Yes, it does. By design. It is a feature, not a bug, that the Electoral College balances out the influence of large (urban) and small (rural) states in electing the President.
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The official "Electoral College is outdated" thread
- Thread starter jamil
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Yes, it does. By design. It is a feature, not a bug, that the Electoral College balances out the influence of large (urban) and small (rural) states in electing the President.
I could not even consider such a plan, unless and until direct election of US Senators is repealed.
Since conservatives tend to believe the EC was written by the finger of God himself, probably you're not going to find many people willing to do math. It would be sacrilegious to think anything the founders did was less than perfect or that they were somehow mere humans. Of course I'm exaggerating that.
But you get the idea. Surely you might find some Trumpers who would we willing to go to the dark side and throw the EC under the buss if it would have meant a Trumpian victory dance.
But mainly the point was about the hypocritical Dems. They would vow that the EC is the best thing for America if Hillary would have won it with Trump getting the popular vote.
But we make too much of who won popular vote. Would Hillary have won the popular vote if the campaigns would have campaigned for a popular election? I think a Trump visit to California might have been fruitful given the 11 to 15 million who might vote Republican.
hoosierdoc
Freed prisoner
^^^^ Now that's a fair question worth considering
Personally, when I talk about the EC fostering more of a republic than a pure democracy, it's because we vote and are then represented by the EC to cast the final vote for us.
One of the m-w definitions of republic is " a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law." I don't think I'm using the word incorrectly to say the EC is a more republican form of government as representatives responsible to act on our behalf. It's an aspect of our republic govt; I'm not saying we would no longer be republic w/o the EC. but whatever, semantics aside....
Nationally, in a pure democracy, every vote would be just 1/(# of voters) of influence. Using the EC and the electors that represent us, votes in various states are weighted... the number of people per elector is greater in the larger states than smaller, diluting the vote in the larger. (e.g. CA = 712k people per EC vote, IN = 600k per EC vote, VT=208k per EC vote). I may hate that CA may go a different way than I'd like, but MY vote in IN is worth more, and the level of influence of IN is proportional to it's influence in the legislature. The EC enables each state's influence on the head of our executive branch to be on the same level as its influence on the legislative branch.
I'm ok with states handling the votes how they want... all or nothings vs proportional distribution. I still believe in state's rights (just as it used to be up to the state to pick Senators vs the people). Obviously that affects the results... imagine if CA went proportional, it wouldn't be such a heavy hitter. Proportional would also be a little more similar to the legislature, where each district represents different populations, so I would be ok with that. But I don't think we should do away w/ the EC. I kind of like the idea of 2 votes from each state being tied to the state's vote, with the remaining being somehow proportional (analogous to house/senate influence)... but in that case the party of choice would probably just look a lot like the make up of the legislature...
I'm not just a fan of the EC because it worked in my favor this time. I actually expected the results to be backwards; I thought it possible Trump would be close if not ahead in pop vote but loose in a landslide EC vote. and I was ok with that. While going proportional would maybe help with the rural/urban question, with winner-take-all, it helps smaller states retain influence among the larger, which is the intent.
Some of it may come down to perspective... do we view the nation as a collection of people, or states?
-rvb
One of the m-w definitions of republic is " a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law." I don't think I'm using the word incorrectly to say the EC is a more republican form of government as representatives responsible to act on our behalf. It's an aspect of our republic govt; I'm not saying we would no longer be republic w/o the EC. but whatever, semantics aside....
Nationally, in a pure democracy, every vote would be just 1/(# of voters) of influence. Using the EC and the electors that represent us, votes in various states are weighted... the number of people per elector is greater in the larger states than smaller, diluting the vote in the larger. (e.g. CA = 712k people per EC vote, IN = 600k per EC vote, VT=208k per EC vote). I may hate that CA may go a different way than I'd like, but MY vote in IN is worth more, and the level of influence of IN is proportional to it's influence in the legislature. The EC enables each state's influence on the head of our executive branch to be on the same level as its influence on the legislative branch.
I'm ok with states handling the votes how they want... all or nothings vs proportional distribution. I still believe in state's rights (just as it used to be up to the state to pick Senators vs the people). Obviously that affects the results... imagine if CA went proportional, it wouldn't be such a heavy hitter. Proportional would also be a little more similar to the legislature, where each district represents different populations, so I would be ok with that. But I don't think we should do away w/ the EC. I kind of like the idea of 2 votes from each state being tied to the state's vote, with the remaining being somehow proportional (analogous to house/senate influence)... but in that case the party of choice would probably just look a lot like the make up of the legislature...
I'm not just a fan of the EC because it worked in my favor this time. I actually expected the results to be backwards; I thought it possible Trump would be close if not ahead in pop vote but loose in a landslide EC vote. and I was ok with that. While going proportional would maybe help with the rural/urban question, with winner-take-all, it helps smaller states retain influence among the larger, which is the intent.
Some of it may come down to perspective... do we view the nation as a collection of people, or states?
-rvb
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And the Constitution of the United States....which created it.
I'm not a big fan of amending the Constitution ti satisfy populists.
You can't leave me out. I've been anti-17th Amendment since before it was cool.
I may be too thick, but I really have no idea what you are talking about. You write in generalities offer no real specifics ("make some changes....add a way to make this more meaningful or that less meaningful. etc....).
That can't be answered because it is pure speculation.
You claim to want to change the way the electoral college works but everything you've written is just like the EC (only maybe slightly different.... a little bit).
I will offer merit to the idea that the Winner Take all clause could be removed and the electoral votes be distributed among the candidates according to percentage of vote received. The mess becomes how to distribute the fractions of the share as there are only whole number electoral votes that will not evenly divide into the share of popular vote (especially when 3rd party and independents receive votes).
However, a quick look at the last election, if the electoral votes are split between Trump and Hillary according to percentage of popular vote within each state, Trump gets 257 electoral votes to Hillary's 255.
In reality, since we do have a winner take all, since the electoral count was determined, not all of the ballots are counted, especially the absentee ballots. The results would take longer than election day to calculate.
That can't be answered because it is pure speculation.
You claim to want to change the way the electoral college works but everything you've written is just like the EC (only maybe slightly different.... a little bit).
I will offer merit to the idea that the Winner Take all clause could be removed and the electoral votes be distributed among the candidates according to percentage of vote received. The mess becomes how to distribute the fractions of the share as there are only whole number electoral votes that will not evenly divide into the share of popular vote (especially when 3rd party and independents receive votes).
However, a quick look at the last election, if the electoral votes are split between Trump and Hillary according to percentage of popular vote within each state, Trump gets 257 electoral votes to Hillary's 255.
In reality, since we do have a winner take all, since the electoral count was determined, not all of the ballots are counted, especially the absentee ballots. The results would take longer than election day to calculate.
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Yes, let's leave it alone while we change it.
That same constitution created what has now become my greatest enemy, with all the best intentions of an exceptional generation.
Perhaps I am in the minority capable of appreciating brilliant inventors despite their failed experiments, despite the wonderful inventions and experiments which are no longer suited for our daily use, despite a lot of things.
Forgot to address the OP:
You failed to explain how it is a "flawed understanding". The sea of red, interspersed - sparsely - with tiny pockets of blue demonstrates how it is a rather factual understanding. So long as one party controls the en-masse voting blocs of the city-states (look at voter turnout, and candidate percentages), eliminating the EC would allow the candidate of that one party to focus all efforts on turning out the vote in those dozen locations.
You failed to explain how it is a "flawed understanding". The sea of red, interspersed - sparsely - with tiny pockets of blue demonstrates how it is a rather factual understanding. So long as one party controls the en-masse voting blocs of the city-states (look at voter turnout, and candidate percentages), eliminating the EC would allow the candidate of that one party to focus all efforts on turning out the vote in those dozen locations.
Yes, let's leave it alone while we change it.
That same constitution created what has now become my greatest enemy, with all the best intentions of an exceptional generation.
Perhaps I am in the minority capable of appreciating brilliant inventors despite their failed experiments, despite the wonderful inventions and experiments which are no longer suited for our daily use, despite a lot of things.
We can say with certainty, that the Constitution hasn't prevented tyranny. The only argument I see is this; When did the citizenry fail to uphold their duty to resist and abolish the illegitimate government and why? What parts of the Constitution, which ambiguous phrases, were leveraged to give government more power? Is it possible to give power to a government without it seeking more?
As for abolishing the Electoral College and instating "Direct Democracy"... it is just dumb. Democracy is just another word for Mob-Rule. Factions are the antithesis of individuals and their liberty.
When the alternative is direct popular vote, the EC becomes even more of a feature. Its only downfall is that it doesn't go far enough in limiting the influence of the city-states. But, compared to its only viable alternative, it is absolutely a feature.
The only change I see needed to the EC is some way to limit the influence of the city-states. Just as a SWAG, the EC could be winner-take-all, except for states that have metropolitan areas with a population greater than, say, 1/2 of the average State population - in which case, the state must then distribute EC votes proportionally.
Looking at this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas
The average state population is roughly 6.4MM. 1/2 of that would be 3.2MM. So, proportional distribution of EC votes would kick in for states with the top 17 metropolitan areas in that list. That seems at least plausibly reasonable.
How would proportional distribution work? It could be based on vote percentage, but I think I prefer 2 at-large WTA, and then one vote to the winner of each congressional district (the way that Maine distributes its EC votes).
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