Rethinking the Electoral College - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15140131
Electoral college sucks people. This needs to be changed to reflect a more democratic system.

Are you pro or con?

#15140214
I am a strong, pro.
However, there are 2 things I need to add.
1] An amendment is very unlikely. MHO, the only way it would pass is if the small population states (= small states) got some candy thrown in to grease their palms. I have therefore suggested just giving a bunch of EC votes to the candidate who won by at least a 1% margin, i.e. 50.5001% to 49.5%. Here 'bunch' means 60-100. And make the total be odd, so no ties. This requires an amendment.
2] In the mean time, the partial solution is to expand the House of Reps. a lot. Maybe to 2001 or 2501 Reps. This way the EC is changed from 102/538 = 18.96% from Senators to 102/2601 = 3.92% from Senators. This threat or situation would help the small states ratify the above amendment. OTOH, the small states might like having 5.75 times more Reps.

Note that Wash. D.C. gets 2 EC votes from "imaginary Senators". Also make the total EC votes always be odd by giving 1 more the the most pop. state when necessary to make the number of EC votes be odd.

Will the Dems do either? Not, no. Hell no.!! Why? Because they are paid to lose, that's why.
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Last edited by Steve_American on 01 Dec 2020 00:44, edited 1 time in total.
#15140374
Finfinder wrote:Whatever the sytem is the Democrats will try to rig it.

As a Progressive Dem, what I see is the Repuds rigging the results by suppressing votes.

What I see is that either the DHS is right that the last election was not tainted by "widespread" voting irregularities.
OR, the DHS is part of a deep state conspiracy to end democracy in America.

IMHO, the 1st is the correct choice.

Remember that Trump's lawyers refused to present (to any court) any of the "evidence" that they claimed to have to support the idea that there was massive vote fraud.
Why is that? Is it because they had better not lie to a court on pain of being disbarred? But they can lie the their supporters and all Americans in the media with no risk of anything. So far, in every one of the 35+ court cases, his lawyers have presented *NO* evidence of fraud, none. Well, maybe a *tiny* number of screw ups somewhere.
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Istanbuller wrote,
It makes sense in a federalist government system. It gives an equal representation right for each state."

Does this mean the the states need to change to give each county say, 10 Reps. in their House and 3 in their Senate. Me thinks that the city dwellers will not like that much.
By which I mean that if it is stupid at the state level, it is equally stupid on the national level.
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#15140378
It is not a good idea to change the system, especially at a point where it will likely tip the balance of power precariously to the side that is already winning through demographic change.

I also do not think that any system becoming more reflective of the total population necessarily becomes more democratic. Anything that is imbalanced and disenfranchises people's voices can hardly be said to be democratic...

Moreover, at the end of the day, most people are not after kneeling to the will of the people, anyways. They want more rights, and this requires checks and balances on government to ensure the rights of individuals. I would not say that increasing the ability of the masses to impose themselves on individuals is necessary "democratic" n the sense that anyone wants it to be.
#15140379
The Electoral College is VERY un-Democratic, @Verv .

Didn't Americans have a Revolution because of taxation without representation? :hmm:

California with 40 million people, having the same voting power as less than a million people in Dakota, is a great example of this lack of representation.
#15140381
Godstud wrote:The Electoral College is VERY un-Democratic, @Verv .

Didn't Americans have a Revolution because of taxation without representation? :hmm:

California with 40 million people, having the same voting power as less than a million people in Dakota, is a great example of this lack of representation.


California has 55 votes; North Dakota has 3.

California has 18 times the power as ND in the electoral college. Of course, their population is also significantly larger, but let us remember that the state is designed as one of the intermediaries between the indvidual and the Federal Government.

If checks on power are not democratic... then, that's fine. I guess I agree with the Founding Fathers and prefer to round out my political system with a greater emphasis on checks than rote democracy.
#15140390
Getting rid of the electoral collage would mean a handful of urban centers in the country would dominate every single election, and most of the ''flyover states'' could be both ignored as to their own needs and also ruthlessly exploited. It's already bad enough with the direct election of Senators now instead of State Legislatures, but getting rid of the Electoral Collage would tip the balance permanently. And that's why these people want to do it, of course, exactly to disenfranchise people while claiming the opposite. Hammer and Sickle, Urban and Rural, it's got to balance.

If these people want to fight for something useful instead of this antidemocratic nonsense, a great start would be universal healthcare coverage, forgiveness of student debt, universal basic minimum income, and universal maximum income which would put a cap on the highest incomes and reduce the power of the wealth Plutocrats.
#15140396
Verv wrote:It is not a good idea to change the system, especially at a point where it will likely tip the balance of power precariously to the side that is already winning through demographic change.

Whichever party has any advantage or not via demographics change is totally irrelevant when it comes to democratic representation. Any new voters deserve equal representation regardless of their race/ethnicity or ideology or party of preference.

It sounds like you don't want certain people who you politically disagree with to have more voting power, even when they deserve to.

I also do not think that any system becoming more reflective of the total population necessarily becomes more democratic.

Yes actually that's exactly what it does. Democracy is rule by the people, rule by majority.

Anything that is imbalanced and disenfranchises people's voices can hardly be said to be democratic...

It sounds like you're in favour of doing just that. The current EC system is unbalanced.

If the POTUS was decided by popular vote, and this meant the GOP was less likely to win, this means they'll have to change what policies they stand for in order to attract more votes. If they choose to stand for policies that only a minority of American voters prefer with then they will get a minority of the vote.
#15140400
Verv wrote:California has 55 votes; North Dakota has 3.

California has 18 times the power as ND in the electoral college. Of course, their population is also significantly larger, but let us remember that the state is designed as one of the intermediaries between the indvidual and the Federal Government.

California has 52x the population as North Dakota, but only has 18.3x more electoral college votes. Why? This is nonsensical and undemocratic. And this is coming from me who thinks most people in California have gone batshit crazy politically.

If checks on power are not democratic... then, that's fine. I guess I agree with the Founding Fathers and prefer to round out my political system with a greater emphasis on checks than rote democracy.

The Founding Father talk about "democracy" but they were afraid of "the people", and they wanted themselves (rich white male elites) to maintain control of the system. This is why they only allowed land-owning white men to have a vote, and why they didn't give "the people" control of the POTUS but gave it instead to the EC who reserved the right to vote against the popular vote in their state if they didn't vote the way the elites wanted.

This is total horseshit. They created a system with checks on "the peoples" votes, but where's the checks on the votes of the EC?
#15140401
People,
Recent events have highlighted a flaw (IMHO) in the way the Pres. is elected.

How does anyone think that Dems would feel if enough state legislatures instructed their EC Electors to vote for the Repub candidate.

This would make the presidential election meaningless.

Or, suppose enough states did that to give the Repub 268 EC votes. Then all they would need is to win any one state to get more than 270, but the Dems would have to win every state.

Is this "democratic"?

Off topic, but I have suggested that like what was done with electing Senators in 1913, the Constitution be amended to require an election in every state and the EC Electors be required to follow its results as log as the winner gets more votes. They can do it like Maine does, "winner take all", or apportion the EC Electors, or something else.

The Senate already gives the rural states a lot of power. Letting them always control the Presidency is *not* a good idea, IMHO.

As I have elsewhere explained, the Founders did not imagine and could not have imagined the rapid changes in tech that allow 5% of the people grow the food for 200% of the people (if I can include exports). They 'knew' that most of the people would always live on or near the farm/ranch land. They were wrong. OTOH, we don't want one class of people to dominate all other classes of people. Of course, IMHO, this goes for the current domination by the 1%, as well as the 'possible domination' by the cities.
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#15140404
From what I understand, with further migration, US will become a one party state anyway, even with the electoral college. The Democrats won't be representing at least 40-45% of the country (rural areas, flyover states), but they will win every election even if they demographically flip Texas by stuffing Austin with California liberals, never-mind the influx of foreigners who tend to cling to cities and latch onto fake democrat promises of a fake welfare state.

I only see civil war ahead. Barring that if the republicans give up completely I just see a Brazil failed narcostate 2.0. Brazil seemingly has everything going for it, a huge resource base, big growing population. And yet it can't get its shit together because the quality of stock is feeble. Mutts make for poor nation builders. IQ is low, aggression is high, forethought is inferior.Those 60 million European migrants made America. Now it will be unmade just like Brazil in the 1800's.
Last edited by Igor Antunov on 01 Dec 2020 04:01, edited 1 time in total.
#15140405
Finfinder wrote:Wow the left is really feeling there oats right now. So power-hungry it’s not good enough that they only have to win a very small fractions of counties to win the presidential election.

I don't consider myself a leftist. But anyways, why should counties have to do with anything? Counties aren't people, and neither are states, so why should counties or states have votes? The only people that are people are people.

Why does there have to be some totally arbitrary "balance" between rural and urban, or north and south, or left or right? Who gives a shit. 1 person = 1 vote = 1 unit of power. Everything else is just undemocratic bullshit.
#15140406
Igor Antunov wrote:From what I understand, with further migration, US will become a one party state anyway, even with the electoral college. The Democrats won't be representing at least 40-45% of the country (rural areas, flyover states), but they will win every election even if they demographically flip Texas by stuffing Austin with California liberals, never-mind the influx of foreigners who tend to cling to cities and latch onto fake democrat promises of a fake welfare state.

All it means is that the GOP will have to adjust its policies in order to attract more votes. The GOP and the Democrats don't push the same policies they did 40-50 years ago, because they'd shrivel and die and become irrelevant.

Let parties adapt to the wants of the electorate, instead of adapting the system itself just to please one party's ideology by pushing votes their way. That would be insane and totally undemocratic.
#15140407
Most people's leanings on this question come down to their personal ideology. Most on the left want EC reform so they win more often, and most on the right want the status quo. All a bunch of power-hungry tyrants who care about their own interests and only give lip-service to caring about democracy.
#15140410
Unthinking Majority wrote:Whichever party has any advantage or not via demographics change is totally irrelevant when it comes to democratic representation. Any new voters deserve equal representation regardless of their race/ethnicity or ideology or party of preference.

It sounds like you don't want certain people who you politically disagree with to have more voting power, even when they deserve to.


How can they deserve to have more voting power than what is legally allotted to them by the Constitution? A constitution whose aim seems clearly to be the preservation of fundamental rights, not the enlargement of government or not even necessarily the rote enactment of the people's will.

Yes actually that's exactly what it does. Democracy is rule by the people, rule by majority.


Government by the people is something that the US has fancied itself while very clearly focusing on individual rights and checks and balances. Democracy can, of course, mean rule of the majority, but the US is a constitutional society before it is a democratic one.

It's clearly debatable.


It sounds like you're in favour of doing just that. The current EC system is unbalanced.


It is imbalanced if you view the goal of the Presidential election to be a reflection of only the most popular will.

It is balanced if you think that the Presidential election should assign importance to every state and not just treat entire states as completely irrelevant. It is balanced in terms of how it was designed.

If the POTUS was decided by popular vote, and this meant the GOP was less likely to win, this means they'll have to change what policies they stand for in order to attract more votes. If they choose to stand for policies that only a minority of American voters prefer with then they will get a minority of the vote.


But it is not designed that way -- and it seems many people, who have rights, do not want it to be that way.

It is also the case that the Federal government is historically limited -- and the further you go back, the more it was limited in the breadth of its duties.

The more that the Federal government in Washington DC becomes about reflecting the will of the Northeastern Seaboard, California, and the big cities, the more that it forces the lives of other Americans to be governed by their will. It's fortunate it was not designed that way -- and the more that people push to shift it into this, the worse it will be.
#15140411
Unthinking Majority wrote:I don't consider myself a leftist. But anyways, why should counties have to do with anything? Counties aren't people, and neither are states, so why should counties or states have votes? The only people that are people are people.

Why does there have to be some totally arbitrary "balance" between rural and urban, or north and south, or left or right? Who gives a shit. 1 person = 1 vote = 1 unit of power. Everything else is just undemocratic bullshit.


Because people don’t want tyranny. Other than that I don’t understand your post. What is arbitrary about it.

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