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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: 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!
(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.