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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: 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.
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(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.
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(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.
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(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