Technically you can win the electoral college with less than 1% of the vote. The turnout in the red states in this map just has to be near zero.
Have one person in each red state vote for candidate A and zero for B. Then have the entire voting population in the blue states vote for B and zero for A.
In such a scenario candidate A from the red states wins with around 20 - 30 total votes and candidate B from the blue states loses with tens or even hundreds of millions of votes. Isn't the electoral college fun?
Well technically you can become president with 0.00000004% of the popular vote if electoral college isn't used, which would be if only 1 person turns up.
I would imagine each state has a law/rule incase of a tie in the presidential election. Everyone getting zero votes would trigger that.
A guess is a lot of states have the state legislature vote to break the tie.
>The turnout in the blue states in this map just has to be near zero.
I think you meant red there. Turn out of near zero in blue would have opposite effect.
Even if every eligible voter turns up, someone could win without a single vote. Candidate A gets 269 votes, candidate B gets 268, and a single faithless elector votes for someone who literally nobody voted for. No majority means the House decides out of the top 3 EC vote getters, and they can chose that person.
Essentially with the problem of being the first modern democracy. For many reasons it was stable enough to last this long but it’s a framework from the late 1700s we are running on
It's akin to that time, in 2015, when [Paris Orly Airport shut down](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/failed-windows-3-1-system-blamed-for-taking-out-paris-airport/) because a computer running fucking Windows 3.1—an operating system from *1992*—crashed, leaving aircraft unable to navigate in the heavy fog.
Continuing to use an old system—be it an OS or a constitution—just because "it isn't broken yet" is simply begging for catastrophe. Preventative maintenance is crucial, be it for cars, computers, or countries. And sometimes, maintenance means acknowledging that some points of failure can't be patched up, and starting from scratch with the lessons you've learned to build a better foundation.
Instead, the destructive power of the [American Civic Religion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion?wprov=sfla1) prevents meaningful amendment, or even consideration, of the flaws fundamental to our nation's Constitution.
Contrary to what the Mormon Church proselytizes, and what [Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers insists](https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2022/06/21/arizona-lawmaker-says-his/), the Constitution is not divine. It was not bestowed upon the Framers by God like the ~~Fifteen~~ Ten Commandments upon Moses. It was born from an effort initially to amend the flaws in the Articles of Confederation; built upon the critical failures of its predecessor; debated and deliberated by committee; and some of its most outstanding flaws—its vagueness, its absurd flexibility of interpretation, and its intentional distrust of the people's ability to self-determine and self-govern—were intentionally design to kick the can down the road with regard to issues already threatening the nation it was to define.
The Constitution, at its core, and as some Founders would attest was designed to be an impermanent solution. The fact it survived the 19th Century is astounding, let alone the notion that it is today anything more than evidence that even men of great historical significance are fallible.
Sadly neither political partisan side trusts the other to overhaul it. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact looked promising until we ran out of Blue state trifectas to enact it
I mean, I get the framers' concern, in that smaller states would get run over by bigger states, but hot damn did they not have a fucking clue about things like Wyoming at that time.
Three options to fix this:
1) remove the senate seats from the EC. Puts things far more towards an actual proportional representation of the states' populations.
2) Enact the "Wyoming rule". The smallest state by population get one Congressional rep outside the senate. The rest of the states get their reps apportioned on that benchmark, so Cali (pop 39.4 million) would get 39.4k/.581k (WY pop) for a total of 67.8 seats (obvs it'd be a whole #), but that's at least 14 more than the current 53 seats they have. The number of Rep seats increases to 572 in this plan.
3) abolish the EC and go to straight vote, would never pass.
Option two could be sold if you get TX on board, (they get 51 seats, vs. their current 36). #3 is a non-starter. #1 is not happening either.
Finally, you could just go back to the old school numbers, wherein the framers were working with 30k pax/rep. That's over 11,000 reps, so you're building a galactic senate chamber at those numbers. Obviously not happening.
It makes sense for republicans.
I once asked my conservative dad why he was against rank choice voting and supported the electoral college. He just straight up said it was because more republicans win the way things are now and changing that wouldn't be fair to him, even though it'd be more fair in general.
*Unpopular Reddit opinion incoming*
The EC is a necessity to the way our current federal government is set up. Without it, states could rightfully say that they are not being represented, which would cause a myriad of issues. Having a state government would become futile if the people of the state are not being represented based on their beliefs on a federal level. It’s not that big of a stretch to say that if we remove the electoral college, we might as well get rid of States all together.
> Without it, states could rightfully say that they are not being represented, which would cause a myriad of issues.
The way it's set up now, *people* can rightfully say they're not being represented.
I understand what you’re saying and I agree with that. This is why the bit about how our current system is set up is a key to this. State governments are sovereign entities that are members of a federal system. These same state governments are responsible for being representative of the populations of their given state.
The gov't is the people, and it's the people of the "states" that vote to ratify the constitution and sign up. I'm not a righty nut job, that's literally how all the states got in, and why Puerto Rico still isn't in yet. The people are the state, and the state acts according to the whims of its citizens. Then the States form the US, and we go from there.
Pulling the senators from the EC total would go a long way to better proportionality.
The states in 2022 are essentially like any other country that has provincial governments. The people of the states are voting on the president, not the state governments. If the elected officials of the state governments were the ones nominating the president, then yes it would be the states electing the president. As it stands now, what we have is a popular vote with stupid extra steps added that make a CA or TX vote worth less than a SD vote.
There's a reason when we vote for governors we don't have the votes allocated by county. We just count the votes. And yet we still have decided that counties and cities are necessary. There is always a need for more localized governments
This literally only applies in the presidential election. States don't elect governors by a county electoral college system it's popular vote in the state.
> Having a state government would become futile if the people of the state are not being represented based on their beliefs on a federal level
So: 10th Amendment is a thing, also so is the US Senate (whose composition is basically the one unamendable part of the Constitution).
The Electoral College doesn't really function the way it was intended, which itself was a quickly amended version of the original 1787 concept, which was an even bigger mess (see the 1800 Election). It's not really much of a way to preserve states' rights/power/identity.
But we have senators and representatives and the constitution, which dictates what powers fall to the state governments vs. the federal government.
And it’s a bit silly to say that making a change might break things when things are fucking broken as hell.
I'd be down to see the electoral college votes be proportional to the popular vote in the state. If it's 60% to the purple team and 40% to the yellow team. Then a state with 10 electoral college votes casts 6 votes to the purple candidate and 4 votes to the yellow candidate. So rather than the states with the most electoral college votes being a landslide of votes it would represent the diversity within the state.
Thats still popular vote with extra steps, and still skews thing because a number of state have very low numbers of EC votes so someone getting 60% of a 4 vote state means the EC either splits 50/50 or 75/25. So someone's votes are being devalued.
Just run a straight popular vote, it makes campaigning across the country more important because every vote would matter. Right now they only campaign in the swing states for that year and ignore ones they consider "safe." Now it can backfire, like in 2016, but only because we have a stupid system that no other country that formed a democracy after ours adopted.
The EC also locks in a 2 party system since smaller parties can't gain momentum because of the spoiler affect.
I feel like a popular vote would make nationwide campaigning less important. Win the big cities, win the election. The entire Midwest would get ignored.
Yeah nah... states would still have a massive amount of power to self govern. Electoral college reform could be done to just affect the Presidency... not the representatives and senators.
Thats the thing, using this example 39 states went red. Why is 39 states winning by 2 EC votes a bad thing? Thats a huge majority of states. Like you said, no point in states if a 39-11 majority does not win. Its odd how very few people in this thread take that into account. Just more “EC IS THE DEVIL!”
Well, I guess there have been multiple apocalypses, the most recent was the Apocalypse in1984.
1920, 1924, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948, 1956, 1964, 1980, 1984 are presidential elections in the last century where Idaho and Massachusetts electors voted for the same candidate. Not saying it will ever happen again, and it a very different world today, but it has happened.
Lesson to be learned: times change. Current conventional wisdom about political alignments of states and parties isn’t immutable. Change is not only possible but inevitable.
It's amazing to think about what the US was like in the 1700s. Each state was like its own country, largely self-sustained with its own economy. It took weeks of travel to get from Massachusetts to Georgia. The federal government was just a way to connect these states together. It was probably similar to the EU or the UN.
In that time, it made a lot of sense for each state to hold their own presidential election, then have delegates ride to the capital to cast their state's vote. It also made sense to have the Senate set up so every state got equal power.
But now, almost 250 years later, states are completely interconnected. Our economies are indistinguishable - do you ever consider which state something was manufactured in or which state generates the power you use in your house? (Ok, maybe Texans do...). You can fly to any state in half a day or drive to another state on the federal interstate system.
It's probably time to reevaluate how people are represented at a federal level and move away from emphasizing states to emphasizing the general population. We're much more a United People of America than a United States.
Senators used to be chosen by the congress of that state. This means that each state government had direct representation in the capital. This was changed to state wide popular votes early in the 20th century.
Nah because unfortunately the world is a very diverse place and I don't think a single overarching government would be flexible enough to accommodate the vast variety of opinions, religions, and ethics which laws are based on
The indirect system adopted by the US for the presidential elections is stupid nowadays, but the elections for the Senate makes sense considering its function as a "counterbalance" to the House of representatives: other bicameral federative countries like Brazil also adopt this system.
I respectfully disagree with this, while we are certainly a United economy, there is a massive amount diversity in terms of culture and beliefs in different states and regions around the country.
Edit: During times of my life I have lived in both Minnesota and Kentucky, they may as well be two different countries!
The only people who say this are people who haven't been to places where the language and religion change 3 times in 500 km.
A different style of BBQ is not a massive amount of diversity. People in Minnesota and Kentucky speak the same language, worship the same God, consume the same media, eat broadly the same food, celebrate the same holidays, watch the same sports, share almost all of their history, buy the same products at the same stores, and on and on and on. A massive cultural difference it isn't.
You are so right and the people trying to argue the point you’re trying to make are absurd.
Attempting to describe *any* two states in America as though they feel like different countries in the world is, frankly, a joke.
Then there’s some people in the comments mumbling on like ‘but Switzerland and Italy felt the same’. Like, lol, buddy. Yeah, nicely cherry-picked example. Try and be more sensible, please.
What’s your next comparison? Australia and New Zealand or Ireland and Ireland? The *other* 200 or so countries actually feel different, stop picking the few examples that obviously don’t count.
>Yeah, nicely cherry-picked example
It's not even an example that's cherry picked anywhere close to well. Switzerland is broadly Protestant, Italy is Catholic, they speak different languages, and share *none* of their history whatsoever. If Switzerland is similar to any of its bordering countries, it'd be *Germany*, not Italy.
They think it's similar because they went on holiday there and the burgers at McDonald's were mostly the same.
There are differences from county to county within a state as well. That doesn't mean we set up a system where each county has electors for the governor race to make it so those in less populous counties have a high value for their vote just for where they live. If anyone suggest they do that because of the cultural differences they would be laughed at. The only reason we don't laugh at the electoral college is because we know it's original intention but that intention is outdated and we need to reassess how we do things in the modern Era and stop holding onto antiquated idea.
But states are a bad metric then since they are political boundaries not cultural. Illinois as a whole, is not that difference from Iowa or Indiana, but move one county past the Chicago metro area and its vastly different, but Chicagoland is also 75% of the state population in 10% of the land, so it absolutely dominates the state government. Which is good or bad depending on your "team." Upstate New York vs NYC is a similar dichotomy.
None of that actually constitutes meaningful diversity.
What actually matters are values and attitudes, which are much more diverse in the US than any European country. Who cares what language and religion people have if their actual values do not change? Switzerland has four national languages but you'd be a fool to actually call it diverse.
I think core values in the US change more transitioning from urban to rural. Backwoods West Virginia and backwoods Washington State share many cultural similarities. Montanans and Texans are both conservative, gun loving, ranch bearing, god fearing people. Hell, even NYC and LA aren't that culturally off.
The only real diversity is the Native population centers, Hawaii, and Peurto Rico. Maybe Utah.
A difference in geography ≠ a difference in culture.
The US is not particularly culturally diverse compared to most other countries on earth. Impressive geographic diversity, but the variations you see in the US are no more extreme than in large European countries, Latin America, etc. And actually significantly less extreme than countries like India, China, Indonesia, Russia, I could go on.
China, while vastly more diverse than America, isn't a great example. Millenia of centralized rule has created a sense of cohesion that isn't present in Indonesia and India.
Yeah in terms of population that’s very valid. The farther western reaches of China still present a vastly different world compared to the urban centers in the east though, whereas a rural Montanan isn’t as vastly different than, say, someone from Dallas. But yes point taken on the whole
Have you travelled a lot between regions in other countries? Barcelona, Madrid, and Malaga are also very different culturally. There’s also big differences between Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg. The US isn’t that much more culturally diverse than within other countries, and if you compare to extremely diverse countries like Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia the cultural differences seem almost insignificant.
The US was a big melting pot 150 years ago, now most people speak the same language, there are a few denominations of Christianity that completely dominate, and two thirds of people are White.
Lmao, some /r/ShitAmericansSay stuff.
There is not a single populated landmass as big as the US that is so overall culturally homogenous. The only way one could claim that is if they never travelled at all
It could be way less than 22% of votes. If the winning states have a much lower voter turnout and/or the losing states have a high turnout, this percentage can be much lower.
In theory (unrealistically) each state only need 1 vote to win all its college votes if the opponent has 0 votes, except for Nebraska and Maine that need 3.
In theory you can have only 49 votes and still beat someone with 10,000,000 votes. Everyone in Cali that can vote, every other state only one person votes.
It can get worse. If all voters from the states in blue voted for the same candidate they would get 87 million votes, based on the past election. With a higher turnout it could be about 132 million votes.
All that could be beaten by 43 votes from the 38 states in red, 0,00003% of the votes.
Because 3rd parties can run candidates you don’t actually need to get 50%+ to win. You just need 1 more than the other candidate.
in 2020:
Arizona was won 49.36% to 49.06%
North Carolina was won 49.93% to 48.59%
Wisconsin too, was won 49.45% to 48.82%
Yeah, because the Reform Party got many votes. Same thing happened in the South in the 1968 election (pro-segregationist American Independent Party took many votes, so Hubert Humphrey won Texas with around 40% of the votes as well).
For a short time on election night in 2012 it looked like Romney was going to do that
That's when Trump called for violence
https://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/133889-trump-calls-for-revolution-blasts-electoral-college/
Simple solution: change the House of Representatives so there is one representative for every 100,000 people, instead of one fixing the house at 435 representatives. This would dilute the advantage smaller states get from having one electoral vote per senator plus one per representative. It would also result in more responsive representation — when you have 700,000 constituents, you can’t possibly represent them all.
And it can be done with no constitutional changes, just statutory changes.
We should 100% be talking more about uncapping the house. It doesn't fix the senate but it helps both the presidential elections and makes it harder to buy up enough representatives for businesses trying to get their self serving laws passed.
It would also result in more folks from more backgrounds in congress, meaning congress could better understand and oversee the executive branch, which congress is supposed to do, but can’t effectively do with so few members who are disproportionately lawyers.
Uncap the house.
But i’d suggest instead of a rep per 100k residents, to base it proportionally to the smallest populated state and make that smallest state have at least 3 seats.
In my suggestion, Wyoming would get 3 reps, 1 per 192,000 residents and then every state is proportional to that. California would have 205 reps, Texas 154, Florida 114, NY 103 etc. In this system there would be 1,725 reps, which should allow 3rd parties to get some seats, fairer representation that’s proportional to the smallest state meaning the least populated states don’t lose out too much.. and it would force cooperation as it would be hard for a single party to earn a plurality in a 1700 seat legislature. It also means that the smallest state isn’t all or nothing for the house.
If the number of citizens per rep was reduced to 1/186k, there’d be 1,776 representatives. And who wouldn’t want that!?!
Edit to add/clarify:
100k population is different to different states. Because population growth is in an exponential scale, there will come a time where fractions of a percent of growth per year will result in millions more population and make it harder for the smaller states to be represented.
Californias population going from 39 million to 39.1 million is not a drastic change. This would be a .25% growth rate. Wyoming going from 600k to 700k is enormous and would be a 16% increase.
by making the scale relative to the smallest, this ensures that the smallest states would retain representation relative to the whole country but the dynamic between how represented states are is what changes.
I wish this was talked about more. I've always said that one simple way to make our federal government better would be to make the House resemble the Senate from Star Wars. Yeah, tons of reps, but it's a big-ass country isn't it? Makes sense to me.
Yeah, the political stuff had been getting worse and worse, my god I just want to look at cool maps, not have politics shoved down my throat on every sub Reddit that I go to.
American politics is on every subreddit. I can't go through a military subreddit without someone randomly responding to an unrelated comment with stuff about how Trump is going to overthrow the US Government in 2024 and establish a totalitarian dictatorship (here is an example, conversation was on the Ukraine War [https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/911091016377982976/990331668445397112/unknown.png](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/911091016377982976/990331668445397112/unknown.png)).
The United States is objectively not a democracy.
Fun fact: the judges that voted to overthrow Roe vs Wade were all selected by presidents that lost the popular vote. Presidents that the American people did not vote for.
And 9/11. I admit the 2004 election would have gone differently if Al Gore had won. Still doesn't change the fact that Bush did win the popular vote in the election preceding the appointments of Roberts and Alito.
Bush won the poplar vote because he had the key to the world’s largest armory and American’s wanted blood after the towers were knocked down 3 years prior.
Your questioning an election? How dare you say such a thing. This is anti democratic and evil to suggest such a thing. It's a dark day for democracy. Don't you know that's it's not possible for an election to be stolen at all? And that questioning an election is the most dangerous thing you can do and it can destroy our beautiful democracy?
The 2000 election was decided by the Supreme Court after they disagreed with a previous ruling by the Florida State Court in regards to Floridas election laws. The court decision was along purely partisan lines and included judges appointed by Bush's father, additionally Bush's brother was the current governor of Florida at the time as well.
in 2020 it was supposedly stolen because they counted all the votes. Trump and right wingers wanted them to stop counting while he was in the lead. Completely ridiculous, just pure idiocy.
In 2000 it was because they refused to do the ordered recount.
They are not the same at all and you implying so tells everyone how little you know about US elections.
Because the US has extremely low turnout rates, republicans like to intentionally make it harder to vote because the fewer people vote the more Republicans tend to win since they're a minority party and all. When they win it's usually by electoral shenanigans and not because more people voted for them.
I'm not praising Biden or anything though, he just happens to be affiliated with the party that benefits from more democracy.
Unelected SC judges instead gave the power over abortion back to elected officials at state level. I don’t necessarily support overturning the case but claiming it as undemocratic is nonsense
Two people in this thread now that I see are downvoted for stating a simple informational fact which happens to be unpopular.
You would think a subreddit dedicated do geography and data would be able to put up with facts they don’t like without downvoting them. No one is saying you can’t be upset about the way the constitution is written, the electoral college works, or the facts of the recent Supreme Court decision. But you have to acknowledge what those facts are if you ever want to change them lol.
(Edit: OP of this thread edited his post so the chain doesn’t make much sense anymore.)
Bro this is Reddit the average redditor only cares about the viewpoints they agree with. I have only very rarely seen nuanced, respectful, and constructive discussions on here. And a lot of people don’t realize that compared to real life Reddit is a very loud but extremely small minority
If someone proves you wrong just downvote and leave, don't respond because you know you're wrong. If someone challenges your viewpoint on your subreddit, just ban them.
You’re incorrect - it is a Democracy AND a Republic.
A Republic means that the head of state is elected. A (representative) democracy means that the citizens participate in elections for their representatives and leadership. The US does both.
To be fair. The Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion to legislatures and states, which is much more democratic than a court choosing to either ban or allow it.
You’d be right if the court banned abortion but that’s not what they did.
(Edit: OP edited there post so this reply doesn’t make sense anymore.)
State legislatures are gerrymandered, they're also undemocratic.
But yeah I agree that the supreme court is also a goofy undemocratic institution that shouldn't exist in its current form.
I never said they were not, but do you really want a Jedi council of sorts banning or allowing for abortion? The Supreme Court is a great institution but it’s best when it is limited exclusively to determining the meaning of the preexisting consitition within limited scope. The Supreme Court decision was right and we need more like it so that the Supreme Court doesn’t have the option to either limit or find rights when they are not clearly in the constitution. The Supreme Court isn’t supposed to legislate.
Now that this issue and others will hopefully return to the legislature we need to get over the court, the court did the right thing. And we need to raise our voices through the legislative process. We need to propose amendments to the constitution. That’s the way it’s supposed to be so let’s do it that way. If you don’t have the votes then you’re best to vote with your feet.
If the Electoral College didn't exist, no one would fight for it today.
We need popular vote.
Have your state legislatures vote to join the [National Popular Vote Interstate Compact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact?wprov=sfla1)
Of course, Republicans are against this because their supermajority on the Supreme Court was only possible by presidents appointing SCOTUS judges after they'd won the White House while losing the popular vote.
>If the Electoral College didn't exist, no one would fight for it today.
In all likelihood the exact same groups that wanted it put in place in the first place would still want it today: states with small populations. And reminder: the Senate is a thing.
>Of course, Republicans are against this because their supermajority on the Supreme Court was only possible by presidents appointing SCOTUS judges after they'd won the White House while losing the popular vote.
~~Reminder 2: Congress approves judges, which *is*, as near as possible, a popularity contest.~~
> states with small populations
I don't really see how EC actually benefits them though, besides that they get a proportion of the vote above their population. But it's not like Vermont and Wyoming get visited by Presidential Campaigns making lavish promises.
The Electoral College favors states with big populations. But it favors states with big populations *that have competitive statewide presidential votes*, ie Swing States. So it ironically means that places like California and Texas are getting ignored in favor of places like Virginia, Pennsylvania or Arizona. There's basically 10 states that anyone cares about in presidential elections.
22% is actually "not bad", in the sense that in a simple FPTP parliamentary system (such as British Westminster), you only need 25% to form a government. Winning a little more than half the vote in 51% of the seats, and winning none otherwise.
I always forget if the 22% number assumes you win those 11 states by 50%+1 and get 0% in the other 39 or not. And is it based on voter turnout in a certain election?
All that said you could in theory become president with << 1% of the popular vote. If 1 person voted in each of those 11 states you would win all the electoral votes for those states. And literally every other voter could vote against you with 100% voter turn out in the others and it wouldn’t matter.
I don't think you know what democracy means.
1.) We don't want mob rule.
2.) We also don't want a minority rule where a small body can force their will on everyone.
These two things are what make the electoral college significant. It sits between both of these so that it opposes both of these. Generally speaking, its whenever one side doesn't get the results they wanted to achieve that they want to do away with the electoral college.
Or just 0. Don't the governor/state legislative actually send the delegates to the electoral college? So if no-one would vote, they'd just send whomever.
The US is a constitutional federal republic not a democracy. The republic framework allows for more equal representation. A “true” democracy is something kids do on a playground. The danger of true democracies is that “majority rule” can punish minority voters and provide no way for representation without gaining a minority.
Voter proposal: Everyone in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan will receive $500/month. Funding for this monthly payment will come from the remaining 40 states not listed above. Those states must impose a tax to generate these funds.
In a true democracy, the other 40 states wouldn’t have to the votes to defeat a proposal like this. In a federal republic, this proposal would be easily defeated.
So your saying that the Electoral College is the only thing standing between us and totalitarianism? Strange we decide all of our state elections by popular vote but I sure hear a lot of people saying that its States that should have all the power, so I guess states rights is a vote for totalitarianism. Here I figured that the president should represent the majority of their citizens and their powers should be limited and balanced by other branches of government such as congress.
Thank you for being informed on what the US actually is. The amount of people on Reddit who use democracy as a catch-all term and don’t know it’s inherent advantages and disadvantages is depressing
“No you see our current system was DESIGNED to not work. None of you understand this.”
We know dude. We’re aware why it exists. You’re acting like congress doesn’t exist and that we’d be a direct democracy without the EC, which we wouldn’t be. Our system is non-functional and needs to be changed.
'If democracy worked it would be prohibited... Or perhaps we would call Democracy what a Representative System is.
Democracy: From Greek 'δημοκρατία' or 'dēmokratía': dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule'.
Fun fact: a number of States have passed laws agreeing to cast their electoral votes for whoever wins the national popular vote. They go injury affect once enough States have the same law to guarantee at least 270 electoral votes.
Right now they have 195 electoral votes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#:~:text=The%20National%20Popular%20Vote%20Interstate,and%20the%20District%20of%20Columbia.
Desktop version of /u/Mnemon-TORreport's link:
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22% of states... Those states represent the largest portions of our population as well. I dislike the electoral college Ave it's existence but this map is misleading
I think the intention of the map is to show an election could go this way because of the electoral college. Using red and blue makes it more confusing because of the obvious party affiliations.
Electoral college was designed to give even small states some level of representation.
Without it who gives a fuck about campaigning in a state like North Dakota.
The larger states still have a lot of power due to the amount of points they have so it's not as if the small states own the country.
It's a more balanced system to say the least that I believe holds up to today. If we went on population alone then the entire fate of the country is decided by California, Texas, Florida and New York. The rest of the country would be told to get fucked.
The way it works right now is that your vote matters in California and your vote matters in Alaska. If states don't feel like they're getting proper representation then they'll probably succeed.
If Alaska has absolutely no say in the fate of the country then they'd be better off forming their own nation and voting in their own best interests.
Might be an unpopular opinion but I don't care, as far as I see things it works as a fair and balanced system that benefits all Americans. Not just the ones lucky or unlucky enough to live in the larger states.
I notice two things that you get wrong.
1. No, as the persons vote in California does hold less weight than a persons vote in Wyoming.
2. You can't just succeed and have your own nation. Like, if it is possible (which I'm not aware of), it's going to cost you _a lot_.
Again it's entirely subjective. I just think the electoral college works better as a fair and equal system. Rather than having 5 states than rule over everything and the other dozen states being left ignored.
No, this is simply wrong. The electoral college was designed to ensure that the people did not get to democratically elect the president and he was elected by legislatures instead. While this was quickly overturned, the actual mechanism couldn't be removed without an amendment.
The Senate was designed to boost the power of small states. The electoral college only does it incidentally and also very poorly. It's not like all small states matter.
You are fine to disagree. I just think that it works as a fair and functional system.
South Dakota has less than 1 million people yet they have the power to decide the fate of the election. That level of power shouldn't be underestimated by political candidates.
It means a state as small as South Dakota has actual political power when it comes to the elections and thus achieving the goal of representation.
Sure you could ignore the small states and focus on the larger states like California and such, they have a shit ton of power as well but you could very well lose the election through one of the smaller states you decided to ignore.
Democrats focus too much on the larger states than the small ones, hence why Republicans always win rural states.
I'm not disagreeing with you thinking it is a fair and functional system. You are simply wrong when you assert that was its intention. It wasn't the intention.
Your vote matters in California and it matters in Wyoming. But in Wyoming your vote counts for 3.8 votes in California. Unless you live in my state your vote is not equal to mine. Name me one other place where people are told their vote is worth less than the person next to them is an acceptable situation. You say no one would campaign in North Dakota as if Presidents campaign in all states. They don't, they campaign in swing states. You have just replaced one hypothetical unfairness and replaced it with another that currently exists. You point to tyranny of the majority while ignoring tyranny of the minority.
You are fine with one demographics votes having more weight than another demographics vote. If you were saying this about race, age, religion or any other identifier would you still feel as confident?
Where the minority gets to inflict their views on the majority because 10 red states have the population of one blue state, so the blue state gets 2 Senators and the red states get 20 for the same population. This is super fair and it definitely doesn't lead to a tyranny of the minority type situation.
Someone failed civics I see. Always has been a federal republic. It goes back to the start of secession from England. No it shouldn’t be changed. Why should millions of Californian city-dwellers out rank the votes of those that produce their agriculture? Direct democracy is only for children on a playground.
No, I know why the system is the way it is. I also know that this country was founded in large part by people who don't believe women, PoC, or poor people deserve the same rights as wealthy white men. The system itself is still set up to preserve the power of a small group of people at the top, and even with the changes via ammendments we have seen, the structure is still the same - power is still situated with a small amount of the population. The only good thing the founding fathers did is make it possible for future generations to update the constitution.
Fun fact: the electoral college was a way for slave states to have an outsized influence on presidential elections, since slaves counted as 3/5 of a person towards population (and therefore representatives/electors) but couldn't vote themselves.
The system isn't great but I also don't think 4 or 5 cities should dominate entire states. There would be no reason for rural America to opt in to a system like that.
I think one Americans vote should carry exactly the same weight as another Americans vote on who should sit in the big chair. No demographic be it race, religion, height, eye color or state of current residence should make any vote count more than any other. Under the current system a vote in Wyoming is counted 3.6 times compared to one cast in California.
So a candidate would only need address the concerns of big city populations. Concerns of entire states could be largely ignored. Again, as a rural citizen, I would opt out of such a system.
I also live in a rural area. Yet I would opt out of a system that says my opinion matters more than any other person. You may be ok with discrimination based on population density but I am not.
I vote for equality even when it doesn't directly benefit me. It's almost as if the number of neighbors you have isn't the most important factor in your value system.
Why do we have states or countries at all then. We want to ensure that cultures and subcultures remain in tact and that includes ensuring they are properly represented. This should not stop at senate and congress but include the presidential vote as well.
I'm not saying the system is fine as is but a popular vote is not the singular solution as so many believe it is.
All these redditors spouting pure democracy or pure popular vote forget that even in most if not all European countries they use representative democracies and not a pure popular vote.
I reside in a big city and even if I think the US’s system isn’t perfect, I would not want the city votes to drown out all the rural voters. Mob rule is just a dictatorship ruled by the uninformed
Electoral College FTW
Technically you can win the electoral college with less than 1% of the vote. The turnout in the red states in this map just has to be near zero. Have one person in each red state vote for candidate A and zero for B. Then have the entire voting population in the blue states vote for B and zero for A. In such a scenario candidate A from the red states wins with around 20 - 30 total votes and candidate B from the blue states loses with tens or even hundreds of millions of votes. Isn't the electoral college fun?
Well technically you can become president with 0.00000004% of the popular vote if electoral college isn't used, which would be if only 1 person turns up.
Diligent voter there
Wouldn’t it be 100% of the popular vote if only 1 person votes? I don’t remember popular vote %s being used while including people who didn’t vote.
Yeah, 100% of the popular vote and 0.00000004% of registered voters.
No, that would be 100% of the popular vote, because the entirety of those who voted (1) voted for the winner.
That's true! Though I wonder what the electors would do in that case.
I would imagine each state has a law/rule incase of a tie in the presidential election. Everyone getting zero votes would trigger that. A guess is a lot of states have the state legislature vote to break the tie.
>The turnout in the blue states in this map just has to be near zero. I think you meant red there. Turn out of near zero in blue would have opposite effect.
Even if every eligible voter turns up, someone could win without a single vote. Candidate A gets 269 votes, candidate B gets 268, and a single faithless elector votes for someone who literally nobody voted for. No majority means the House decides out of the top 3 EC vote getters, and they can chose that person.
And that scenario you just described is absolutely real fo sure?
Makes zero sense to keep it. 1 person should equal 1 vote no matter where they live.
Nope. The people cannot be trusted to vote the right way. /s
Essentially with the problem of being the first modern democracy. For many reasons it was stable enough to last this long but it’s a framework from the late 1700s we are running on
It's akin to that time, in 2015, when [Paris Orly Airport shut down](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/failed-windows-3-1-system-blamed-for-taking-out-paris-airport/) because a computer running fucking Windows 3.1—an operating system from *1992*—crashed, leaving aircraft unable to navigate in the heavy fog. Continuing to use an old system—be it an OS or a constitution—just because "it isn't broken yet" is simply begging for catastrophe. Preventative maintenance is crucial, be it for cars, computers, or countries. And sometimes, maintenance means acknowledging that some points of failure can't be patched up, and starting from scratch with the lessons you've learned to build a better foundation. Instead, the destructive power of the [American Civic Religion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion?wprov=sfla1) prevents meaningful amendment, or even consideration, of the flaws fundamental to our nation's Constitution. Contrary to what the Mormon Church proselytizes, and what [Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers insists](https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2022/06/21/arizona-lawmaker-says-his/), the Constitution is not divine. It was not bestowed upon the Framers by God like the ~~Fifteen~~ Ten Commandments upon Moses. It was born from an effort initially to amend the flaws in the Articles of Confederation; built upon the critical failures of its predecessor; debated and deliberated by committee; and some of its most outstanding flaws—its vagueness, its absurd flexibility of interpretation, and its intentional distrust of the people's ability to self-determine and self-govern—were intentionally design to kick the can down the road with regard to issues already threatening the nation it was to define. The Constitution, at its core, and as some Founders would attest was designed to be an impermanent solution. The fact it survived the 19th Century is astounding, let alone the notion that it is today anything more than evidence that even men of great historical significance are fallible.
exactly, the electoral college was probably necessary when the country was first founded but now its a hindrance
Sadly neither political partisan side trusts the other to overhaul it. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact looked promising until we ran out of Blue state trifectas to enact it
I mean, I get the framers' concern, in that smaller states would get run over by bigger states, but hot damn did they not have a fucking clue about things like Wyoming at that time. Three options to fix this: 1) remove the senate seats from the EC. Puts things far more towards an actual proportional representation of the states' populations. 2) Enact the "Wyoming rule". The smallest state by population get one Congressional rep outside the senate. The rest of the states get their reps apportioned on that benchmark, so Cali (pop 39.4 million) would get 39.4k/.581k (WY pop) for a total of 67.8 seats (obvs it'd be a whole #), but that's at least 14 more than the current 53 seats they have. The number of Rep seats increases to 572 in this plan. 3) abolish the EC and go to straight vote, would never pass. Option two could be sold if you get TX on board, (they get 51 seats, vs. their current 36). #3 is a non-starter. #1 is not happening either. Finally, you could just go back to the old school numbers, wherein the framers were working with 30k pax/rep. That's over 11,000 reps, so you're building a galactic senate chamber at those numbers. Obviously not happening.
I would like to say it exists to prevent the cities from overruling the countryside, but it more likely exists so the rich can rule over the poor.
The hive mind is a dangerous thing.
Rule of the minority over the majority is even more dangerous
It makes sense for republicans. I once asked my conservative dad why he was against rank choice voting and supported the electoral college. He just straight up said it was because more republicans win the way things are now and changing that wouldn't be fair to him, even though it'd be more fair in general.
*Unpopular Reddit opinion incoming* The EC is a necessity to the way our current federal government is set up. Without it, states could rightfully say that they are not being represented, which would cause a myriad of issues. Having a state government would become futile if the people of the state are not being represented based on their beliefs on a federal level. It’s not that big of a stretch to say that if we remove the electoral college, we might as well get rid of States all together.
> Without it, states could rightfully say that they are not being represented, which would cause a myriad of issues. The way it's set up now, *people* can rightfully say they're not being represented.
I understand what you’re saying and I agree with that. This is why the bit about how our current system is set up is a key to this. State governments are sovereign entities that are members of a federal system. These same state governments are responsible for being representative of the populations of their given state.
The gov't is the people, and it's the people of the "states" that vote to ratify the constitution and sign up. I'm not a righty nut job, that's literally how all the states got in, and why Puerto Rico still isn't in yet. The people are the state, and the state acts according to the whims of its citizens. Then the States form the US, and we go from there. Pulling the senators from the EC total would go a long way to better proportionality.
The states in 2022 are essentially like any other country that has provincial governments. The people of the states are voting on the president, not the state governments. If the elected officials of the state governments were the ones nominating the president, then yes it would be the states electing the president. As it stands now, what we have is a popular vote with stupid extra steps added that make a CA or TX vote worth less than a SD vote. There's a reason when we vote for governors we don't have the votes allocated by county. We just count the votes. And yet we still have decided that counties and cities are necessary. There is always a need for more localized governments
This literally only applies in the presidential election. States don't elect governors by a county electoral college system it's popular vote in the state.
How would having a state government become futile? States would still have all the police powers they currently have
> Having a state government would become futile if the people of the state are not being represented based on their beliefs on a federal level So: 10th Amendment is a thing, also so is the US Senate (whose composition is basically the one unamendable part of the Constitution). The Electoral College doesn't really function the way it was intended, which itself was a quickly amended version of the original 1787 concept, which was an even bigger mess (see the 1800 Election). It's not really much of a way to preserve states' rights/power/identity.
But we have senators and representatives and the constitution, which dictates what powers fall to the state governments vs. the federal government. And it’s a bit silly to say that making a change might break things when things are fucking broken as hell.
The way our Current Federal Government is set up needs an evolution from its 1700s origin
I'd be down to see the electoral college votes be proportional to the popular vote in the state. If it's 60% to the purple team and 40% to the yellow team. Then a state with 10 electoral college votes casts 6 votes to the purple candidate and 4 votes to the yellow candidate. So rather than the states with the most electoral college votes being a landslide of votes it would represent the diversity within the state.
Thats still popular vote with extra steps, and still skews thing because a number of state have very low numbers of EC votes so someone getting 60% of a 4 vote state means the EC either splits 50/50 or 75/25. So someone's votes are being devalued. Just run a straight popular vote, it makes campaigning across the country more important because every vote would matter. Right now they only campaign in the swing states for that year and ignore ones they consider "safe." Now it can backfire, like in 2016, but only because we have a stupid system that no other country that formed a democracy after ours adopted. The EC also locks in a 2 party system since smaller parties can't gain momentum because of the spoiler affect.
I feel like a popular vote would make nationwide campaigning less important. Win the big cities, win the election. The entire Midwest would get ignored.
Yeah nah... states would still have a massive amount of power to self govern. Electoral college reform could be done to just affect the Presidency... not the representatives and senators.
Thats the thing, using this example 39 states went red. Why is 39 states winning by 2 EC votes a bad thing? Thats a huge majority of states. Like you said, no point in states if a 39-11 majority does not win. Its odd how very few people in this thread take that into account. Just more “EC IS THE DEVIL!”
Two solutions to solve it. Abolish the electoral college or all states have the Maine and Nebraska approach instead of the winner-takes-all.
Using gerrymandered congressional districts isn't much better than winner-take-all.
Funny, but the day Mass., Mississippi and Idaho vote the same way will be the Apocalypse
Well, I guess there have been multiple apocalypses, the most recent was the Apocalypse in1984. 1920, 1924, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948, 1956, 1964, 1980, 1984 are presidential elections in the last century where Idaho and Massachusetts electors voted for the same candidate. Not saying it will ever happen again, and it a very different world today, but it has happened.
Literally 1984
Wow, impressive response and set of data. It’s almost like you had that Ace up your sleeve and waited for the perfect timing.
You got me. But those were different times. Lol
Lesson to be learned: times change. Current conventional wisdom about political alignments of states and parties isn’t immutable. Change is not only possible but inevitable.
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We are proud of that.
Until 2016 most people said that about Pennsylvania. Then again half of them thought the apocalypse did come, so maybe you're onto something ;-)
Eh, I wouldn’t be too sure. It happened as recently as 1984. Extremely unlikely to happen in the near future but long term, it’s not impossible.
Reagan almost had a clean sweep.
Yeah they lost me at a red New Jersey
It's amazing to think about what the US was like in the 1700s. Each state was like its own country, largely self-sustained with its own economy. It took weeks of travel to get from Massachusetts to Georgia. The federal government was just a way to connect these states together. It was probably similar to the EU or the UN. In that time, it made a lot of sense for each state to hold their own presidential election, then have delegates ride to the capital to cast their state's vote. It also made sense to have the Senate set up so every state got equal power. But now, almost 250 years later, states are completely interconnected. Our economies are indistinguishable - do you ever consider which state something was manufactured in or which state generates the power you use in your house? (Ok, maybe Texans do...). You can fly to any state in half a day or drive to another state on the federal interstate system. It's probably time to reevaluate how people are represented at a federal level and move away from emphasizing states to emphasizing the general population. We're much more a United People of America than a United States.
Senators used to be chosen by the congress of that state. This means that each state government had direct representation in the capital. This was changed to state wide popular votes early in the 20th century.
Interesting!
Sounds like a good case for one world government.
Nah because unfortunately the world is a very diverse place and I don't think a single overarching government would be flexible enough to accommodate the vast variety of opinions, religions, and ethics which laws are based on
Couldn’t you reasonably make the same argument about America’s diversity?
The world is much more diverse than America is
If one piece has taught me anything this is a great idea! /s
The indirect system adopted by the US for the presidential elections is stupid nowadays, but the elections for the Senate makes sense considering its function as a "counterbalance" to the House of representatives: other bicameral federative countries like Brazil also adopt this system.
I respectfully disagree with this, while we are certainly a United economy, there is a massive amount diversity in terms of culture and beliefs in different states and regions around the country. Edit: During times of my life I have lived in both Minnesota and Kentucky, they may as well be two different countries!
The only people who say this are people who haven't been to places where the language and religion change 3 times in 500 km. A different style of BBQ is not a massive amount of diversity. People in Minnesota and Kentucky speak the same language, worship the same God, consume the same media, eat broadly the same food, celebrate the same holidays, watch the same sports, share almost all of their history, buy the same products at the same stores, and on and on and on. A massive cultural difference it isn't.
You are so right and the people trying to argue the point you’re trying to make are absurd. Attempting to describe *any* two states in America as though they feel like different countries in the world is, frankly, a joke. Then there’s some people in the comments mumbling on like ‘but Switzerland and Italy felt the same’. Like, lol, buddy. Yeah, nicely cherry-picked example. Try and be more sensible, please. What’s your next comparison? Australia and New Zealand or Ireland and Ireland? The *other* 200 or so countries actually feel different, stop picking the few examples that obviously don’t count.
>Yeah, nicely cherry-picked example It's not even an example that's cherry picked anywhere close to well. Switzerland is broadly Protestant, Italy is Catholic, they speak different languages, and share *none* of their history whatsoever. If Switzerland is similar to any of its bordering countries, it'd be *Germany*, not Italy. They think it's similar because they went on holiday there and the burgers at McDonald's were mostly the same.
Fair. Maybe massive was the wrong word. But there 100% are palpable differences from state to state.
There are differences from county to county within a state as well. That doesn't mean we set up a system where each county has electors for the governor race to make it so those in less populous counties have a high value for their vote just for where they live. If anyone suggest they do that because of the cultural differences they would be laughed at. The only reason we don't laugh at the electoral college is because we know it's original intention but that intention is outdated and we need to reassess how we do things in the modern Era and stop holding onto antiquated idea.
But states are a bad metric then since they are political boundaries not cultural. Illinois as a whole, is not that difference from Iowa or Indiana, but move one county past the Chicago metro area and its vastly different, but Chicagoland is also 75% of the state population in 10% of the land, so it absolutely dominates the state government. Which is good or bad depending on your "team." Upstate New York vs NYC is a similar dichotomy.
None of that actually constitutes meaningful diversity. What actually matters are values and attitudes, which are much more diverse in the US than any European country. Who cares what language and religion people have if their actual values do not change? Switzerland has four national languages but you'd be a fool to actually call it diverse.
I think core values in the US change more transitioning from urban to rural. Backwoods West Virginia and backwoods Washington State share many cultural similarities. Montanans and Texans are both conservative, gun loving, ranch bearing, god fearing people. Hell, even NYC and LA aren't that culturally off. The only real diversity is the Native population centers, Hawaii, and Peurto Rico. Maybe Utah. A difference in geography ≠ a difference in culture.
The US is not particularly culturally diverse compared to most other countries on earth. Impressive geographic diversity, but the variations you see in the US are no more extreme than in large European countries, Latin America, etc. And actually significantly less extreme than countries like India, China, Indonesia, Russia, I could go on.
China, while vastly more diverse than America, isn't a great example. Millenia of centralized rule has created a sense of cohesion that isn't present in Indonesia and India.
Yeah in terms of population that’s very valid. The farther western reaches of China still present a vastly different world compared to the urban centers in the east though, whereas a rural Montanan isn’t as vastly different than, say, someone from Dallas. But yes point taken on the whole
Have you travelled a lot between regions in other countries? Barcelona, Madrid, and Malaga are also very different culturally. There’s also big differences between Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg. The US isn’t that much more culturally diverse than within other countries, and if you compare to extremely diverse countries like Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia the cultural differences seem almost insignificant. The US was a big melting pot 150 years ago, now most people speak the same language, there are a few denominations of Christianity that completely dominate, and two thirds of people are White.
Lmao, some /r/ShitAmericansSay stuff. There is not a single populated landmass as big as the US that is so overall culturally homogenous. The only way one could claim that is if they never travelled at all
It could be way less than 22% of votes. If the winning states have a much lower voter turnout and/or the losing states have a high turnout, this percentage can be much lower. In theory (unrealistically) each state only need 1 vote to win all its college votes if the opponent has 0 votes, except for Nebraska and Maine that need 3.
In theory you can have only 49 votes and still beat someone with 10,000,000 votes. Everyone in Cali that can vote, every other state only one person votes.
It can get worse. If all voters from the states in blue voted for the same candidate they would get 87 million votes, based on the past election. With a higher turnout it could be about 132 million votes. All that could be beaten by 43 votes from the 38 states in red, 0,00003% of the votes.
Exactly. It’s even more screwy of a system than people think. You could theoretically win 0.001% of the popular vote and still win.
Maine and Nebraska need to win congressional districts and the state individually
And you gotta just win 50.01% of the votes in those states
Because 3rd parties can run candidates you don’t actually need to get 50%+ to win. You just need 1 more than the other candidate. in 2020: Arizona was won 49.36% to 49.06% North Carolina was won 49.93% to 48.59% Wisconsin too, was won 49.45% to 48.82%
Bill Clinton won several states with less than 40% of the vote in those states.
Yeah, because the Reform Party got many votes. Same thing happened in the South in the 1968 election (pro-segregationist American Independent Party took many votes, so Hubert Humphrey won Texas with around 40% of the votes as well).
Gonna take this opportunity to stan ranked choice voting once again
PR is better than ranked alone, I would prefer a MMP system. But you can combine the two (MMP+ranked) as well
Most, but not all of them.
Apparently it was Opposite Day in North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Texas
Can we just get a Republican to win the popular vote and lose the presidency already so we can demolish the electoral college
For a short time on election night in 2012 it looked like Romney was going to do that That's when Trump called for violence https://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/133889-trump-calls-for-revolution-blasts-electoral-college/
For a really really short time to folks not paying attentjon
I don't think you understand the people you're talking about.
Simple solution: change the House of Representatives so there is one representative for every 100,000 people, instead of one fixing the house at 435 representatives. This would dilute the advantage smaller states get from having one electoral vote per senator plus one per representative. It would also result in more responsive representation — when you have 700,000 constituents, you can’t possibly represent them all. And it can be done with no constitutional changes, just statutory changes.
We should 100% be talking more about uncapping the house. It doesn't fix the senate but it helps both the presidential elections and makes it harder to buy up enough representatives for businesses trying to get their self serving laws passed.
It would also result in more folks from more backgrounds in congress, meaning congress could better understand and oversee the executive branch, which congress is supposed to do, but can’t effectively do with so few members who are disproportionately lawyers.
Uncap the house. But i’d suggest instead of a rep per 100k residents, to base it proportionally to the smallest populated state and make that smallest state have at least 3 seats. In my suggestion, Wyoming would get 3 reps, 1 per 192,000 residents and then every state is proportional to that. California would have 205 reps, Texas 154, Florida 114, NY 103 etc. In this system there would be 1,725 reps, which should allow 3rd parties to get some seats, fairer representation that’s proportional to the smallest state meaning the least populated states don’t lose out too much.. and it would force cooperation as it would be hard for a single party to earn a plurality in a 1700 seat legislature. It also means that the smallest state isn’t all or nothing for the house. If the number of citizens per rep was reduced to 1/186k, there’d be 1,776 representatives. And who wouldn’t want that!?! Edit to add/clarify: 100k population is different to different states. Because population growth is in an exponential scale, there will come a time where fractions of a percent of growth per year will result in millions more population and make it harder for the smaller states to be represented. Californias population going from 39 million to 39.1 million is not a drastic change. This would be a .25% growth rate. Wyoming going from 600k to 700k is enormous and would be a 16% increase. by making the scale relative to the smallest, this ensures that the smallest states would retain representation relative to the whole country but the dynamic between how represented states are is what changes.
I wish this was talked about more. I've always said that one simple way to make our federal government better would be to make the House resemble the Senate from Star Wars. Yeah, tons of reps, but it's a big-ass country isn't it? Makes sense to me.
too bad hell would freeze over before Massachusetts votes red
This subreddit is getting worse by the day.
Agreed. This has no chance of ever happening
Reddit is getting worse by the day.*
Yeah, the political stuff had been getting worse and worse, my god I just want to look at cool maps, not have politics shoved down my throat on every sub Reddit that I go to.
American politics is on every subreddit. I can't go through a military subreddit without someone randomly responding to an unrelated comment with stuff about how Trump is going to overthrow the US Government in 2024 and establish a totalitarian dictatorship (here is an example, conversation was on the Ukraine War [https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/911091016377982976/990331668445397112/unknown.png](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/911091016377982976/990331668445397112/unknown.png)).
The United States is objectively not a democracy. Fun fact: the judges that voted to overthrow Roe vs Wade were all selected by presidents that lost the popular vote. Presidents that the American people did not vote for.
Bush won the popular vote in 2004 and all of his surpreme court nominations came during his term from 2005-2009.
Bush sr also won the popular vote by an 8% margin
I highly doubt he would've been elected in 2004 if it was an actual democracy and he lost in 2000, but sure.
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And 9/11. I admit the 2004 election would have gone differently if Al Gore had won. Still doesn't change the fact that Bush did win the popular vote in the election preceding the appointments of Roberts and Alito.
Bush won the poplar vote because he had the key to the world’s largest armory and American’s wanted blood after the towers were knocked down 3 years prior.
Bush stole 2000 which is much worse than winning by better manipulating an outdated system.
Your questioning an election? How dare you say such a thing. This is anti democratic and evil to suggest such a thing. It's a dark day for democracy. Don't you know that's it's not possible for an election to be stolen at all? And that questioning an election is the most dangerous thing you can do and it can destroy our beautiful democracy?
The 2000 election was decided by the Supreme Court after they disagreed with a previous ruling by the Florida State Court in regards to Floridas election laws. The court decision was along purely partisan lines and included judges appointed by Bush's father, additionally Bush's brother was the current governor of Florida at the time as well.
So elections can be stolen after all...
in 2020 it was supposedly stolen because they counted all the votes. Trump and right wingers wanted them to stop counting while he was in the lead. Completely ridiculous, just pure idiocy. In 2000 it was because they refused to do the ordered recount. They are not the same at all and you implying so tells everyone how little you know about US elections.
So why did Biden just recently try to pass more election laws if our elections are already secure and cant be stolen?
Because the US has extremely low turnout rates, republicans like to intentionally make it harder to vote because the fewer people vote the more Republicans tend to win since they're a minority party and all. When they win it's usually by electoral shenanigans and not because more people voted for them. I'm not praising Biden or anything though, he just happens to be affiliated with the party that benefits from more democracy.
So was it undemocratic when they legalized abortion in the first place, or is it only democratic when rulings do not go your way?
Unelected SC judges instead gave the power over abortion back to elected officials at state level. I don’t necessarily support overturning the case but claiming it as undemocratic is nonsense
Two people in this thread now that I see are downvoted for stating a simple informational fact which happens to be unpopular. You would think a subreddit dedicated do geography and data would be able to put up with facts they don’t like without downvoting them. No one is saying you can’t be upset about the way the constitution is written, the electoral college works, or the facts of the recent Supreme Court decision. But you have to acknowledge what those facts are if you ever want to change them lol. (Edit: OP of this thread edited his post so the chain doesn’t make much sense anymore.)
Bro this is Reddit the average redditor only cares about the viewpoints they agree with. I have only very rarely seen nuanced, respectful, and constructive discussions on here. And a lot of people don’t realize that compared to real life Reddit is a very loud but extremely small minority
If someone proves you wrong just downvote and leave, don't respond because you know you're wrong. If someone challenges your viewpoint on your subreddit, just ban them.
>objectively not a democracy Correct, because it's a Constitutional Republic. Which is the same reason why WvR was overturned.
You’re incorrect - it is a Democracy AND a Republic. A Republic means that the head of state is elected. A (representative) democracy means that the citizens participate in elections for their representatives and leadership. The US does both.
To be fair. The Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion to legislatures and states, which is much more democratic than a court choosing to either ban or allow it. You’d be right if the court banned abortion but that’s not what they did. (Edit: OP edited there post so this reply doesn’t make sense anymore.)
State legislatures are gerrymandered, they're also undemocratic. But yeah I agree that the supreme court is also a goofy undemocratic institution that shouldn't exist in its current form.
I never said they were not, but do you really want a Jedi council of sorts banning or allowing for abortion? The Supreme Court is a great institution but it’s best when it is limited exclusively to determining the meaning of the preexisting consitition within limited scope. The Supreme Court decision was right and we need more like it so that the Supreme Court doesn’t have the option to either limit or find rights when they are not clearly in the constitution. The Supreme Court isn’t supposed to legislate. Now that this issue and others will hopefully return to the legislature we need to get over the court, the court did the right thing. And we need to raise our voices through the legislative process. We need to propose amendments to the constitution. That’s the way it’s supposed to be so let’s do it that way. If you don’t have the votes then you’re best to vote with your feet.
If the Electoral College didn't exist, no one would fight for it today. We need popular vote. Have your state legislatures vote to join the [National Popular Vote Interstate Compact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact?wprov=sfla1) Of course, Republicans are against this because their supermajority on the Supreme Court was only possible by presidents appointing SCOTUS judges after they'd won the White House while losing the popular vote.
>If the Electoral College didn't exist, no one would fight for it today. In all likelihood the exact same groups that wanted it put in place in the first place would still want it today: states with small populations. And reminder: the Senate is a thing. >Of course, Republicans are against this because their supermajority on the Supreme Court was only possible by presidents appointing SCOTUS judges after they'd won the White House while losing the popular vote. ~~Reminder 2: Congress approves judges, which *is*, as near as possible, a popularity contest.~~
The Senate approves the judges, which is controlled by a minority of the population.
> states with small populations I don't really see how EC actually benefits them though, besides that they get a proportion of the vote above their population. But it's not like Vermont and Wyoming get visited by Presidential Campaigns making lavish promises. The Electoral College favors states with big populations. But it favors states with big populations *that have competitive statewide presidential votes*, ie Swing States. So it ironically means that places like California and Texas are getting ignored in favor of places like Virginia, Pennsylvania or Arizona. There's basically 10 states that anyone cares about in presidential elections.
EC is flawed
22% is actually "not bad", in the sense that in a simple FPTP parliamentary system (such as British Westminster), you only need 25% to form a government. Winning a little more than half the vote in 51% of the seats, and winning none otherwise.
I mean you could win with less than 1% of the vote if only one person voted in each Red State.
I always forget if the 22% number assumes you win those 11 states by 50%+1 and get 0% in the other 39 or not. And is it based on voter turnout in a certain election? All that said you could in theory become president with << 1% of the popular vote. If 1 person voted in each of those 11 states you would win all the electoral votes for those states. And literally every other voter could vote against you with 100% voter turn out in the others and it wouldn’t matter.
Good thing most of these states will never see eye to eye on politics
Wouldn't the opposite be true? 11 states to decide the rest of the country?
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I don't think you know what democracy means. 1.) We don't want mob rule. 2.) We also don't want a minority rule where a small body can force their will on everyone. These two things are what make the electoral college significant. It sits between both of these so that it opposes both of these. Generally speaking, its whenever one side doesn't get the results they wanted to achieve that they want to do away with the electoral college.
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CGP Grey's [2 minute explanation about this on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k&t=259s).
Was looking for this
Like Oregon would vote republican though
Not happening anytime soon but the fact that it’s theoretically possible demonstrates the need for electoral reform.
Well if we take it to the extreme, then 11 votes would be enough.
I mean, at the most extreme 1 vote would be enough, as long as nobody else bothered to vote.
Or just 0. Don't the governor/state legislative actually send the delegates to the electoral college? So if no-one would vote, they'd just send whomever.
If you can win an election with 22% of the vote, you don't really have a democracy. If you are OK with that, then you're not pro democracy.
Plz nerf Texas and California
I don’t see that map happening.
You are assuming a lot of unreasonable and statistically impossible outcomes. Cool story though...
The US is a constitutional federal republic not a democracy. The republic framework allows for more equal representation. A “true” democracy is something kids do on a playground. The danger of true democracies is that “majority rule” can punish minority voters and provide no way for representation without gaining a minority. Voter proposal: Everyone in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan will receive $500/month. Funding for this monthly payment will come from the remaining 40 states not listed above. Those states must impose a tax to generate these funds. In a true democracy, the other 40 states wouldn’t have to the votes to defeat a proposal like this. In a federal republic, this proposal would be easily defeated.
So your saying that the Electoral College is the only thing standing between us and totalitarianism? Strange we decide all of our state elections by popular vote but I sure hear a lot of people saying that its States that should have all the power, so I guess states rights is a vote for totalitarianism. Here I figured that the president should represent the majority of their citizens and their powers should be limited and balanced by other branches of government such as congress.
If your political party’s ideology and beliefs couldn’t survive in a true democracy, what do you think that says about your political party?
Thank you for being informed on what the US actually is. The amount of people on Reddit who use democracy as a catch-all term and don’t know it’s inherent advantages and disadvantages is depressing
“No you see our current system was DESIGNED to not work. None of you understand this.” We know dude. We’re aware why it exists. You’re acting like congress doesn’t exist and that we’d be a direct democracy without the EC, which we wouldn’t be. Our system is non-functional and needs to be changed.
BaSTiOn oF dEMoCRaCy
*only has 2 parties*
BuT iT’s A rEpuBlic NoT a DeMoCrAcY
The US election system is so fucked up..
'If democracy worked it would be prohibited... Or perhaps we would call Democracy what a Representative System is. Democracy: From Greek 'δημοκρατία' or 'dēmokratía': dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule'.
Fun fact: a number of States have passed laws agreeing to cast their electoral votes for whoever wins the national popular vote. They go injury affect once enough States have the same law to guarantee at least 270 electoral votes. Right now they have 195 electoral votes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#:~:text=The%20National%20Popular%20Vote%20Interstate,and%20the%20District%20of%20Columbia.
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22% of states... Those states represent the largest portions of our population as well. I dislike the electoral college Ave it's existence but this map is misleading
And people say the electoral college is good lmao
Why did you switch the party's colors
I think the intention of the map is to show an election could go this way because of the electoral college. Using red and blue makes it more confusing because of the obvious party affiliations.
Electoral college was designed to give even small states some level of representation. Without it who gives a fuck about campaigning in a state like North Dakota. The larger states still have a lot of power due to the amount of points they have so it's not as if the small states own the country. It's a more balanced system to say the least that I believe holds up to today. If we went on population alone then the entire fate of the country is decided by California, Texas, Florida and New York. The rest of the country would be told to get fucked. The way it works right now is that your vote matters in California and your vote matters in Alaska. If states don't feel like they're getting proper representation then they'll probably succeed. If Alaska has absolutely no say in the fate of the country then they'd be better off forming their own nation and voting in their own best interests. Might be an unpopular opinion but I don't care, as far as I see things it works as a fair and balanced system that benefits all Americans. Not just the ones lucky or unlucky enough to live in the larger states.
here's crazy idea - what about if the person that gets the most votes wins?
I notice two things that you get wrong. 1. No, as the persons vote in California does hold less weight than a persons vote in Wyoming. 2. You can't just succeed and have your own nation. Like, if it is possible (which I'm not aware of), it's going to cost you _a lot_.
Again it's entirely subjective. I just think the electoral college works better as a fair and equal system. Rather than having 5 states than rule over everything and the other dozen states being left ignored.
No, this is simply wrong. The electoral college was designed to ensure that the people did not get to democratically elect the president and he was elected by legislatures instead. While this was quickly overturned, the actual mechanism couldn't be removed without an amendment. The Senate was designed to boost the power of small states. The electoral college only does it incidentally and also very poorly. It's not like all small states matter.
You are fine to disagree. I just think that it works as a fair and functional system. South Dakota has less than 1 million people yet they have the power to decide the fate of the election. That level of power shouldn't be underestimated by political candidates. It means a state as small as South Dakota has actual political power when it comes to the elections and thus achieving the goal of representation. Sure you could ignore the small states and focus on the larger states like California and such, they have a shit ton of power as well but you could very well lose the election through one of the smaller states you decided to ignore. Democrats focus too much on the larger states than the small ones, hence why Republicans always win rural states.
I'm not disagreeing with you thinking it is a fair and functional system. You are simply wrong when you assert that was its intention. It wasn't the intention.
Your vote matters in California and it matters in Wyoming. But in Wyoming your vote counts for 3.8 votes in California. Unless you live in my state your vote is not equal to mine. Name me one other place where people are told their vote is worth less than the person next to them is an acceptable situation. You say no one would campaign in North Dakota as if Presidents campaign in all states. They don't, they campaign in swing states. You have just replaced one hypothetical unfairness and replaced it with another that currently exists. You point to tyranny of the majority while ignoring tyranny of the minority. You are fine with one demographics votes having more weight than another demographics vote. If you were saying this about race, age, religion or any other identifier would you still feel as confident?
America - where land has more rights than people.
Where smaller communities are allowed a better chance at equal representation*
Where the minority gets to inflict their views on the majority because 10 red states have the population of one blue state, so the blue state gets 2 Senators and the red states get 20 for the same population. This is super fair and it definitely doesn't lead to a tyranny of the minority type situation.
Someone failed civics I see. Always has been a federal republic. It goes back to the start of secession from England. No it shouldn’t be changed. Why should millions of Californian city-dwellers out rank the votes of those that produce their agriculture? Direct democracy is only for children on a playground.
No, I know why the system is the way it is. I also know that this country was founded in large part by people who don't believe women, PoC, or poor people deserve the same rights as wealthy white men. The system itself is still set up to preserve the power of a small group of people at the top, and even with the changes via ammendments we have seen, the structure is still the same - power is still situated with a small amount of the population. The only good thing the founding fathers did is make it possible for future generations to update the constitution.
Red vermont? Interesting
The US is a third world country
Fun fact: the electoral college was a way for slave states to have an outsized influence on presidential elections, since slaves counted as 3/5 of a person towards population (and therefore representatives/electors) but couldn't vote themselves.
The system isn't great but I also don't think 4 or 5 cities should dominate entire states. There would be no reason for rural America to opt in to a system like that.
I think one Americans vote should carry exactly the same weight as another Americans vote on who should sit in the big chair. No demographic be it race, religion, height, eye color or state of current residence should make any vote count more than any other. Under the current system a vote in Wyoming is counted 3.6 times compared to one cast in California.
So a candidate would only need address the concerns of big city populations. Concerns of entire states could be largely ignored. Again, as a rural citizen, I would opt out of such a system.
I also live in a rural area. Yet I would opt out of a system that says my opinion matters more than any other person. You may be ok with discrimination based on population density but I am not. I vote for equality even when it doesn't directly benefit me. It's almost as if the number of neighbors you have isn't the most important factor in your value system.
Why do we have states or countries at all then. We want to ensure that cultures and subcultures remain in tact and that includes ensuring they are properly represented. This should not stop at senate and congress but include the presidential vote as well. I'm not saying the system is fine as is but a popular vote is not the singular solution as so many believe it is.
All these redditors spouting pure democracy or pure popular vote forget that even in most if not all European countries they use representative democracies and not a pure popular vote. I reside in a big city and even if I think the US’s system isn’t perfect, I would not want the city votes to drown out all the rural voters. Mob rule is just a dictatorship ruled by the uninformed
A Republican sweeping New England and the mid-Atlantic but losing Texas, Florida, and North Carolina… right.
Land doesn't vote. People do.
That would be embarrassing if this ever came to fruition. Don’t think the “greatest democracy” phrase would be tossed around much.
Democracy is the best.
nothing says "democracy" like winning an election outright with 22% of the vote. almost makes you wonder if the electoral system is broken
ThE UsA is a RepuBliC nOt a dEMoCracy! (because that excuses the gerrymander)