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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @10:11PM (6 children)
Perhaps you should stick to citing your favorite fake news site [mediabiasfactcheck.com] to spread misinformation about wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 [soylentnews.org]. You don't have a lot to add to this discussion.
Yes, the rules are the rules. Except the rules include a mechanism for changing them, which is by ratifying an amendment to the Constitution.
The electoral college made more sense in the early US. Significantly greater autonomy was granted to the states, with mechanisms created to protect that autonomy and agreed upon in the Connecticut Compromise. That autonomy has been limited significantly by the fourteenth amendment and has been further eroded by judicial precedent. The idea of a confederation of states selecting a single leader is largely obsolete. The electoral college also effectively means that a Republican vote in Hawaii or California, or a Democratic vote in Wyoming or the third district of Nebraska are largely irrelevant. Those people can cast votes, but those votes are rendered essentially meaningless by the voting trends in those places. Abolishing the electoral college would give those people a greater voice in the government, which is a good thing. It might be reasonable to make representation in the Senate proportional, too, but retain the longer terms so it's less susceptible to voting trends in any single election cycle.
Also, in the early US, voters were far less informed than in the present day. Limited modes of communication and generally less travel meant far fewer opportunities for voters to be informed about presidential candidates. State legislatures chose senators and, frequently, electors. It was the responsibility of the legislatures to be informed and make good decisions, particularly because most people didn't have the same level of access to information. The legislators were often highly educated people at a time when the standard of education was significantly lower. The people voted on candidates within their districts, people who they might well have known personally, and would be in a much better position to make an informed and wise decision about voting for. Because people are generally far more educated and have far greater access to candidates through radio, TV, and the internet, this is a relic of the past.
So how about we abolish an antiquated system that effectively disenfranchises a significant amount of voters?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 13 2020, @10:39PM (5 children)
Change the Senate to be more like Congress? So, you want a more democratic system, which will tend to smother all those "flyover" states. Got it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @12:08AM (4 children)
First off, fake news Runaway, I actually live in Nebraska, which is one of those "flyover" states. Because of the population differences, I have about 20 times the representation in the Senate than a resident of California. Why is this reasonable?
The current system is smothering large states like California. Changing the Senate to be proportional won't smother small states. It will simply put large states on equal footing with them.
If the system was implemented properly, it could offer some significant improvements over what we have now. Let's say we gave states one senator per million residents. Nebraska would still have two senators but California would have 40. The Senate would still have six year staggered terms. That means California would elect 13 or 14 senators per election cycle.
This could be a statewide election in which parties conduct primaries to determine a list of senators from their party, ranked in order of the votes received. In the general election, each person votes for a party. The Senate seats are given proportionately from the party vote, starting at the top of each party's list and working downward. In such a system, California wouldn't send 40 Democrats to the Senate. Instead, you'd see a significant amount of Republicans. It would also be a lot easier to elect third parties. In a state the size of California, less than 10% of the vote would be needed to elect third party candidates. In California's case, this likely means electing some Greens. But in other large states like Texas, it might mean sending Libertarians to the Senate.
This wouldn't smother states like Nebraska at all. It would, however, give equal representation to large states like California. In a state like California that typically sends two Democrats to the Senate, this would allow other people in the state like Republicans to have some representation in the Senate. Why would this be a bad thing at all?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:10AM (1 child)
But, California and other populous states already enjoy that sort of "equality" in the House. The Senate isn't supposed to be just like the House.
No, California isn't being "smothered". That's some kind of talking point that you've picked up somewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @04:17AM
We've already made the Senate more like the House. The seventeenth amendment did just that.
A legislature need not have two very distinctive chambers for the government to be a properly functioning democracy. New Zealand used to have a bicameral legislature but abolished its upper house decades ago. For that matter, Nebraska has a unicameral legislature. At the state level, the differences between the upper and lower houses are often in legislative powers, different term lengths, and differently sized districts. But the differences are less distinct than at the federal level. While the UK has a parliamentary system, the US legislature is modeled after the UK in many respects. However, the House of Lords has lifetime appointments but significantly less legislative power than the US Senate. That said, making the Senate representation proportional to the population wouldn't make it identical to the house for the reasons I stated in my prior comment.
In terms of the rights of "flyover" states, we're talking about geographic regions with boundaries that were influenced heavily by political disputes during the 19th century. For example, Dakota Territory was split into North and South Dakota before being admitted because the Republicans wanted to admit two states to get more representation in the Senate. State lines were essentially gerrymandered to exploit the disproportional representation in the Senate. In the case of South Dakota, much of the state actually belonged to the Sioux, so there were concerns about whether it was even viable as a state. The state was eventually opened up to settlers when the Sioux were coerced and deceived by George Crook into signing away their land. The Sioux were forced onto reservations against their wishes. The US attempted to disarm the Sioux, armed conflict broke out, and the result was the Wounded Knee Massacre.
So let's be clear. Preventing "flyover" states from being "smothered" really means preserving the gerrymandering of state lines from over a century ago because it's politically beneficial to your party in the present day. I'm all for insulating the Senate from the whims of voters in any particular election, something that is already done with the staggered six year terms. But your argument for the rights of "flyover" states isn't particularly meaningful when those states were drawn up for the sole purpose of gaining a political advantage in the Senate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:30AM (1 child)
Because the Senate represents states not individual people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @04:39AM
House members doesn't represent "individual people", either. They represent districts.
In the proposal I described, elections would still be statewide, and senators would still represent states. The only difference is that more populous states would have larger delegations.
In the past, it might have been more correct to say that senators represented the states when they were elected by the state legislatures. That changed with the seventeenth amendment, which required that senators be directly elected by the people.
So the senators now represent the people, as do the representatives. The difference is the amount and geographic boundaries of the people they represent -- except for states like South Dakota, which only have one representative.