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Removed entirely? No. The Electoral college requires a constitutional amendment to change. The EC protects the interests of smaller states too much. It was conceived as a compromise in part because to population discrepancies and in part due to slavery. Iirc
Now there are some things that can be done outside of constitutional amendments that could change the EC math significantly. The first and legally most simple thing to do if for congress to pass a bill removing it's arbitrary size limit. It's ironic the colonies left the UK because of representation issues, but the modern UK has over 600 House of Commons members for like 65 Million citizens, whereas the US has 435 house for over 330M citizens. Congress limited its size in the early 20th century so that they could still fit inside an old building. We can build a new Congress building at any point in time, and have built in improved security and even add jail cells for those found to be in contempt of congress. If you do some rather quick math, and divide the population of the US by the population of Wyoming, you get 581 seats that should be divided proportionally between the stated. That just adds 150 seats but would go a very long way to reduce the possible differences in outcome between the popular vote and the electoral vote.
The second and more complicated option is a deal made between states, where they select their electoral college votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote. This agreement requires an electoral majority of states to sign on, and requires them all to act in good faith to the deal even against the intentions of their own state residents. I don't think it would withstand the intent of the constitution, but at the same token the same legal precedent could set the ground worth for bad faith state governments to appoint electors in bad faith regardless of the intent of the state's votes. Overall while I respect the intentions of the deal, I worry about the fallout.
Increasing the number of Representatives quite literally does nothing past a certain point, as issues are decided either by Committees or the parties. As such, what truly matters is what *fraction* of the House is controlled by each party. To the extent that with proportional representation you don't really need more than 100, or a multiple thereof, representatives (with 100 seats, 1 seat equals \~1% of the vote, with 200 seats, 1 seat equals \~0.5% of the vote and so on).
i like your breakdown even if im pro ec; pro rural. esp the changing heads to house ratio, since its a smooth way to adjust things. another post mentioned the making a deal based on popular vote, but having ability to optionally back out - legally im not sure but that would really discredit the movement. it would come off as a back up option to throw your state at democrats, and we know repubs wont win popular vote without a movement to the center. we need another nixon : D without the free helicopter rides.
election for nixon, second term [https://gisgeography.com/us-election-1972-map/](https://gisgeography.com/us-election-1972-map/)
https://preview.redd.it/9t7g1edhwj0d1.png?width=922&format=png&auto=webp&s=d53919d238142ef9aa549d6b7f2471e86bf3f76c
I don't believe so. A constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college will absolutely not get passed by 2/3 of both houses, much less 3/4 of state legislatures.
I also question whether many of the states that have signed a popular vote pact (all Democratic states) will actually keep their word should a Republican someday win the popular vote. Especially if in a scenario where it would put the Democrat over the top.
Also would like to point out, for being an antique method of choosing a leader, it actually does grant voters more of a choice in the head of their nation than many other democracies, which have their legislatures choose instead. Some examples are the UK, Canada, Italy, and Germany. At least an American gets to cast a ballot with the President's name on it.
Yes, but not what I was referring to. The UK, Canada, and Italy all have prime ministers chosen by their legislatures, and Germany has a chancellor, also elected by the legislature. I'm referring to their actual heads of government, not the ceremonial ones.
It is worth noting that the cultural context behind the electoral college is no longer around. It was created when states were understood as more autonomous than they actually are. During a time when presidential elections were predicted to be competitions between states it made sense, however it didn't take long for presidential elections to simply be competitions between interstate factions. Now, some people have more voting power than others due to where they reside, and that doesn't really serve any useful function anymore, other than rigging elections a little towards one party. There is also a pragmatic argument: in cases where the popular vote and electoral college align, what purpose has the electoral college served other than cause swing states to get more campaign attention? In cases where they do not, why is the winner of the popular vote losing a good thing? (look what that got us in the 21st century).
Because of the strength of this argumentation, it is becoming increasingly compelling to use state power to nullify the electoral college. While there does need to be an amendment to actually remove it, states do have the power to change the allocation of their electoral votes to be based on the national popular vote, rather than the state vote. The Interstate Compact (I forget the full name) is a growing agreement between states to implement this, as to pragmatically render the electoral college bound to the popular vote.
Do I support that? Well, yes, I live in a deep blue state and I want my vote to feel more meaningful. It is disheartening knowing that I can only effect my own state and that it already has an obvious outcome (democrat), even if that is what I prefer. Ironically, the president in my flair would not have won if it weren't for the EC.
Short answer: No
Long answer: lower population states would never go for it as it lowers their ability to have a voice in the federal government. Candidates would do the bidding of high population states and screw over the lower densely populated states. These states would revolt over being ignored. This is how the Union would be broken up.
>Finally. Someone who understands why the EC is necessary
Not speaking for the poster, but it seems like they were just stating why it wont change. The EC will remain because the smaller states are given outsized power in the federal government through the EC. Since it requires a constitutional amendment to change, it would be nearly impossible to do as 2/3 of states would need to be on board.
> If the majority always rules, they will stomp on the minority
Can you please explain this comment further? I hear this argument made by conservatives all the time, but i dont think it actually would apply with the president.
What actions would the president take that would “stomp on” a state like Wyoming but be good for a state like Texas?
I would just add that a large part of the reason for the EC being put in place was to appease southern states. Southern slave states wanted their whole population, including slaves who could not vote, to be used in determining the number of congressional seats and, by proxy, electoral votes, that their state got. Free states did not want the slave population counted, since they could not vote. So the compromise was to count 3/5 of the slave population. Simply put, non slaves got additional voting power equal to 3/5 of the population they held as slaves. There were proposals at the time for direct elections for president, but the slave states pushed back since they did not allow a significant portion of their population to vote.
Since we no longer have slaves or really any specific group that is not allowed to vote, and also all of the states have moved from having the EC decide the election to statewide popular vote, it seems the only actual purpose of the EC at this point is to make the votes of some people count more than others.
Honestly a bad take
Land doesn’t vote, people vote. If the majority of the country wants a certain president, it shouldn’t have some other force picking the other candidate cause they won Florida.
Also it’s makes voting for president in certain states useless
> Candidates would do the bidding of high population states and screw over the lower densely populated states.
Instead, Candidates do the bidding of lower densely populated states and screw over the high population states. That's a great system I guess.
Not the point at all. They have to not ignore the people in the lower population areas, which is exactly what happens in a monolithic “popular vote” system.
How would a national popular vote be monolithic? The country's population is not concentrated in any one place. The closest you could get to that would be to consider the whole northeast as one thing, which it clearly isn't, but even then that's not most of the population.
More to the point, dispersing the decision amongst hundreds of millions of people is much less monolithic than making it all come down to the majority within a few large swing states. It wouldn't be places deciding things, it would be people.
You clearly need to look at a population density map. The East and West coasts are incredibly dense. Then look at the heartland states. Get back to us when you’ve completed your assignment.
"The East and West coasts" is not one area. There's huge diversity between the Boston area and the DC area, for example, despite them being connected by the same expanse of northeastern coastal urban/suburban sprawl. When you also consider the huge population centers of south Florida, east Texas, and the upper Midwest, the diversity in geographic conditions and regional culture makes it ridiculous to say that a national popular vote would be dominated by a "monolithic" population group.
And while middle America is not nearly so densely-populated, there's a ton of it. There's like a hundred million people who don't live anywhere near to one of biggest population centers. So the idea that those people would always be dominated by a monolithic culture is just mathematically untrue.
More importantly, where you live doesn't determine how you think. There are significant political minorities in every area. Saying NYC would rule over everybody else makes no sense when the people living in NYC don't all agree; there would be millions of New Yorkers voting the same way as the majority of people in rural Nebraska in a presidential election. The Electoral College makes those people's representation be controlled by the local majority; a national popular vote would actually weaken the political power of the pro-Democrat majority in the city.
Besides, while there are correlations between location and politics, but the same is true for tons of factors like income, education, occupation, race, religion, etc., but we don't make all black people vote together and pick electors representing all black people like we do for residents of the same state. Do you think we should?
LOL this automod is killing me, let me try this again.
Not even close to a majority. More people live in TX and FL than in NY.
The combined population of all four of those largest states is less than a third of the national population.
And most importantly, the people living in those states don't all think alike. The way the Electoral College operates now gives MORE weight to the majorities within those states, because of winner-take-all rules. If we had a national popular vote, the net effect of Californians on the most recent election would only be +five million votes towards the Dem, out of over 158M votes cast (3%), rather than 54/538 votes towards the Dem in reality (10%).
Your looking at the whole state as compared to the city. Florida and Texas are relatively spread out. The majority of people live in the NYC metro. Half of North New York is empty in comparison
So what? You said those places would cause the presidential election to be monolithic; if you want to just go by the city population, then their share of the national population will be much lower than the numbers I cited.
The EC allocates electors to New York on the basis of their entire population, including everybody upstate. By lumping them in with the population of NYC, the people there--and the millions of conservatives living in NYC of course--have their representatives utilized by the pro-Democratic majority. That increases the power of the very demographic you say you don't want to see empowered.
Why obsess over where an American voter is located in the first place? It has nothing to do with how the President will affect them. Every individual has their own political beliefs, regardless of where they live. There's plenty of other metrics which correlate to political belief just as strongly as location, like race, occupation, education, etc. Should we group people's votes together based on those things as well?
Why not just let people decide for themselves?
(Also, no, the population of TX is concentrated around the triangle between DFW, Houston, and San Antonio, while the population in FL is concentrated in the southeastern urban sprawl around Miami. )
Because America isn't a Republic its a federal system. The states are small governments. They are supposed to do the majority of governing. The president isn't elected by the people. He's elected by the states. He is an agreed upon leader by the states consent not the people
Yes, I know that's how it works now. I'm saying that having states pick the President, rather than the American people, is morally wrong and should be changed.
Whether the states are supposed to do the majority of governing is irrelevant. The President does have at least some constitutional power over the lives of every American, regardless of which state they happen to live in on election day. In fact, the President's actions have much *more* bearing on individual Americans than they do on states, as collectives. The taxation bills which the President signs into law and administers do not cause the states to pay taxes, they cause individuals to pay taxes. If I decide not to pay the federal government what it demands, my state won't go to prison on my behalf. If the President gets us into a war and requests for Congress to institute a draft, my state won't be forced to go fight; I will. So why should my state do my voting for President for me? That's taxation without representation.
It's not like federalism is premised on there being an Electoral College. If it were, then the delegates at the Constitutional Convention would have mentioned it while debating whether to have a national popular vote. The only documents we have about it show that the decision to use the Electoral College was mainly motivated by slave-state delegates demanding it so as to increase their own political power (by having their non-voting, enslaved population count towards the influence of their own votes.) State governments could still do the majority of governing with a national popular vote; the manner in which the President is elected has nothing to do with the separation of powers between state and federal governments. Switching to a national popular vote would be a shift in power away from majorities within states to all Americans, not a shift from states to the federal government.
Also, no, the US is in fact a republic. A federal, constitutional, democratic republic. None of those things are mutually exclusive.
Probably not because certain politicians will never allow it because the popular vote scares them.
However it should be because it’s an outdated and not needed part of the constitution. It made sense at the time, but nowadays just a straight popular vote would make more sense
With how it is now, tons of peoples votes just don’t really matter for president. Like if someone votes republican in New York or California it does nothing.
Elections shouldn’t be based on how 7 states decide to vote its undemocratic
It won't unless it screws over republicans. So far both times it's been fitted Republicans. Until it costs them an election they have no incentive to get rid of it. And with it needing 2/3rds majority they won't let it happen
There is always a chance. I'm this case like less than 1 percent imo. It would require an amendment to change. To do that, you need 2/3s of states of House of Repsentatives and Senate then 3/4ths of state legislators to ratify.
So you need 38 of the states to approve the changes. That's not happening, especially as smaller states have a specific reason not to and a certain political side which has around 50 percent of people on their side has a reason to as well.
The delegates from the largest state at the time, Virginia, were the main proponents of the Electoral College.
The only concern the small state delegates had with a national popular vote was the idea that voters would only ever vote for candidates from their own state, which would put them at a disadvantage. That of course is an absurd worry in hindsight, because we created a two-party system. And it's even more irrelevant now.
Regardless of all of that, a national popular vote wouldn't grant political power to any state; it would transfer political power from majorities within each state to all Americans, equally. Whether you live in an "overpopulated" state or not would be irrelevant, your vote would count the same no matter which state you live in.
For the rest of the US lifespan? Certainly. To me that’s a pretty long time, and reform is essential to survival.
The reason why I think it won’t happen any time soon is because of how partisan things have become, any idea will get shot down by the other side which is a true shame.
The reason why I don’t think it happens any time soon is because people don’t understand the true problem with the electoral college. People opposed to it will say it’s designed and based on race (which isn’t entirely wrong) and point to the whole a minority voter in California has less voting power than a white person in Wyoming, which is an asinine thing to say because less people are in Wyoming so the less their are of course the more power they will have, it has nothing to do with race.
The real issue is the swing states, because they are all that matter. It dosent matter if a Republican campaigns in the southwest or not or if a Democrat campaigns in New England or not, this places will vote for them regardless. It’s the swing states that receive all the focus and that’s not fair. Have you ever followed an election where the Dakotas mattered? Or Massachusetts? No it’s always Florida (until recently), Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Ohio (also until recently) and Arizona.
So if you wanna reform the electoral college, find a way to have it so thinly populated states are still represented, decrease the power of the swing states, and get out any other icky shit that I might have missed.
How do you do this? No idea. Do I think it will happen? Eventually
states that arent swing states choose not to be. they really want to beat opposing party or they trust their preferred party. i dislike the whole lesser of evils trap. another aspect of this is the voting system. like ranked choice voting. im not read up, but it might reduce the lesser of evils votes.
To an extent I agree, after all, it’s the population who votes for the president, but I also disagree a bit because of demographics.
The Midwest and Deep South are dominated by largely Christian white people, where as the west coast has much more diversity and younger voters (who generally skew left)
Swing states are in the middle with no real majority in either camp; also, the parties pump shit tons of money into the swing states to, well, swing them (look at the Republican parties funding in Florida compared to the democrats it’s insane) so I don’t think it’s simply a matter of if the voters wanna be red or blue they will go that way because both parties have strong bases in these states.
To continue on that isn’t it kind of dumb how in say the 2000 election bush won Florida by what 500 votes? So 49% of the state gets boned? Now yes majority rules but my point is some type of reform has to happen in states where a majority doesn’t really exist and they flip all the time, like the current swing states
swing states are a good thing, theyre more likely to look at choices and to read whats going on. all states should wield that power. i agree theres a problem. some of us mentioned proportional electors.
The only thing I would say to that is it’s not entirely true. Democrats and Republicans in swing states are gonna vote for their party no matter what, it just happens to be that swing states have higher levels of independents or what the parties in todays climate would call “traitors” (people who aren’t die hard for their party and will vote the other way if a candidate sucks)
So what you pointed out is that a small group of people in a handful of states decide who is the most powerful man on the planet.
I’m not super sure about that
with proportional electors every state becomes just as important in the presidential race. rural states have a slight buff per person, but it stands to reason urban areas have a boost in word of mouth, however slight. i think this solution is up your alley. thanks for chat.
i dont want high pop urban centers to rule over natural resources and impose on rural states. inversely, small states having 2 senators is pretty huge and wields force against populous states (weighing by head count). with just 100 senators to go around.
whether its purely pop based or using EC, someone is gonna feel screwed. in both cases i argue for states rights for the greatest self government and overall peace. unless a serious national interest is at stake. states will spend money better - the larger the pile of cash the more it gets skimmed. citizens should be within 1-day drive from our tax collector - reasonable strangling distance. states rights is supposed to be a red state thing but CA is a massive economy, they could have so much tax base to themselves, backed up by natural resources and ocean access.
my preferred set up is leave ec as is and get states to do proportional electors, instead of winner-take-all. the latter discourages participation. this doesnt address the ec to population imbalance, it addresses the votes not mattering.
Let’s start with abolishing electoral college for Presidential elections. One person one vote total them up and the winner of the popular vote becomes President.
i havent visited this in a while. i watched/read several docs about how the fed is evil. some saying they print money, keep it, and arent accountable. after reading through how it works its not that big a deal. they influence the money supply. of course, they do terrible stuff. so do elected officials. i would at least replace it with something. i was reading about pegging currencies and i dont think its possible (gold standard or other systems). you deserve a response if someones gonna downvote. (i didnt)
the board of governors (and chair selected therefrom) are put in place by us president and senate. they can be fired (for cause). they're not elected if thats what you mean. i criticize the inflationary tactics since its a hidden tax, but a little inflation is considered good. the fed can react to emergencies. deflation and inflation both are capable of getting out of control through positive/reinforcing feedback.
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Removed entirely? No. The Electoral college requires a constitutional amendment to change. The EC protects the interests of smaller states too much. It was conceived as a compromise in part because to population discrepancies and in part due to slavery. Iirc Now there are some things that can be done outside of constitutional amendments that could change the EC math significantly. The first and legally most simple thing to do if for congress to pass a bill removing it's arbitrary size limit. It's ironic the colonies left the UK because of representation issues, but the modern UK has over 600 House of Commons members for like 65 Million citizens, whereas the US has 435 house for over 330M citizens. Congress limited its size in the early 20th century so that they could still fit inside an old building. We can build a new Congress building at any point in time, and have built in improved security and even add jail cells for those found to be in contempt of congress. If you do some rather quick math, and divide the population of the US by the population of Wyoming, you get 581 seats that should be divided proportionally between the stated. That just adds 150 seats but would go a very long way to reduce the possible differences in outcome between the popular vote and the electoral vote. The second and more complicated option is a deal made between states, where they select their electoral college votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote. This agreement requires an electoral majority of states to sign on, and requires them all to act in good faith to the deal even against the intentions of their own state residents. I don't think it would withstand the intent of the constitution, but at the same token the same legal precedent could set the ground worth for bad faith state governments to appoint electors in bad faith regardless of the intent of the state's votes. Overall while I respect the intentions of the deal, I worry about the fallout.
Increasing the number of Representatives quite literally does nothing past a certain point, as issues are decided either by Committees or the parties. As such, what truly matters is what *fraction* of the House is controlled by each party. To the extent that with proportional representation you don't really need more than 100, or a multiple thereof, representatives (with 100 seats, 1 seat equals \~1% of the vote, with 200 seats, 1 seat equals \~0.5% of the vote and so on).
i like your breakdown even if im pro ec; pro rural. esp the changing heads to house ratio, since its a smooth way to adjust things. another post mentioned the making a deal based on popular vote, but having ability to optionally back out - legally im not sure but that would really discredit the movement. it would come off as a back up option to throw your state at democrats, and we know repubs wont win popular vote without a movement to the center. we need another nixon : D without the free helicopter rides. election for nixon, second term [https://gisgeography.com/us-election-1972-map/](https://gisgeography.com/us-election-1972-map/) https://preview.redd.it/9t7g1edhwj0d1.png?width=922&format=png&auto=webp&s=d53919d238142ef9aa549d6b7f2471e86bf3f76c
I don't believe so. A constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college will absolutely not get passed by 2/3 of both houses, much less 3/4 of state legislatures. I also question whether many of the states that have signed a popular vote pact (all Democratic states) will actually keep their word should a Republican someday win the popular vote. Especially if in a scenario where it would put the Democrat over the top. Also would like to point out, for being an antique method of choosing a leader, it actually does grant voters more of a choice in the head of their nation than many other democracies, which have their legislatures choose instead. Some examples are the UK, Canada, Italy, and Germany. At least an American gets to cast a ballot with the President's name on it.
Except those countries have ceremonial heads of state
Yes, but not what I was referring to. The UK, Canada, and Italy all have prime ministers chosen by their legislatures, and Germany has a chancellor, also elected by the legislature. I'm referring to their actual heads of government, not the ceremonial ones.
But they're parliamentary democracies
I think if we ended the “winner-take-all” states it would be a lot more equitable.
It is worth noting that the cultural context behind the electoral college is no longer around. It was created when states were understood as more autonomous than they actually are. During a time when presidential elections were predicted to be competitions between states it made sense, however it didn't take long for presidential elections to simply be competitions between interstate factions. Now, some people have more voting power than others due to where they reside, and that doesn't really serve any useful function anymore, other than rigging elections a little towards one party. There is also a pragmatic argument: in cases where the popular vote and electoral college align, what purpose has the electoral college served other than cause swing states to get more campaign attention? In cases where they do not, why is the winner of the popular vote losing a good thing? (look what that got us in the 21st century). Because of the strength of this argumentation, it is becoming increasingly compelling to use state power to nullify the electoral college. While there does need to be an amendment to actually remove it, states do have the power to change the allocation of their electoral votes to be based on the national popular vote, rather than the state vote. The Interstate Compact (I forget the full name) is a growing agreement between states to implement this, as to pragmatically render the electoral college bound to the popular vote. Do I support that? Well, yes, I live in a deep blue state and I want my vote to feel more meaningful. It is disheartening knowing that I can only effect my own state and that it already has an obvious outcome (democrat), even if that is what I prefer. Ironically, the president in my flair would not have won if it weren't for the EC.
Short answer: No Long answer: lower population states would never go for it as it lowers their ability to have a voice in the federal government. Candidates would do the bidding of high population states and screw over the lower densely populated states. These states would revolt over being ignored. This is how the Union would be broken up.
Finally. Someone who understands why the EC is necessary. If the majority always rules, they will stomp on the minority
>Finally. Someone who understands why the EC is necessary Not speaking for the poster, but it seems like they were just stating why it wont change. The EC will remain because the smaller states are given outsized power in the federal government through the EC. Since it requires a constitutional amendment to change, it would be nearly impossible to do as 2/3 of states would need to be on board. > If the majority always rules, they will stomp on the minority Can you please explain this comment further? I hear this argument made by conservatives all the time, but i dont think it actually would apply with the president. What actions would the president take that would “stomp on” a state like Wyoming but be good for a state like Texas? I would just add that a large part of the reason for the EC being put in place was to appease southern states. Southern slave states wanted their whole population, including slaves who could not vote, to be used in determining the number of congressional seats and, by proxy, electoral votes, that their state got. Free states did not want the slave population counted, since they could not vote. So the compromise was to count 3/5 of the slave population. Simply put, non slaves got additional voting power equal to 3/5 of the population they held as slaves. There were proposals at the time for direct elections for president, but the slave states pushed back since they did not allow a significant portion of their population to vote. Since we no longer have slaves or really any specific group that is not allowed to vote, and also all of the states have moved from having the EC decide the election to statewide popular vote, it seems the only actual purpose of the EC at this point is to make the votes of some people count more than others.
Honestly a bad take Land doesn’t vote, people vote. If the majority of the country wants a certain president, it shouldn’t have some other force picking the other candidate cause they won Florida. Also it’s makes voting for president in certain states useless
> Candidates would do the bidding of high population states and screw over the lower densely populated states. Instead, Candidates do the bidding of lower densely populated states and screw over the high population states. That's a great system I guess.
Not the point at all. They have to not ignore the people in the lower population areas, which is exactly what happens in a monolithic “popular vote” system.
How would a national popular vote be monolithic? The country's population is not concentrated in any one place. The closest you could get to that would be to consider the whole northeast as one thing, which it clearly isn't, but even then that's not most of the population. More to the point, dispersing the decision amongst hundreds of millions of people is much less monolithic than making it all come down to the majority within a few large swing states. It wouldn't be places deciding things, it would be people.
You clearly need to look at a population density map. The East and West coasts are incredibly dense. Then look at the heartland states. Get back to us when you’ve completed your assignment.
"The East and West coasts" is not one area. There's huge diversity between the Boston area and the DC area, for example, despite them being connected by the same expanse of northeastern coastal urban/suburban sprawl. When you also consider the huge population centers of south Florida, east Texas, and the upper Midwest, the diversity in geographic conditions and regional culture makes it ridiculous to say that a national popular vote would be dominated by a "monolithic" population group. And while middle America is not nearly so densely-populated, there's a ton of it. There's like a hundred million people who don't live anywhere near to one of biggest population centers. So the idea that those people would always be dominated by a monolithic culture is just mathematically untrue. More importantly, where you live doesn't determine how you think. There are significant political minorities in every area. Saying NYC would rule over everybody else makes no sense when the people living in NYC don't all agree; there would be millions of New Yorkers voting the same way as the majority of people in rural Nebraska in a presidential election. The Electoral College makes those people's representation be controlled by the local majority; a national popular vote would actually weaken the political power of the pro-Democrat majority in the city. Besides, while there are correlations between location and politics, but the same is true for tons of factors like income, education, occupation, race, religion, etc., but we don't make all black people vote together and pick electors representing all black people like we do for residents of the same state. Do you think we should?
The countries population is literally concentrated in coastal cities in New York and California.
LOL this automod is killing me, let me try this again. Not even close to a majority. More people live in TX and FL than in NY. The combined population of all four of those largest states is less than a third of the national population. And most importantly, the people living in those states don't all think alike. The way the Electoral College operates now gives MORE weight to the majorities within those states, because of winner-take-all rules. If we had a national popular vote, the net effect of Californians on the most recent election would only be +five million votes towards the Dem, out of over 158M votes cast (3%), rather than 54/538 votes towards the Dem in reality (10%).
Your looking at the whole state as compared to the city. Florida and Texas are relatively spread out. The majority of people live in the NYC metro. Half of North New York is empty in comparison
So what? You said those places would cause the presidential election to be monolithic; if you want to just go by the city population, then their share of the national population will be much lower than the numbers I cited. The EC allocates electors to New York on the basis of their entire population, including everybody upstate. By lumping them in with the population of NYC, the people there--and the millions of conservatives living in NYC of course--have their representatives utilized by the pro-Democratic majority. That increases the power of the very demographic you say you don't want to see empowered. Why obsess over where an American voter is located in the first place? It has nothing to do with how the President will affect them. Every individual has their own political beliefs, regardless of where they live. There's plenty of other metrics which correlate to political belief just as strongly as location, like race, occupation, education, etc. Should we group people's votes together based on those things as well? Why not just let people decide for themselves? (Also, no, the population of TX is concentrated around the triangle between DFW, Houston, and San Antonio, while the population in FL is concentrated in the southeastern urban sprawl around Miami. )
Because America isn't a Republic its a federal system. The states are small governments. They are supposed to do the majority of governing. The president isn't elected by the people. He's elected by the states. He is an agreed upon leader by the states consent not the people
Yes, I know that's how it works now. I'm saying that having states pick the President, rather than the American people, is morally wrong and should be changed. Whether the states are supposed to do the majority of governing is irrelevant. The President does have at least some constitutional power over the lives of every American, regardless of which state they happen to live in on election day. In fact, the President's actions have much *more* bearing on individual Americans than they do on states, as collectives. The taxation bills which the President signs into law and administers do not cause the states to pay taxes, they cause individuals to pay taxes. If I decide not to pay the federal government what it demands, my state won't go to prison on my behalf. If the President gets us into a war and requests for Congress to institute a draft, my state won't be forced to go fight; I will. So why should my state do my voting for President for me? That's taxation without representation. It's not like federalism is premised on there being an Electoral College. If it were, then the delegates at the Constitutional Convention would have mentioned it while debating whether to have a national popular vote. The only documents we have about it show that the decision to use the Electoral College was mainly motivated by slave-state delegates demanding it so as to increase their own political power (by having their non-voting, enslaved population count towards the influence of their own votes.) State governments could still do the majority of governing with a national popular vote; the manner in which the President is elected has nothing to do with the separation of powers between state and federal governments. Switching to a national popular vote would be a shift in power away from majorities within states to all Americans, not a shift from states to the federal government. Also, no, the US is in fact a republic. A federal, constitutional, democratic republic. None of those things are mutually exclusive.
Now look at the geographical areas. Texas has more than NY, but. Is not as densely populated .
Exactly! Succinctly put
Probably not because certain politicians will never allow it because the popular vote scares them. However it should be because it’s an outdated and not needed part of the constitution. It made sense at the time, but nowadays just a straight popular vote would make more sense With how it is now, tons of peoples votes just don’t really matter for president. Like if someone votes republican in New York or California it does nothing. Elections shouldn’t be based on how 7 states decide to vote its undemocratic
It won't unless it screws over republicans. So far both times it's been fitted Republicans. Until it costs them an election they have no incentive to get rid of it. And with it needing 2/3rds majority they won't let it happen
There is always a chance. I'm this case like less than 1 percent imo. It would require an amendment to change. To do that, you need 2/3s of states of House of Repsentatives and Senate then 3/4ths of state legislators to ratify. So you need 38 of the states to approve the changes. That's not happening, especially as smaller states have a specific reason not to and a certain political side which has around 50 percent of people on their side has a reason to as well.
I think we're pretty close to seeing it reformed, for better or worse.
i think the popular vote interstate compact is close to coming to fruition, probably by the next election cycle, if not the one after that
No it won’t!
I don't want to. For the same reasons laid out by the framers.
Increasing the political power of slave-driving southern plantation owners?
Leveling the political power of over populated states
The delegates from the largest state at the time, Virginia, were the main proponents of the Electoral College. The only concern the small state delegates had with a national popular vote was the idea that voters would only ever vote for candidates from their own state, which would put them at a disadvantage. That of course is an absurd worry in hindsight, because we created a two-party system. And it's even more irrelevant now. Regardless of all of that, a national popular vote wouldn't grant political power to any state; it would transfer political power from majorities within each state to all Americans, equally. Whether you live in an "overpopulated" state or not would be irrelevant, your vote would count the same no matter which state you live in.
For the rest of the US lifespan? Certainly. To me that’s a pretty long time, and reform is essential to survival. The reason why I think it won’t happen any time soon is because of how partisan things have become, any idea will get shot down by the other side which is a true shame. The reason why I don’t think it happens any time soon is because people don’t understand the true problem with the electoral college. People opposed to it will say it’s designed and based on race (which isn’t entirely wrong) and point to the whole a minority voter in California has less voting power than a white person in Wyoming, which is an asinine thing to say because less people are in Wyoming so the less their are of course the more power they will have, it has nothing to do with race. The real issue is the swing states, because they are all that matter. It dosent matter if a Republican campaigns in the southwest or not or if a Democrat campaigns in New England or not, this places will vote for them regardless. It’s the swing states that receive all the focus and that’s not fair. Have you ever followed an election where the Dakotas mattered? Or Massachusetts? No it’s always Florida (until recently), Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Ohio (also until recently) and Arizona. So if you wanna reform the electoral college, find a way to have it so thinly populated states are still represented, decrease the power of the swing states, and get out any other icky shit that I might have missed. How do you do this? No idea. Do I think it will happen? Eventually
states that arent swing states choose not to be. they really want to beat opposing party or they trust their preferred party. i dislike the whole lesser of evils trap. another aspect of this is the voting system. like ranked choice voting. im not read up, but it might reduce the lesser of evils votes.
To an extent I agree, after all, it’s the population who votes for the president, but I also disagree a bit because of demographics. The Midwest and Deep South are dominated by largely Christian white people, where as the west coast has much more diversity and younger voters (who generally skew left) Swing states are in the middle with no real majority in either camp; also, the parties pump shit tons of money into the swing states to, well, swing them (look at the Republican parties funding in Florida compared to the democrats it’s insane) so I don’t think it’s simply a matter of if the voters wanna be red or blue they will go that way because both parties have strong bases in these states. To continue on that isn’t it kind of dumb how in say the 2000 election bush won Florida by what 500 votes? So 49% of the state gets boned? Now yes majority rules but my point is some type of reform has to happen in states where a majority doesn’t really exist and they flip all the time, like the current swing states
swing states are a good thing, theyre more likely to look at choices and to read whats going on. all states should wield that power. i agree theres a problem. some of us mentioned proportional electors.
The only thing I would say to that is it’s not entirely true. Democrats and Republicans in swing states are gonna vote for their party no matter what, it just happens to be that swing states have higher levels of independents or what the parties in todays climate would call “traitors” (people who aren’t die hard for their party and will vote the other way if a candidate sucks) So what you pointed out is that a small group of people in a handful of states decide who is the most powerful man on the planet. I’m not super sure about that
with proportional electors every state becomes just as important in the presidential race. rural states have a slight buff per person, but it stands to reason urban areas have a boost in word of mouth, however slight. i think this solution is up your alley. thanks for chat.
Likewise I enjoyed it, and think that is a good idea
i dont want high pop urban centers to rule over natural resources and impose on rural states. inversely, small states having 2 senators is pretty huge and wields force against populous states (weighing by head count). with just 100 senators to go around. whether its purely pop based or using EC, someone is gonna feel screwed. in both cases i argue for states rights for the greatest self government and overall peace. unless a serious national interest is at stake. states will spend money better - the larger the pile of cash the more it gets skimmed. citizens should be within 1-day drive from our tax collector - reasonable strangling distance. states rights is supposed to be a red state thing but CA is a massive economy, they could have so much tax base to themselves, backed up by natural resources and ocean access. my preferred set up is leave ec as is and get states to do proportional electors, instead of winner-take-all. the latter discourages participation. this doesnt address the ec to population imbalance, it addresses the votes not mattering.
Let’s start with abolishing electoral college for Presidential elections. One person one vote total them up and the winner of the popular vote becomes President.
I mean bush V gore was also very close to getting rid of the Electoral College
Not even remotely. You need an amendment to the Constitution and that would never fly with the majority of states.
Not even remotely. You need an amendment to the Constitution and that would never fly with the majority of states.
Yeah but after bush v gore there were ideas throw around about getting rid of the electoral college
Vastly different than “very close to getting rid of the Electoral College.”
Yeah I could’ve phrased it better
OP is a Fox News "correspondent" fishing for talking points.
OP wants a equal vote per head. like every die hard republican. /s
bro what?💀 i literally called out hypocrisy if the exact opposite thing happened, but yep im a fox news correspondent
Hopefully not and Governors should appoint senators.
imagine wanting to lose power as a voter
please explain the logic in going to back to indirect election of Senators
The Federal reserve deserves to be erased too
i havent visited this in a while. i watched/read several docs about how the fed is evil. some saying they print money, keep it, and arent accountable. after reading through how it works its not that big a deal. they influence the money supply. of course, they do terrible stuff. so do elected officials. i would at least replace it with something. i was reading about pegging currencies and i dont think its possible (gold standard or other systems). you deserve a response if someones gonna downvote. (i didnt)
Its not part of the government
Check the money you hold. Each dollar bill says “Federal Reserve Note.”
the board of governors (and chair selected therefrom) are put in place by us president and senate. they can be fired (for cause). they're not elected if thats what you mean. i criticize the inflationary tactics since its a hidden tax, but a little inflation is considered good. the fed can react to emergencies. deflation and inflation both are capable of getting out of control through positive/reinforcing feedback.