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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) by DannyB on Monday July 13 2020, @04:59PM (70 children)
It would be useful to describe how the interests of small population states differ so radically from the popular vote of the country.
I understand that different states may have different groups of people that they hate. Maybe this can be reconciled so that we all hate the same people?
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 13 2020, @05:06PM (54 children)
Missing the point. We are not supposed to be "One Nation", under God or otherwise. In pretty much every governmental context except regarding US territories, "state" means sovereign nation. We were supposed to be something much more akin to NATO or what the EU was originally billed as (not what it's become) than a single nation. Everything that the states could realistically handle without screwing each other or themselves was supposed to be handled by the states. In that context, the EC makes complete sense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:15PM (16 children)
No, EC was a compromise to get small states to ratify the Constitution. It wasn't any more a brilliant piece of political foresight than the Three Fifths Compromise. It was just brilliant as a negotiating tool.
The end result of the Electoral College is that you have people win the electoral college but lose the popular vote, and that's never the right thing. Conservatives love it because twice in the past twenty years it happened to support the person who won. But my vote as a resident of a large state should not count for less in the presidential election than the vote of someone in Montana or Rhode Island. And if it happened that a Republican won the national popular vote and lost the electoral college, you would be howling for it to be abolished. Claiming anything else would be a lie.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 13 2020, @05:37PM (6 children)
It's your choice to live in a densely populated area, where no one knows you, and no one gives a damn about you. It was my choice to live in a more sparsely populated area, where my name and my face are known to pretty much everyone within several miles.
That is NOT TO SAY that everyone likes me, admires me, loves me. I am ONLY observing that almost everyone knows me, or at least knows of me.
Now, you should quiet yourself, crawl back into the hive, and get to work like a good little worker. If the Queen wants or needs your opinion, you will be called for. Most definitely STOP whining about your chosen life style!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @08:26PM (3 children)
As usual you're an idiot. The value of your vote should be geographically determined? What a bunch of horse shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @08:46PM (2 children)
Runaway is an idiot. "Idiotes" means "private", as in "autistic", unable to understand what it is like to be another person, a sociopath, a rather dangerous person. Voted for Tom Cotton, no doubt. His vote counts for nothing, though, since we don't cotton to the Electoral Collage.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 13 2020, @10:11PM (1 child)
And someone else modded that pile of steaming manure +1 Insightful. what a strange world we live in.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 13 2020, @10:12PM
Silly boy, it was +1 Touche. My point stands however.
(Score: 5, Touché) by SpockLogic on Monday July 13 2020, @09:56PM (1 child)
From the Post Office walls ?
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 14 2020, @01:07AM
Well, that's WHY it's sparsely-populated :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 13 2020, @05:40PM
You're reading shit into what I said that I did not say and thinking I'm a conservative when I'm not. I did not vote for Trump and I explicitly said that the EC was a compromise further down the page. So, no, none of that supports your position that the EC is bad with me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 13 2020, @05:52PM (7 children)
The EC was a compromise, meaning there was bargaining and an exchange to get to agreement. It is the height of self-entitlement however, to expect small states to give up what they bargained for and won, for nothing. What makes you so special that by the mere ability to procreate more -- to be a fucker -- you get to renege on what amounts to a treaty? Would you agree that breaking treaties for personal gain is a bad thing?
So the question is, if you want the end of the EC -- what do YOU give up? Or is this just an exercise in self-satisfying moralizing and sanctimonious scolding?
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday July 13 2020, @08:23PM (6 children)
Counter question, do you consider it fair and just that your vote counts more than 3 times as much if you're from Wyoming than when you're from Florida?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 13 2020, @09:19PM (4 children)
Yes, it is fair because it was the deal everyone made.
If the deal was that WY was to have zero say in the US should it join, it would not have joined and WY would have been its own country (for better or worse), and rather than control 25% of its sovereignty and destiny, it would control all of it and FL would control 0%. Hell, if WY was an independent nation it could fire SCUD missiles at FL if it wanted to. That's something Floridians don't need to worry about today because of the EC.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday July 13 2020, @09:36PM (3 children)
You do understand that WY (or anyone else) would cease to exist if it as much as thought about considering pondering firing a missile at a US state, yes?
You're not exactly making a lot of sense right now.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Monday July 13 2020, @11:08PM (2 children)
Maybe -- it depends on who was allied with Wyoming and who was allied with Florida. You are assuming that without the EC, only WY would have objected -- perhaps all the Red States would have objected and they'd most all the Uranium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Map_of_US_uranium_reserves.gif [wikipedia.org]
The point you are missing is that you assume the US would look like it does in the absence of the EC. It wouldn't and that is why objecting to the EC now, after you avoided all those Wyoming SCUDs or horseback cavalry charges, took all of its uranium, and built an interstate from coast to coast across what would likely foreign territory to facilitate transport of all the essentials of life, is an extremely shallow and narrow perspective as well as being indicative of an imperialist mindset.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 14 2020, @01:08AM (1 child)
Please, please, PLEASE, let Wyoming fire missiles at Florida. Whoever loses, we win. Best case scenario, both states are reduced to flaming rubble.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:40AM
LOL. No more Florida Man stories though. The world would be a dimmer place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @08:44PM
First, the voters are counted equally. Your CA vote counts just as much as any other CA vote. You are comparing apples to oranges when you're trying to compare across state lines.
Second, if you wanted to solve your misguided issue in a reasonable and fair manner then you should be advocating to split your state into multiple states. That would effect all the other states equally rather than your completely lopsided solution while also giving you the 'power' that you claim you don't have. But no, gotta smack down others and force them to change so you can get yours rather than being fair about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:31PM (1 child)
that hasn't been true since 1861.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 13 2020, @05:37PM
Your point? I was giving that as historical background to support the point I was making.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday July 13 2020, @06:27PM (30 children)
TMB, could you elucidate on that a bit for me? As an outsider, I see the electoral college making sense when the speed of travel and communication was slow, but I think you're hinting at something else here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday July 13 2020, @07:43PM (29 children)
I thought he was pretty clear. His premise is that the states are supposed to be effectively sovereign states. The federal government is supposed to be a 'league of nations' construct, aka a so-called 'united states' the president of the 'united states' is supposed to be elected by the member-states, not by direct voting of the citizens of the member states. In this united states each state determines for itself how it wants to cast its it vote for president and runs its own elections. The EC makes decent sense in a 'united states is a league of sovereign countries' context.
One could even argue giving each state 1 vote would also be pretty reasonable in this context; it would even be reasonable in that system for each governor to simply pick a candidate and send their vote to DC. In that system, citizens very indirectly would have a say in the president by selecting the state governor; loosely like how the UN Secretary General is selected.
The point is, if you think of the USA as "united states" then the idea of citizens directly selecting the leader via popular vote is almost ridiculous; on par with approving the north american free trade agreement by simply having a direct referendum counting votes from all citizens of canada, the states, and mexico -- you of course need each country to sign on. Getting a simple majority of citizens from the 3 sovereign countries is... absurd.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 13 2020, @09:52PM (24 children)
This is a great post. I think some of the issue is that in the United States, which is one nation with a number of specific states, we forget that in international law the concept of state is the same as the concept of country and that the current conception of a "US state", uses a diminished sense of the word state unfortunately without using a different word. When the Constitution was ratified, it was very much an agreement between separate wholly sovereign entities, not some mere agreement between what in the US, we now conceive of as states (in the diminished sovereignty sense).
This I think is the fundamental issue the anti-EC crowd ignores. Without the EC, it is likely the US would not exist as it does. If we are to talk about eliminating the EC, maybe it's time to have a discussion about peaceful withdrawal, but to destroy the EC without that discussion is an expression of extreme violence because at the root of it, the anti-EC people are talking about enforcing laws on unwilling states (which may be seen as diminished by some, undiminished by others). At the root of that is the pure unadulterated power of weaponry and a willingness to use those weapons against opposition. It is in this way that the anti-EC crowd is monstrous -- right now it is the monstrosity of smug "we know better than you" attitudes, but under that, is the monstrosity of bloodshed for those who don't comply, or crushing submission by those who will.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 13 2020, @10:54PM (19 children)
No-one is suggesting violence to enforce anything.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 13 2020, @11:22PM (18 children)
Eliminating the EC without a Constitutional amendment can only be accomplished through violence. There are two broad categories of ways to get people to do what you want -- agreement and force. By circumventing the agreement method (Constitutional Amendment) and doing some Constitution underminingl workaround (Interstate Compact) you necessarily rely on the force method.
Let's say there is an election in which the EC would have elected on person, but the Interstate Compact elects another. What are you going to do if States not part of the compact refuse to accept the election, refuse to accept Federal power, refuse to pay taxes or take federal money, and throw up barriers across the interstate freeways at their borders? You are either going to accept that secession or send in the troops. The troops will secure either military victory (or loss) or submission of the populace by threat of force. That's violence and eliminating the EC without agreement is at it's core, an exercise in brute-force-barrel-of-the-gun power and compliance. To even suggest eliminating the EC without the correct amendment procedure, is threaten such force.
You need to understand this or you won't understand why the consequences of your desire are so high.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 14 2020, @12:14AM (7 children)
Are you sure that's true? It seems awfully unimaginative to me, but you might be right.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:32AM (6 children)
Governance is either by agreement or coercion. Coercion is violence (*), otherwise it isn't coercion -- it's asking. Right now, we can see that many are not agreeing with the current governing model and cities burn. If these groups take power, there will be others who oppose them and did not agree, and again, cities will burn. Our system is incredibly fragile.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:23AM (5 children)
That's a shame.
So there's no other way then?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:41AM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:48AM (3 children)
That's what I'm wondering.
I don't see why there has to be violence, but hemocyanin seems to think its inevitable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2020, @01:15PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 14 2020, @08:12PM
I had to look up the Interstate Compact, and yes, that seems to be the way to do it.
Better that killing each other too, I would have thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @08:57PM
There has to be violence because the groups wanting to abolish the EC are doing it by forcing the change on others without their consent. That is an attack. They could fix their problems fully internally by splitting themselves up into multiple smaller states so that each person within the new states has the same 'voting power' as the less popular states. That would be a peaceful way to get the same result that their populations are complaining for without causing undo harm on any existing states. However they're not complicating that solution because it'll reduce their collective power as single, larger states. That shows you their true goals. They don't want equality, they want the power to impose their will on others and that only happens when they're one of the largest states rather than redefining themselves to be a bunch of same-sized states. They're the ones who picked the path of violence, forcing others to bend to their will instead of changing their own identity.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 14 2020, @01:10AM
If this happens, all it means is Lincoln should have given the Southern traitors what they deserved: burned the place to the ground, salted the ashes, downed half a cask of ale, and taken a Presidential piss of Noachide proportions on said salty ashes.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @06:40AM (2 children)
You're leaving out an important step here. The courts.
Assuming the NVPIC [wikipedia.org] gains legislative approval from enough states to guarantee the election of the popular vote winner *ever* happens, about nineteen seconds later dozens of lawsuits will be filed trying to invalidate such an arrangement.
And it's not clear that such an agreement/compact is even constitutional [wikipedia.org].
It's entirely possible that SCOTUS could rule such an agreement unconstitutional for a variety of reasons.
After that, what sort of "force" are you talking about? Reg'lar army folks occupying statehouses until they ratify an amendment? SEAL teams assaulting Governor's mansions? Or maybe just FBI? You've got some imagination there friend.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2020, @01:06PM (1 child)
All they need is consent of Congress to get past that obstacle (or a favorable Supreme Court line up). Given that Congress hasn't protested the agreement now despite the progress made for over a decade (sounds like they're up to 15 states), that's a strong demonstration of consent.
And of course, they could just do it anyway. Supreme Court has limited power to enforce.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:06PM
Yeah. That's the law. If Congress says it's okay, then it's okay. That's neither illegal or some sort of trick/fraud. It's right there in the Constitution.
If SCOTUS says they don't need Congress' approval, that's not illegal or a trick/fraud either.
This is how our system works. And it's been that way since 1789 and 1804, respectively.
If anyone doesn't like it, they can try to change the constitution with an amendment, as we've done 27 times over the years.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:58AM (2 children)
Why would that happen? The Interstate Compact despite its flaws distributes votes in the EC (the states after all have considerable freedom in how they vote in the EC). There's no opportunity for such a difference to occur.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday July 14 2020, @05:52PM (1 child)
People can do the math and figure out they were had. If that was to occur I expect nothing peaceful to result.
There is a way to amend the Constitution -- gutting it with slimy workarounds has been the order of the day for some time, but mostly in areas where most people don't feel the effects, such as with the 2A and 4A. If there was an election in which the vote totals under the EC would elect Trump but the totals under the IC would elect Biden, and either takes office, I would expect a shooting war. One side considers the other literal nazis and the other side considers the other literal Maos. At that point there really is no path to resolution by agreement.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2020, @10:23PM
They can then overturn the Interstate Compact in the usual way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:13PM (1 child)
As with most things Federal, the law is what Congress says it is, and/or it's what SCOTUS interprets it to be.
As is clearly stated in the Constitution, it's the supreme law of the land. Full stop.
Should the bizzaro world scenario you're fantasizing about actually come to pass (fat chance!), then those responsible for the civil unrest will be arrested and prosecuted.
It's a great fantasy. And you even get to use your AR-15 on Gub'mint folk. That's gotta get your cock hard, huh? How many times have you masturbated to that particular fantasy?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday July 14 2020, @05:58PM
I think Portland and Seattle are prime examples of the fact that those creating civil unrest and devastation to public and private property, will not necessarily face consequences. Whether there are consequences will depend wholly on whether local government is aligned with your insurrection. This creates a "one law for me, one law for thee" situation which is inherently unstable.
I have no fantasies about what may come. It will be horrific whether the regressive left's authoritarian proclivities win by acquiescence because authoritarian governments are always evil and bloody, or we end up civil war, which are always evil and bloody.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday July 16 2020, @12:14AM
"What are you going to do if States not part of the compact refuse to accept the election, refuse to accept Federal power, refuse to pay taxes or take federal money, and throw up barriers across the interstate freeways at their borders? You are either going to accept that secession or send in the troops."
Lighten up Francis.
"What are you going to do if States that **ARE** part of the compact refuse to accept the election, refuse to accept Federal power, refuse to pay taxes or take federal money, and throw up barriers across the interstate freeways at their borders? You are either going to accept that secession or send in the troops."
"To even suggest that the Interstate Compact won't be allowed, is to threaten such force."
It cuts both ways equally. And there's nothing special about the EC either. A group of states could unilaterally secede over literally anything at any time.. a supreme court ruling they don't like, an obnoxious tweet from the cheeto in charge, even a duly and properly passed constitutional amendment -- just because you did it by the books doesn't mean a group of states can't decide to throw barricades on the highway and secede over it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @11:58PM (3 children)
That diminishment of state power was understood and agreed to by those who ratified the constitution in 1789. It's right there in the the text: that the Constitutions is "...the supreme law of the land."
We tried the "League of Nations" style national government. That was the Articles of Confederation [wikipedia.org]. It didn't work well. At all. Which is why we replaced it.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:34AM (2 children)
Right -- I don't understand why you think that is contradicting me. The states accepted diminishment in exchange for a system where low population states still had a voice. Without that say, those states would not have accepted diminishment. It is a fundamentally fraudulent dealing to trick a party into agreement under a specific set of terms, and then change those terms on the party later and say "haha, so sad, suck it up buttercup." Super slimy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @05:10AM (1 child)
Again, I heartily disagree.
As I pointed out [soylentnews.org] in response to one of your other comments [soylentnews.org]:
That mechanism (amending the constitution) is also explicitly defined in the Constitution as ratified by every single state, both those that were extant at its implementation, and all the other states as they joined the union.
Each and every state has ratified the constitution that includes the amendment process. No one has been tricked, duped or defrauded. If a state was uncomfortable with, or objected to, the amendment process, they certainly did not have to ratify it.
As such, claiming that using said process is somehow "a fundamentally fraudulent dealing to trick a party into agreement" is ignorant at best, and disingenuous at worst. Which is it, then?
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Tuesday July 14 2020, @06:00PM
Amending the constitution is not fraudulent.
Constitution gutting workarounds like the interstate compact are. If you don't want the EC, do it the legit route. Everything else is slimy and dangerous.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Monday July 13 2020, @10:06PM (2 children)
The problem is that this heavily "states first" idea is a proven failure. Think back to the Articles of Confederation and the Confederacy. What you end up with is large portions of the nation refusing to act for the benefit of the whole (although we seem to be slipping back towards this) even when failing to do so dooms them in the long run.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 15 2020, @09:49AM (1 child)
That's only a failure if your aim is to control everyone and make them do as you think they should. That, my friend, is the opposite of liberty. So you can kind of see why nobody much wanted that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday July 16 2020, @10:10PM
The failure usually shows most in disaster response. Instead of a coordinated response (sending Johnston enough troops to stop Grant in the west, for instance) that can stop* a problem early, responses end up being piecemeal, each state responding on its own, with the usual result that none of them succeed.
*OK, the south was never going to win the war, their hope was to make victory for the Union so costly that they would essentially give up and allow the Confederacy to exist. They lost all hope of that when they blew it in the west, and they blew it mostly because they had no government capability to coordinate a response.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:27AM
Thanks. That "League of Nations" concept is what slipped by me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @08:42PM
And Buzzy says this, right after the Supreme Court has re-asserted the sovereignty of the Indian Nations?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:26PM (1 child)
That view of the US died with the Articles of Confederation [wikipedia.org].
The current Constitution (ratified in 1789), while leaving most things to the states, clearly states that the US Constitution is the "supreme law of the land." As such, your "view" of the US government hasn't been in place for more than two centuries.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 15 2020, @09:54AM
Man, how did you get so much bullshit stuffed into such a small head? That they moved incrementally from the articles of confederation to what we have today (as well as the tenth amendment and many other bits) should tell you that keeping as much power as possible with the states was the goal right from the start.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @11:06PM
People often forget those 6-8 years between the revolution and the Congressional Congress. We tried the whole 'States as Sovereign Entities', it failed because of the lack of a universal currency combined with debts owed to foreign entities (primarily France) which left our mechant class unable to secure credit to get more products brought over from Europe that were deemed necessary, particularly with british encroachment from Canada and maritime conflicts with a variety of players making each shipment both financially and politically high risk.
This was further solidified by our endless conflict over slave versus free states, and eventually the Civil War, where we decided once and for all that States are only as Independent as the Federal Government deigns them to be.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday July 13 2020, @05:25PM (13 children)
The purpose of the Electoral College is so that Big states don't have the only say in an election. Otherwise, it's conceivable that a president elect, could 100% ignore 1/2 the country or more and only focus on what the large majority of the major cities want. Everyone else can go suck on an egg. That is categorically unfair and what the Electoral College exists to protect against. Yes, your vote as a person in a more populous state doesn't count the same as some less populous states, that's life. But, that's how the other states actually get a say in anything.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GlennC on Monday July 13 2020, @06:47PM (1 child)
FTFY,,,without the Electoral College, a candidate could simply focus on the dozen or so largest counties in the nation and easily win.
This means that entire regions would be effectively disenfranchised.
A listing of the largest counties is available at https://ballotpedia.org/Large_counties_in_the_United_States_by_population [ballotpedia.org]
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @07:45PM
Personally I prefer screwing over the minority rather than the majority. Simple math, but of course the flyover states don't want to lose their undeserved privilege. Buncha Karen states, that is what state's rights are all about.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday July 13 2020, @07:36PM (6 children)
The purpose of the Electoral College is so that the majority of voters in Big states don't have
the onlyas much or any say in an election. Even if they win by popular vote.But it's totally okay to have a president, by minority vote, that 100% ignores 1/2 the country. Nothing wrong here. Nosiree.
... and only focus on what he wants, his racist minority base wants, how things will play in the media, and what the ratings will be.
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday July 13 2020, @07:45PM (4 children)
Better than the alternative. The electoral college was created to make sure that the people in a tiny place like New York City, (not by population size, but by square mileage), wouldn't have absolute say over the entire rest of the nation or vice versa.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday July 13 2020, @08:03PM (3 children)
So if the people in New York City were to take up more land, should their vote suddenly count more?
Or are they just unimportant.
We we have not is a system where a president can and does ignore the needs of 1/2 the country. You just don't like it to be your half.
And neither party can seem to represent more people, and neither party can seem to put up a candidate who represents more people's interests.
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 13 2020, @08:43PM (2 children)
What I'm saying is that the electoral college vote is designed to give equity to the system, not equality. Otherwise, if each state was equal, there would be an even greater disparity of the vote. While a system where 1 vote = 1 vote, would lend itself to only focusing on the issues that matter to a few cities in the entire country, essentially neutering the vote of the entire rest of the country. That coming from a person from one of the largest and most populous states.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 13 2020, @09:06PM (1 child)
I'm in a red flyover state, yet making arguments against the E.C., Trump, etc.
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @06:47PM
Maybe they should just go back to the 1 EC per X people +2EC for a state, instead of capping the total number of people in the EC. They capped the House because it was just getting too big, but that isn't really an issue with the EC is it?
Have the EC votes follow the number originally prescribed in the constitution, while still capping the House.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @08:01PM
Yes. That is exactly correct, because what your statement shows is your complete lack of knowledge.
The EC is the election method that STATES use to elect the president. It is not, has never been a means by which the PEOPLE elect the president. It is a weighting system that compromised between the large and the small states so that states that are likely to have more economic power cannot completely disenfranchise those that have lesser economic power. The current election system for the Senate is a good example. Now the Senate is elected by the people, but this was not originally so. The direct election of the Senator means that he is LESS culpable to the people of the state, because he can use federal issues to distract the people from when he does actual harm to their state. For example, the Senator in KS who supported via multiple means the takeover and gutting of Cabela's... a perfectly good profitable company, by Paul Singer (among the largest of GOP donors) and the destruction of an entire county. If the Senator was still appointed by the state legislature or governor, his ass would have been canned instantly.
It is the compromise of a federation of states, not a populist election system. Careful, when you wield the power of the electorate, you may not like what you get. The majority of people would still vote against gay marriage, and immigrant rights, and a myriad of other issues that have been stymied by the federal system, or where the state system has been used to shoehorn in a consensus, despite popular vote. Compromises that are reneged often have very large unforeseen consequences. The Civil War is but one example.
People have this egomaniacal view that their position gets better when they demand pure democracy, that is rarely true, and often the opposite. This has been explored by political science and philosophy since the literal beginning of recorded philosophy. I like to think its the origin of a Germanic law where if a chieftain tried to promote himself above other chieftains it was a requirement of the other chiefs and the people to kill him. Lord Acton and all that.
(Score: 5, Informative) by meustrus on Monday July 13 2020, @09:08PM
That's why states get an extra +2 EC votes regardless of population, but it's not why the EC exists. This comment [soylentnews.org] references Hamilton promoting it as a tool of explicit elitism. TFA itself has this to say about the purpose of the Electoral College:
To sum up all three reasons into one: the Electoral College exists in order to integrate multiple voting systems that quantified representation in otherwise incompatible ways. It was built for a world where one state might want 50% suffrage and another might want only 10% suffrage, but they were supposed to have some kind of equivalent influence on the presidential election.
In a world where all states and territories have near-universal suffrage, we don't need it. The only good that's left is the small amount of extra influence it gives to small states. Let's be honest about how much of a difference that really makes. From TFA:
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday July 14 2020, @12:49AM (1 child)
I thought that's what the Senate is for:
- The House of Reps proposes legislation based on representation of people nationally
- The Senate supports or opposes the legislation based on the number of states that support it
You could be forgiven for thinking that the job of the Senate is to blindly support or oppose the President, depending on which party they're from, as that's how it's been working for the past 6 years.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:33PM
It's been working that way for a lot longer than that. While, there are other ways a small state could exert influence, having some say in who is elected President is definitely something they should and need to have the power to do.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:12PM
And if you'd like an empirical demonstration of what that will look like, look no farther than your northern neighbour. If a party sweeps the board in Ontario and Quebec, they generally have enough seats to form the government with only a smattering of wins elsewhere. It works about as well as you'd expect.
- D
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @05:27PM
It's not the interests of small population states that differ so radically from the popular vote of the country.
It's the interests of a handful of large population states (one in particular) that differ so radically from the interests from the rest of the country.