all and combined with a feeling that both candidates would end up constructing a government and policies that benefited special interests. You have to argue that voting is still a right and privilege and our best way of participating in government to someone who sees the process as a mean-spirited power grab that in no way furthers societal interests or even provides a forum to discuss the issues and the direction of the country. Each election the parties try to motivate people to vote who have increasing feelings of distrust in the process. What seems to have accomplished this motivation best is paint the opponent in the worst possible light.

 

[fightingirish26]

I was wondering how "Off" the electoral vote distribution was, versus actual population. Just some food for thought.

California: 55 out of 538 electoral votes = 10.2%
California: 37 million out of 308 million = 12.0%

Similarly:

Texas: 8% population, 7% electoral votes

NY: 6.2% population, 5.4% electoral votes

So, it's significant.

was just about to post this. would rep but gotta spread it.

 

[fightingirish26]

So, if the fear is that the cities will bully the less populated areas, why should we allow the less populated areas to bully the cities? Cities are severely underrepresented.

 

[Black Irish]

This has been a great discussion so far. I'll throw in my additional 2 cents.

-I think the arguments about "This is what the Founders wanted" went out the window once Senators got directly elected instead of appointed by state legislators. The EC is the last, outmoded plank of a system that has long been torn up and replaced.

-For those who worry that large, urban centers may get disproportionate influence on the process with the abolition of the EC; guess what? It's already the reality. NYC and Chicago hold a hell of a lot more sway than Dover, Del.

-As someone else pointed out, the EC is not populated by enlightened sages. Those slots are doled out to party hacks who've toed the line and delivered the goods at a state level year in and year out. It's not people on par with Hamilton or Jefferson; it's the county party chairman or Lt. Governor.

-For those who worry about tyranny of the majority without the EC, guess what? We already have tyranny of the majority with the EC. Only now, it's at a state level. As I put in my OP, if a state goes majority Democrat, the minority GOP voters have their votes effectively nullified. Direct popular vote puts every vote in play. And it may even solve the urban center fear that people have. For example:

State A has 10 million registered voters and 5.1 million of them live in the state's biggest metropolis.
State B has 9 million voters and 4.6 million of them live in the state's main metropolis.
State C has 8 million voters and 3.9 million live in the main metropolis.

Assuming that the states have 10, 9, and 8 Electoral votes, respectively and that each metropolis votes Democrat here's what happens under the EC system. The Democrat candidate gets 19 EC votes and the GOP candidate gets 8.

However, with direct voting, the Democrat candidate gets 13.6 million votes and the GOP candidate gets 13.4 million. So you go from a more than 2 to 1 advantage for the Democrat with EC to an almost break-even proposition with direct voting.

In my view, direct voting levels the playing field. Rural voters who go GOP won't have their votes nullified because the Democrat urban centers edged them out by 1% in the state count. And presidential candidates can't write off a state because it's "too blue" or "too red" (meaning it's urban centers are blue or red). Every vote matters and every vote truly counts.

 

[NorthDakota]

There is more dairy production in California than any other state, more LDS members in California than any state other than Utah, and more Hispanics in California than any other state....and their vote is pretty meaningless considering how Blue the state will likely be.

If you want to win a national popular vote you have to build a coalition of anyone and everyone, not selectively choose your policies based on 1) corn and soybean farmers of Iowa, 2) Libertarian-leaning Conservatives of New Hampshire, 3) blue collar workers specifically in Ohio, etc.

A candidate wouldn't "appeal to a half dozen major urban centers," they simply don't have to population to get to 50%. They would need to spread their message, and their policies, nation-wide in an effort to simply drive votes from anyone equally.

I opposed the electoral college before 2016 and frankly the election didn't discourage or encourage my opinion one way or the other. It's strictly philosophical. If you think arbitrary political boundaries should decide the leader of the free world, that's your opinion. If you think citizens of the nation as a whole should, that's an opinion I share. I don't give a flying fuck what the Founders compromised on in the 18th century, we're a far more unified and "smaller" country now given the impacts of technology on our cultures.

So you are asking for pretty much every flyover state and the deep south to secede??

The United States of New England, Chicago, Minneapolis, and the Left Coast. Nice ring to it.

 

[NorthDakota]

So, if the fear is that the cities will bully the less populated areas, why should we allow the less populated areas to bully the cities? Cities are severely underrepresented.

Do you want to start another civil war?

 

[Buster Bluth]

So you are asking for pretty much every flyover state and the deep south to secede??

The United States of New England, Chicago, Minneapolis, and the Left Coast. Nice ring to it.

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[BobbyMac]

If the democratic party would force some of their dependents to leave the city-state plantations and colonize enemy territory, this wouldn't be an issue. But they are so damn good at giving away freebies that ain't nobody got time to be talkin' bout that.

 

[Irish YJ]

I'm perfectly OK with going with the popular vote in the future, but either way, the larger problem is simply the crappy political system we have is CREATING a national divide.

Roughly 40% of the nation voted, and the difference in popular vote was 2%. A 2% difference translates into roughly half of voters feeling a lack of representation regardless of who wins. How much does 2% matter when 45% at minimum are not represented either way??

Status quo party affiliated candidates on either side are going to continue to create more divide. The country teetered one way the last 8 years, now it's tottering the other way. The establishment is set up so that a third party candidate has no chance. So what would a HRC victory have accomplished, just further teeter building up to another totter with a larger divide. Can an anti-establishment victor help decrease the divide, or only widen it. Time will tell. What we know for a fact is that further status quo will only keep the divide status quo.

 

[Buster Bluth]

If the democratic party would force some of their dependents to leave the city-state plantations and colonize enemy territory, this wouldn't be an issue. But they are so damn good at giving away freebies that ain't nobody got time to be talkin' bout that.

Hmm mocking a viral video of a poor black woman and speaking of pseudo-plantations...and you guys wonder why everyone thinks you have a race problem?

Newsflash: rural America is poor.

Not only is rural America poor, there isn't much an economy out there to pay for the benefits in a closed system, so rural America is the "taker" Republicans say they loathe...yet they primarily gobble up the stereotype of urban freebies and "city-state plantations." What a joke.

For what it's worth, our electoral system is directly responsible for tens of billions of dollars of handouts. See Iowa and corn/soybean subsidies, for starters. It's tough to win Iowa while supporting policies that criticize the idea of pumping our kids full of artificially cheap corn syrup. The end result is that farm subsidies totaled ~$24 billion in 2016 and all we get for it is diabetes.

 

[Booslum31]

I would like to keep the Electoral College because the thought of our big population centers (NYC, LA, Chicago, SF) or any one group, totally determining who our president would be scares me to death. The Dems are against it now but if their candidate lost the popular vote but won the election...they would be fine with the Electoral College and would be hailing our forefathers for its construction.

 

[MJ12666]

Per the USDA, total SNAP spending was $69.7B for 2015. Of this total, approximately $39.3B or 56.4% was spent in the "rich" states that voted blue in this past election.

SNAP State Activity Reports | Food and Nutrition Service

 

[johnnycando]

But the Russian attempt was to erode our faith in the Electoral College.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Per the USDA, total SNAP spending was $69.7B for 2015. Of this total, approximately $39.3B or 56.4% was spent in the "rich" states that voted blue in this past election.

SNAP State Activity Reports | Food and Nutrition Service

You're aware that states are pretty large (outside of Connecticut and Rhode Island..) and aren't an indication of rural vs urban, which is what I was getting at, right?

We have people on this thread making batshit crazy claims like so:

If you scrap it, America will forever be won by whomever caters to the welfare and liberal population. CA accounts population for what like 3 states? Then NY which is traditionally a blue state as well which is the same.

Then America will truly turn in a welfare and Godless nation.

With the general premise being that cities are welfare "city-states" when that just demonstrably untrue. It's an even more embarrassing claim when you consider that cities generate the income to pay for these programs. So you may point to "56.4% was spent in the "rich" states that voted blue" and I can turn around and point out that the counties that voted blue also make up ~62% (iirc) of the GDP of the country...

And of course that's not to comment on the SNAP and welfare programs specifically, just the obvious hypocrisy in this thread.

 

[NorthDakota]

Lol @ Buster. Dude can't handle that we have a wonderful system in place to elect the president.

 

[IrishinSyria]

I once helped defend the government over its decision to revoke the license of a store to accept food stamps and it was one of the most depressing* things ever. Congress is so worried about the omnipresent specter of food stamp abuse that they've written the law in such a way that businesses can be disqualified from accepting stamps if FDA detects a pattern of redemption that suggests fraud- they don't actually have to show proof of anything.

It's a slam dunk case for the government- they win unless these tiny stores can affirmatively prove that they didn't abuse the system. But that's basically impossible (something something proving a negative) so mostly they're just fucked and that's a big part of the reason why we have food deserts.

The craziest thing about it is that nobody involved in enforcing it think it's fair- the FDA, the USAOs, and the judges all think it's a bullshit system of questionable legality. But that's how Congress wrote the law so enforce it we do.


*for context, I've done work that's lead to people going to prison and that's lead to people being killed. So when I say that this is one of the most depressing things I've worked on, it's not like my frame of reference is care bear cartoons or run of the mill business deals.

 

[BobbyMac]

Hmm mocking a viral video of a poor black woman and speaking of pseudo-plantations...and you guys wonder why everyone thinks you have a race problem?

Newsflash: rural America is poor.

Not only is rural America poor, there isn't much an economy out there to pay for the benefits in a closed system, so rural America is the "taker" Republicans say they loathe...yet they primarily gobble up the stereotype of urban freebies and "city-state plantations." What a joke.

For what it's worth, our electoral system is directly responsible for tens of billions of dollars of handouts. See Iowa and corn/soybean subsidies, for starters. It's tough to win Iowa while supporting policies that criticize the idea of pumping our kids full of artificially cheap corn syrup. The end result is that farm subsidies totaled ~$24 billion in 2016 and all we get for it is diabetes.

How dare you accuse me of that you educated, elitist pig. I grew up in your failed utopia, Gary, IN to uneducated parents from the urban south. That's exactly how the fvck I talk on my set and have ZERO idea what video you're talking about. Go flip your MSNBC card at someone else, you lil trick.

You just keep stackin em a million deep on your failed urban plantations. Dangle that carrot in front of them that the govt is here for them. Tell them the key is education and then provide them with the worst schools possible, then blame it on some old guy in the state capital. Best yet, watch brokenhearted when everyone that escapes your bondage moves to the country club with me, goes to the same CPA as me and switches parties. Because, ain't nobody got time for that sh!t once your progressive virus is out of their system.

 

[calvegas04]

Getting ride of it would be the worst thing that could happen. The dems would just pour immigrants into the country so they never lose power.

 

[Buster Bluth]

How dare you accuse me of that you educated, elitist pig. I grew up in your failed utopia, Gary, IN to uneducated parents from the urban south. That's exactly how the fvck I talk on my set and have ZERO idea what video you're talking about. Go flip your MSNBC card at someone else, you lil trick.

You just keep stackin em a million deep on your failed urban plantations. Dangle that carrot in front of them that the govt is here for them. Tell them the key is education and then provide them with the worst schools possible, then blame it on some old guy in the state capital. Best yet, watch brokenhearted when everyone that escapes your bondage moves to the country club with me, goes to the same CPA as me and switches parties. Because, ain't nobody got time for that sh!t once your progressive virus is out of their system.

Tell me how you really feel.

 

[Booslum31]

Tell me how you really feel.

I think that was just the tip of the iceberg...I'm guessing there's a lot more where that came from. Just a guess.

 

[DomeX2 eNVy]

Sweet and simple...keep.

Being from a small rural town, I don't want the people in California and NYC making my decisions. That would mean my vote literally won't count.

Explain to me why "your" vote should count 3.5 times as much as someone in rural California? That is so wrong and un-democratic. Just because you have more uninhabited land around you shouldn't make you more special that people in congested areas, imo.

 

[DomeX2 eNVy]

I would like to keep the Electoral College because the thought of our big population centers (NYC, LA, Chicago, SF) or any one group, totally determining who our president would be scares me to death. The Dems are against it now but if their candidate lost the popular vote but won the election...they would be fine with the Electoral College and would be hailing our forefathers for its construction.

This sounds logical, but if you look at the state laws that have been being enacted for many years - yes even the Obama years. Many states have adopted a law saying that when there are enough states (270 EV worth), that their electoral votes go to which ever candidate wins the national popular vote. This would circumvent the EC while keeping it and not requiring a constitutional change. The point of this that disagrees with your theory is that it most Blue states that have passed this legislation. So in reality, it is the big city states that want a popular vote, which goes against your theory that they wouldn't want to do that if their candidate won the EC, which Obama did.

 

[NorthDakota]

Explain to me why "your" vote should count 3.5 times as much as someone in rural California? That is so wrong and un-democratic. Just because you have more uninhabited land around you shouldn't make you more special that people in congested areas, imo.

That is the only thing that can maybe hold us together, for starters.

 

[phgreek]

People cast votes so that their voice is heard through their representation. The purpose of the establishment of the representative structure was not to devalue the meaning of an individual vote in a populated area, but rather to avoid the obvious failings of a Democracy, and as a way to keep us loosely bound, and each state/region buying into a larger National identity. There is a ballance struck that works. If you mess with that, given how the executive branch has evolved to exercise EOs, you are voting for an effective Democracy, and in the eyes of many, an illegitimate one, at that.

If you care about this nation, and its continued existence above your "worth", you will see from that viewpoint the framers were luminaries, not old white guys that could not anticipate "today". ESPECIALLY given recent events with the EC vs Popular vote disparity.

I am OK with states apportioning their EC. I am not fine with states circumventing the EC. I will NOT recognize a government largely run by policy edicts foisted on me by a president largely elected by people from LA and New York...not without the understanding that their nonsense can be turned back in 4 years. This concept of a non-permanent, and balanced executive office (over time) is critical to sate and regional participation.

If you think your individual vote is more important than that...by all means keep caterwauling about it.

 

[Green Mountains]

The Framers were made of a group who believed the United States was a collection of States where individual states rights / responsibilities were superior to that of a Federal government. In fact, the US did not have an individual income tax until 1913.

Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Hamilton all represented their states with passion and vigor. They were not going to empower to a Federal Government. In fact, that's the reason why we fought for our independence.

These guys were brilliant. They created a legislative body which has one arm which is representative of the population (or nearly) and one which is not intended to be representative of population. This was done willfully and intentionally. They created a separate judicial body which was not elected and intended to be above the political fray.

And lastly they created an executive branch which is elected by Electors of each state. It was actually a weird process whereby you couldn't vote for a candidate from your own state, to eliminate "favored son" treatment. There were some issues between 1796 and 1800 using this process. The electoral college as it functions now was created by the 12th amendment to the constitution in 1804. (There were a bunch of amendments in those first few years.)

But clearly, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams and Madison did NOT envision a Republic in which popular vote drove the election of the President.

The electoral college was and is one of the fundamentals of our founding. Talking about "let's scrap it" or "throwing it out" is like saying "let's get rid of the 3 branches of government."

But hey, what the hell. If you don't like it, pass an amendment. Good luck getting 2/3 of the state legislatures to pass it.

 

[FrankMA]

I think each state should have an equal number of electoral college votes. Let's say 10. Then each state would have equal importance to candidates and presidents. As it is, smaller states are not only ignored during the election process; but, they are ignored in between elections.

 

[Legacy]

The shortcomings of the current system of electing the President stem from state winner-take-all statutes (i.e., state laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each separate state).

Because of these state winner-take-all statutes, presidential candidates have no reason to pay attention to the issues of concern to voters in states where the statewide outcome is a foregone conclusion. As shown on the map, two-thirds of the 2012 general-election campaign events (176 of 253) were in just 4 states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa). Thirty-eight states were ignored.

The U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1) gives the states exclusive control over awarding their electoral votes: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors....” The winner-take-all rule was used by only three states in 1789.

(Source)

Only three states had winner take all in 1789. Winner take all was not part of the Constitution. Flexibility was built into the electoral system with this states right provision.

The (National Popular Vote) bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions possessing 165 electoral votes—61% of the 270 electoral votes necessary to activate it, including four small jurisdictions (RI, VT, HI, DC), three medium- size states (MD, MA, WA), and four big states (NJ, IL, NY, CA). The bill has passed a total of 33 legislative chambers in 22 states—most recently by a bipartisan 40–16 vote in the Arizona House, a 28–18 vote in the Oklahoma Senate, a 57–4 vote in New York Senate, and a 37–21 vote in Oregon House.

The second column shows the total number of general-election campaign events for each state (out of a nationwide total of 253). As can be seen, the only states that received any campaign events and any significant ad money (third column) were the 12 states (shown in black in the middle of the table) where the outcome was between 45% and 51% Republican—that is, within 3 percentage points of Romney’s nationwide percentage of 48%.

The campaign events and ad money spent in these twelve demonstrates whose votes count more than other state's voters.

The National Popular Vote bill preserves the Electoral College and state control of elections.

I wonder how many of the twelve swing states subsequently receive pork contracts from party federal legislators to preserve or gain electoral advantages?