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The Supreme Court Just Pointed Out the Absurdity of the Electoral College

posted by Fnord666 on Monday July 13 2020, @04:23PM   

AnonTechie writes:

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'

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Original Submission

• Re:why would I want to do that?(Score: 5, Informative) by meustrus on Monday July 13 2020, @09:08PM

  by meustrus (4961) on Monday July 13 2020, @09:08PM (#1020693)

  The purpose of the Electoral College is so that Big states don't have the only say in an election.

  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:

  Just because the Electoral College doesn’t favor small states, rural states or either party doesn’t mean our Founders didn’t create it for a reason. In fact, as Akhil Amar describes in his book America’s Constitution: A Biography, they were three reasons. First, in a brand-new country connected dirt roads, conducting a direct nationwide election was unimaginable, so it was far better to hold the election in stages. Second, because states had very different requirements for voting, not just involving race but wealth as well, a national popular vote would put pressure on states to make more people eligible to vote, something our Founders weren’t comfortable doing. Finally, because the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution gave states with larger enslaved populations more representatives in Congress – and because a state’s strength in the Electoral College is based mostly on its number of representatives in Congress – Southern states insisted on a system of electors to increase their influence.

  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:

  In fairness, because electors are apportioned in a hybrid system – 435 of them are distributed proportional to population, while the remaining 100 are divided up equally among the states – places like Wyoming and Vermont do have a bit more clout than they otherwise would. But because the vast majority of votes doled out proportionally, the influence of small states is still pretty puny. In the Senate, California and Wyoming are equals. In the Electoral College, the winner of California gets 55 votes while the winner of Wyoming or Vermont gets just three. In fact, to make up for losing California, you would have to sweep the 15 smallest states and D.C. If the Electoral College is meant to keep small states from being overlooked, it’s doing an awful job.

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  If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?

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