Should the United States scrap the electoral college?

[Fergasun]

I have no idea what, "no concessions, no peace" means.  Do you think people are advocating for or against the popular vote based on partisanship?  Opps -- I see in 2012 it had about 60% approval to abolish the electoral college, but the Trump election made one side favor keeping it.

 

If you research the history of it, the founders got it wrong on why they felt we shouldn't elect President directly and its already been amended twice.  

 

But its not 1787 anymore and if you really set partisanship aside, a direct national election for President would be the best way to represent the ideal of "one person, one vote". 

 

Incidently, in Afghanistan we installed a system where they directly elect a President through a runoff system...we established this system. Iraq has a President without power.  

 

I don't care too much about the Supreme Court.... so it wouldn't bother me to cap it at 9.  Also, I like the Senate filibuster.  I think the actions of Senators to put party over national interests is a travesty.  .

 

[Going Commando]

14 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I think the electoral college was set to as a way to prevent tyranny of the majority...  so I would say no to abolishing it. It’s a little inconvenient right now for Democrat but demographics change over time and if you can’t win Iowa or Pennsylvania maybe you shouldn’t be president...

 

It was created by slave states who wanted credit in elections for their large populations of people but small populations of voters.  I.E. their slaves.  It was adopted to get the slave states to ratify the constitution.

 

It is an anti-democratic vestigial organ of slavery in our government.  It was created to give Southern states outsized influence in the national government and it still serves the purpose of giving Southern (and now Western as well) states outsized influence in the national government.

[Going Commando]

14 hours ago, Fergasun said:

Now that I think about it, I believe that between House, Senate and President -- President is the only national vote you have that is unequally weighed.

 

Senate certainly doesn't have equal voter weight because every state gets two, regardless of size, and the citizens of D.C. get 0 weight.

[Burgold]

Given the state of communication, literacy, and the that the population will be most accurately represented by a popular vote, I think the electoral college should go. 
 

 

[The Evil Genius]

1 minute ago, Burgold said:

Given the state of communication, literacy, and the that the population will be most accurately represented by a popular vote, I think the electoral college should go. 
 

 

 

Although tbh, hearing about undecided voters currently does make me question the literacy argument. 

[Burgold]

7 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

Although tbh, hearing about undecided voters currently does make me question the literacy argument. 

Yeah, literacy does not mean one pays attention or makes educated, reasonable decisions, but I do think a good reason for an 18th century electoral college is that too many never got to hear from the candidates because of the size of the country and limited transportation technology. Moreover, newspapers and pamphlets didn’t help because too many couldn’t read them so therefore a great percentage of the population would have needed to vote blind. 
 

today, that’s not true. People may vote stupid, but they have every opportunity to hear, see, or read what a candidate has to say. 
 

The Electoral College today only serves to circumvent or confirm the people’s will. If it’s about confirmation then you don’t need the EC. Let the vote stand. If it’s about circumvention then it should not happen. 

[No Excuses]

Fealty to bad governance systems that produce bad outcomes for the sake of "muh history" is pretty regressive.

 

The most factually disastrous governments in the past twenty years have resulted from the archaic system of conducting national elections where the majority will of the public is disregarded for the interests of a small minority of the population. It disenfranchises people on both sides of the political spectrum.

 

The rest of the democratic world is doing just fine with a popular vote system, much better than us in fact. Tossing the electoral college into the dustbin of history is probably the best government reform this country can undertake.

 

If Texas continues its shift towards liberal politics, you can bet that Republicans will get on board with scrapping the EC. And at that point, it should be a bipartisan effort to abolish it.

Edited October 28, 2020 by No Excuses

[TheGreatBuzz]

I find the argument that previous presidents didn't win the popular vote to be potentially flawed.  Has there been a reliable study to see how many affiliated with the minority party in a non-swing state would take the time to vote if they felt like it mattered?  For example, how many Republicans in California or Democrats in West Virginia don't even bother voting knowing there vote doesn't really matter but would if it became a straight popular vote?  Is it possible to even get a realistic guess at that?

[TheDoyler23]

27 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I find the argument that previous presidents didn't win the popular vote to be potentially flawed.  Has there been a reliable study to see how many affiliated with the minority party in a non-swing state would take the time to vote if they felt like it mattered?  For example, how many Republicans in California or Democrats in West Virginia don't even bother voting knowing there vote doesn't really matter but would if it became a straight popular vote?  Is it possible to even get a realistic guess at that?

 

The EC suppresses both sides of the aisle as it could be said for majority voters in non-swing states.  

Here in Maryland, everybody knows Biden is going to win by 20-30%. So people are disincentivized to vote. 

 

So I don't see how telling every voter that their vote matters is a bad thing. 

[goskins10]

15 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

 

The president has to represent all states... not just california and new york.....

 

Of all the weak arguments for keeping the EC this is the weakest. It takes more than CA and NY to win the popular vote. And BTW - both of those also have very conservative areas where their votes do not count at all. Those would now actually count. 

 

So the simple answer is that if the majority of the people live in NY and CA then yes! However, they do not. We have people all over the country. So that argument is nothing but fear mongering rhetoric. 

 

 

[Llevron]

37 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I find the argument that previous presidents didn't win the popular vote to be potentially flawed.  Has there been a reliable study to see how many affiliated with the minority party in a non-swing state would take the time to vote if they felt like it mattered?  For example, how many Republicans in California or Democrats in West Virginia don't even bother voting knowing there vote doesn't really matter but would if it became a straight popular vote?  Is it possible to even get a realistic guess at that?

 

This is the exact reason I didn't vote last election for Hilldog. I know being in MD its going blue regardless. I would be much more into it if I know it mattered as much as I want it to. My vote is basically to say I did it. 

 

I think it would be much more fair regardless. Though I have not looked at all into the pitfalls that yall keep saying exist. Actually I have only read your post in this thread. I dont know why. Ill go back and read after this. 

[LadySkinsFan]

Yes, resoundingly! It's the most convoluted mechanism in the Constitution. We should elect our president and vice president by popular vote like every other elected position.

Edited October 28, 2020 by LadySkinsFan

[PleaseBlitz]

31 minutes ago, goskins10 said:

 

Of all the weak arguments for keeping the EC this is the weakest. It takes more than CA and NY to win the popular vote. And BTW - both of those also have very conservative areas where their votes do not count at all. Those would now actually count. 

 

So the simple answer is that if the majority of the people live in NY and CA then yes! However, they do not. We have people all over the country. So that argument is nothing but fear mongering rhetoric. 

 

 

 

This is correct.  In 2016, 4.5 million Californians voted for Trump, more than any other state except (barely) Florida and Texas.  Yet because the EC is set up as a winner-take-all by state, those voters are of no concern to either side.  In a nationwide model, those voters would matter because margins would matter.  The same goes for blue voters in red states and swing voters in every state.  Getting rid of the EC would mean not treating the electorate as a series of states, because "winning" a state wouldn't matter, the margin you win or lose by is what would matter. 

[No Excuses]

1 hour ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I find the argument that previous presidents didn't win the popular vote to be potentially flawed.  Has there been a reliable study to see how many affiliated with the minority party in a non-swing state would take the time to vote if they felt like it mattered?  For example, how many Republicans in California or Democrats in West Virginia don't even bother voting knowing there vote doesn't really matter but would if it became a straight popular vote?  Is it possible to even get a realistic guess at that?

 

This itself is a primary reason why the EC should be abolished. There are more Trump voters in California than several small "red states" combined. And they are mostly disenfranchised because the electoral college is a garbage system with no rational logic behind it and no relevance to present-day conditions of this country.

Edited October 28, 2020 by No Excuses

[TheGreatBuzz]

45 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

This itself is a primary reason why the EC should be abolished. There are more Trump voters in California than several small "red states" combined. And they are mostly disenfranchised because the electoral college is a garbage system with no rational logic behind it and no relevance to present-day conditions of this country.

I was not trying to make an argument for or against.  I was just asking if a particular bit of a type of study had been done on a certain topic. 

 

My feelings toward the EC are well documented here.  And they haven't changed.  Nor have I seen anything even closely related to new points being made here.  As far as I can tell, this thread is just pissing and moaning with no new conversation being had.

[Fergasun]

According to Google, America is the only "Presidential Democracy" in which the country can elect a President who does not win the popular vote. 

[Burgold]

11 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

According to Google, America is the only "Presidential Democracy" in which the country can elect a President who does not win the popular vote. 

and does so repeatedly

[LadySkinsFan]

Every vote matters and every vote should be counted toward the winner themselves not electors. It's bad enough that California only has two Senators while seven other states altogether that have less population than California has fourteen.

[Going Commando]

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

 

This itself is a primary reason why the EC should be abolished. There are more Trump voters in California than several small "red states" combined. And they are mostly disenfranchised because the electoral college is a garbage system with no rational logic behind it and no relevance to present-day conditions of this country.

 

The logic behind its creation is illegitimate today: to give credit for the purposes of representation to slave states for their non-voting populations.  It was an ugly compromise made in the creation of the Union to get slave states to buy in.

 

I feel like there is a broader critique of originalism as a philosophy in the indefensible absurdity of the Electoral College compromise.  A lot of ugly 18th and 19th century bargains were struck in the formation of our political systems.  Insisting that we must absolutely adhere to those contemporarily expedient "deals" as they were agreed upon at the time as the only faithful and actionable solutions to modern legal dilemmas is just lazy ass psuedo-intellectualism, not to mention the staunchest orginalists on the supreme abandon this principle when it becomes politically necessary for them to do so.

[Going Commando]

I'm going to post this link again since it disappeared over time from the first page:  https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/pulling-the-curtain-voting-in-america

 

It's a podcast discussion of the history of the EC and attempts to repeal it from 2016, right before that disastrous election took place.

 

Looking at the five presidencies delivered by the EC against the popular vote: JQ Adams, "Rutherfraud" B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Dubya, and Trump, they were almost always a harbinger for new lows in corruption and illegitimacy and weakness in the administration.  Adams was a decent if unpopular president, but he was a familial member of the elite founder class that was actually principled and had traditions of honorable service such that his administration didn't sink into the gutters of corruption and incompetence that the other four EC presidencies did.  The rest were terrible, and that is the most fair way to describe their presidencies.  It'd be more accurate to say that the Dubya and Trump presidencies were disasters.  Like you said, the rationale for creating the EC was a necessary evil, the rationales for keeping it today are terrible, and the outcomes of pure EC presidencies are terrible.  We have got to abolish it.

[youngestson]

5 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

Senate certainly doesn't have equal voter weight because every state gets two, regardless of size, and the citizens of D.C. get 0 weight.

Rodger Sherman's "great compromise." 

[No Excuses]

2 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

The logic behind its creation is illegitimate today: to give credit for the purposes of representation to slave states for their non-voting populations.  It was an ugly compromise made in the creation of the Union to get slave states to buy in.

 

I feel like there is a broader critique of originalism as a philosophy in the indefensible absurdity of the Electoral College compromise.  A lot of ugly 18th and 19th century bargains were struck in the formation of our political systems.  Insisting that we must absolutely adhere to those contemporarily expedient "deals" as they were agreed upon at the time as the only faithful and actionable solutions to modern legal dilemmas is just lazy ass psuedo-intellectualism, not to mention the staunchest orginalists on the supreme abandon this principle when it becomes politically necessary for them to do so.

 

I'm not even sure that there is a strong orginalism argument for sustaining the EC.

 

Jefferson was pretty clear in his views of the evolution of the constitution in a letter to Madison.

 

https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/608

 

Quote

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another… On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.

 

In this, Jefferson is basically arguing for the younger generation to toss out the constitution every 20 years, which is a remarkably more radical position than abolishing the EC. But the point is that even some of the founders were like "yeah this constitution might be useless to future people, radically amend as you wish".

Edited October 28, 2020 by No Excuses

[The Evil Genius]

Its no mistake that the EC originally gave most power to Virginia and not Pennsylvania (who had a larger eligible voting population). 

 

It also led to having 4 of first 5 Presidents being Virginians.

[PokerPacker]

6 hours ago, No Excuses said:

In this, Jefferson is basically arguing for the younger generation to toss out the constitution every 20 years, which is a remarkably more radical position than abolishing the EC. But the point is that even some of the founders were like "yeah this constitution might be useless to future people, radically amend as you wish".

He also advocated, along with that, a bloody revolution every 20 years.  The blood of patriots and tyrants is the manure of the tree of liberty.

[Renegade7]

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