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Absurdity of the Electoral College:
Here's one nice thing we can now say about the Electoral College: it's slightly less harmful to our democracy than it was just days ago. In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that states have the right to "bind" their electors, requiring them to support whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote in their state. Justice Elena Kagan's opinion was a blow to so-called "faithless electors," but a win for self-government. "Here," she wrote, "the People rule."
Yet while we can all breathe a sigh of relief that rogue electors won't choose (or be coerced) into derailing the 2020 presidential contest, the Court's unanimous ruling is a helpful reminder that our two-step electoral process provides America with no tangible benefits and near-limitless possibilities for disaster. To put it more bluntly, the Electoral College is a terrible idea. And thanks to the Justices' decision, getting rid of it has never been easier.
[...] The Electoral College, in other words, serves no useful purpose, other than to intermittently and randomly override the people's will. It's the appendix of our body politic. Most of the time we don't notice it, and then every so often it flares up and nearly kills us.
[...] Justice Kagan's words – "Here, the People rule" – are stirring. But today, they are still more aspiration than declaration. By declining to make the Electoral College an even great threat to our democracy, the Court did its job. Now it's up to us. If you live in a state that hasn't joined the interstate compact, you can urge your state legislators and your governor to sign on. And no matter where you're from, you can dispel the myths about the Electoral College and who it really helps, myths that still lead some people to support it despite its total lack of redeeming qualities.
More than 215 years after the Electoral College was last reformed with the 12th Amendment, we once again have the opportunity to protect our presidential-election process and reassert the people's will. Regardless of who wins the White House in 2020, it's a chance we should take.
Would you get rid of the Electoral College? Why or why not?
Also at:
Supremes Signal a Brave New World of Popular Presidential Elections
Supreme Court Rules State 'Faithless Elector' Laws Constitutional
U.S. Supreme Court curbs 'faithless electors' in presidential voting
Supreme Court rules states can remove 'faithless electors'
(Score: 2, Informative) by epitaxial on Monday July 13 2020, @05:00PM (36 children)
Why is it the democrats only want to get rid of the electoral college when a republican wins? I didn't see any of these statements or problems during the Clinton or Obama presidencies.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 13 2020, @05:02PM
Probably because Clinton and Obama won by getting more votes.
The only people that win by getting fewer votes are Republicans.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 13 2020, @05:03PM (21 children)
Because, Hillary actually won the "popular vote" by the slimmest of margins. The Dems don't think they should ever lose, and especially not when they control all of those inner city population clusters.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 13 2020, @05:08PM (7 children)
I like how you put it that Democrats "control" inner city population clusters.
Maybe if the Republican party represented the interests of more people, they might "control" those dense population clusters?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 13 2020, @05:14PM (1 child)
They effectively do. They've had to put a hell of a lot of money and effort into brainwashing with class/race/sex/etc... divisiveness, but it's paid off pretty well if your only goal is power.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:46PM
It sure is weird how you've been brainwashed to believe you're a free independent thinker while parroting rightwing pundit garbage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:29PM
Ever seen city districting? Gerrymandering on steroids.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:32PM (3 children)
The Republicans already control the deplorables. Therefore it follows, that if Republicans manage to reduce more citizens to third-world status, they get more votes. That appears to have been their strategy for decades.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:56PM (2 children)
You are your own worst enemy. Want to know why I don't vote democrat? Those that survive institutionalized murder by planned parenthood (and if you don't think so, try undergoing an abortion on yourself and then let me know what your opinion on it is), are then called "deplorables" by democrats. Want to see a democrat advocate for evil? Just have the evil person be a transgender. Want to ruin the Olympics for women? Allow men to claim to be women and then compete and absolutely PWN the women. Oh yea, sounds like the democrats are really looking out for the common person. You're a party that stands for evil and wrong and you don't even know it because your moral compass is pointing at yourself. My moral compass doesn't point at me or whatever my party decides is the "correctness" of the day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @08:52PM
That's it, mandatory k-12 reeducation camps for conservatives. Don't worry, we'll treat you better than all those kids in cages.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:02PM
In other words, you are too stupid to be allowed to vote. Noted. Officers will be along shortly to collect you. Have a nice time at the irdeplorablization camp! (Oh, that "moral" compass? It's a watch. And, it's broken. Sorry.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:17PM (1 child)
The best way to get rid of the Democrats is to get rid of Republicans at the first favorable opportunity - and viceversa, just break the two party deadlock by voting one of them out of existence. In the vacuum created, more parties/independents will get their voices heard, chances are some of them will be reasonable enough by comparison to push the Dems out of existence after their first legislature without Reps.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 13 2020, @05:24PM
Well, that way would be effective but it'd be quicker to just line any office holder with a major party affiliation up and shoot them. Guess it depends on what your criteria for "best" are.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Monday July 13 2020, @06:44PM (9 children)
I wouldn't call 2.87 million votes (out of ~129 million) the slimmest of margins.
What I call the slimmest of margins is the number of votes that won 3 states for Trump (WI, MI, and PA); a grand total of 78,000 (23K, 11K, & 44k respectively).
I do see why we need something like the EC. We could possibly divide the EC votes for a state by the percentage of the vote totals? That way you don't have the votes of red voters in CA, and blue voters in AL having no effect on the election, plus the candidates couldn't just ignore the flyover states.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @07:24PM (8 children)
Another way of looking at things is that she won California by a wider *margin* than she won the popular vote. If California split on a normal margin, she'd have lost the popular vote and electoral vote alongside.
The idea of a electoral college is to avoid having state radicalism play a major role. If California goes batshit leftist, which they have, with your idea it'd make every other state's elections pretty much meaningless. This is a *really* bad idea in a nation that's already increasingly divided.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Monday July 13 2020, @08:51PM (7 children)
No, she won the popular vote by 2.87 million votes. The state's totals would not have changed that.
We don't have a real batshit leftist group in the US. We have Democrats (center-right) and Republicans (extreme-right). I'm guessing you lean Republican; just remember that everything else is left when you are extreme right.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:05PM (1 child)
What a coincidence!
Almost exactly the number of Covid-19 infections in the US? Just saying.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:24PM
We've sailed past that long ago. Thanks Trump!
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @05:58AM (4 children)
I love how you decide to state things so matter of fact without even bothering to check the data. She won California by more than 4.2 million votes. In other words her entire "popular vote victory" is a fraction of her margin in California.
And left/right is a completely meaningless qualifier in today's times. If you haven't realized it, the actual battle right now is authoritarianism vs libertarianism. California is tearing down statues, destroying artwork, actively stoking selective xenophobia, and the hub for political censorship and retribution on an international scale. It's so ironic (but typical) that San Francisco is also the center of endless virtue signaling. Unimaginably wealthy people signaling their virtue as they step over the masses of homeless, impoverished, and human excrement on the way to their billion dollar open office platforms of social justice. It's like something out of a satire, but it's real life. The democratic party in general is turning towards a degree of political authoritarianism come fascism that has not been seen in the (developed) world in many decades. And it never leads to good things. I am liberal but have gone from being luke warm on the democratic party to vehemently anti-democrat - a transition I expect many are currently going through.
Some who know no better might find it unusual to call the democratic party fascist. After all Wiki tells me that only right wing parties can be fascist. Here is the Fascist Manifesto. [wikipedia.org] That is *literally* the book on Fascism that motivated and guided the Fascist Party. You'll probably find you agree with just about everything they stood for on paper. You filthy fascist! Of course I kid on that part - they're not bad ideals by any means. So why do we now just call them the fascists? Because they acted like fascists in pursuits of their ideals - and that behavior has nothing to do with left or right wing. About the time you're trying to destroy people for their political opinions, destroying statues for what they (in your mind) politically represent, and destroying artwork because it's "problematic" - you've become a fascist, and that is how history (once all of this stupidity settles down) will remember you, once again. Oh and let's not forget the rewriting of history to pretend that you can't be fascist because you're liberal - that is something out of 1984.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:50PM (2 children)
It simply does not matter if CA had a margin of 4.2 million. The popular vote is the grand total for the entire US. Why would a arbitrary section of it matter?
I more or less agree on your last two paragraphs. My only comment is that both parties have been strongly authoritarian for quite a long time. That and the fact that both parties seem to run by the extremists.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @04:37PM (1 child)
Because the popular vote implies she was widely supported in America, but somehow unjustly lost. In reality the election looks like:
1 State: Wins by 4.2 million votes
49 States: Loses by 1.3 million votes.
It paints a much different picture than "won the popular vote." Of course it's an accurate fact to state that she won the popular vote, but it's misleading. Even more so because I think California's version of "liberalism" is somewhat 'special'. Those guys loving a candidate is not something to praise.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday July 15 2020, @03:09PM
Again, why does this matter? Are the CA voters somehow not valid because of some nebulous "special liberalism"? No, their votes count too.
Disagreeing with their politics doesn't give you the right to disenfranchise them.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 15 2020, @02:43AM
Great post.
And for Azuma's benefit, you see I'm not the only liberal disgusted by the DNC. Your tactics are failing.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday July 13 2020, @06:58PM
1.1% -- that's not all that slim. Clinton got 51.1% of the vote:
65,788,583 vs. 62,955,363
The obverse of that particular coin: Trump lost the popular vote quite soundly.
--
Democracy: Where any two idiots outvote a genius.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday July 13 2020, @05:05PM (2 children)
It's not when a republican wins. It's when someone wins by the electoral college, but not the popular vote.
Clinton and Obama both won by both popular and electoral college votes.
If a republican won the popular vote and lost the electoral college vote, I can't even imagine how much whining we would hear about how we should get rid of the electoral college.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 13 2020, @05:15PM (1 child)
About the same amount. Morons gonna moron.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:53PM
You'd be one of the ones bitching right now and calling for reforms if HRC was POTUS.
Of course you get the benefit of not having to actually face yourself, so you get to hide behind your usual bluster.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dale on Monday July 13 2020, @05:08PM (2 children)
Obama won the popular vote and the electoral college. You wouldn't complain about EC vs popular vote in cases when both give the same result. The only reason/time to complain is when they give differing results (like Bush/Gore & Trump/Gore).
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:15PM
But as a Kenyan he wasn't eligible to be on the ballot.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @07:08PM
Obama didn't win the popular vote. There is no popular vote to be won. It's like you claiming you won the foot race because you went around the track the fastest, but you ran through all the hurdles instead of jumping over them. You're trying to apply a set of rules to a contest that has a completely different set of rules.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Monday July 13 2020, @06:04PM
That's because both Clinton and Obama won both the popular and Electoral College votes. There was no point for the Republicans to complain. You can bet, though, that if there was a split, Republicans would have been up in arms.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 13 2020, @07:54PM
There have been 6 people who have become president of the United States without winning the popular vote:
- John Quincy Adams (Democratic-Republican)
- Rutherford B Hayes (Republican)
- Benjamin Harrison (Republican)
- Gerald Ford (Republican, but he didn't get elected by anybody so he's kind of irrelevant)
- George W Bush (Republican)
- Donald Trump (Republican)
So it's no surprise that the Republicans are fine with this system, and the Democrats aren't.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by tizan on Monday July 13 2020, @08:24PM (3 children)
The Republican as they are today will never win the popular vote, implicitly the party of white rich men. Geroge W Bush won it because of 9/11...so if you discount that the last Republican to win the popular vote on his own agenda was H.W in 1988.
They have no interest in women, gays, lower middle class, colored people (all these categories overlap a lot ) but i don't see anything in their agenda for these different categories of people.
Right now they are getting the vote of white people who think they can become the 1% but who do not realize ...its only 1% and there is not place for all of them.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 14 2020, @04:09PM (2 children)
What? He was elected the first time in 2000. 9/11 only explains the reelection.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 14 2020, @04:12PM
oh right, popular vote. whoops
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tizan on Wednesday July 15 2020, @03:04PM
He did not win the popular vote in 2000
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 14 2020, @04:06PM
Depends on who you talk to. I was already in favor of the National Popular Interstate Vote Compact before the election, then afterwards I got to point at the results and say, "See, the NPIVC would've prevented this."
Personally I voted for Gary Johnson because I couldn't stomach voting for either of the first-party candidates.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"