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Proposal to Update the Electoral College
A Stanford Professor has put down an idea (and also co-wrote a 620-page book for those who are that interested) on how to update the often criticized Electoral College system for presidential elections. Under the proposed system participating states would form a compact to throw all Electoral College votes behind the winner of the national popular vote regardless of which candidate won in any individual state. This proposed system would also make it much easier to bring the system up to date since it would not require a constitutional amendment to change or disband the Electoral College.
this system could possibly yield better voter turnout...if someone who wanted to vote republican lives in a traditionally "blue" state, they might not have voted knowing their vote wouldn't matter. if everyone's vote counted the same in the entire country, however, that person would be more likely to go to the polls.
This is a fantastic idea which seems to have the ability to cut down on red tape and electoral disputes while more aaccurately projecting the wishes of the population onto the American government. And that's precisely why it'll never get anywhere close to implementation by the very people kept rich and powerful by the current system.
Still, Professor Koza might as well get something for his troubles. Someone slice up a banana for him, and put his favorite video on.
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The problem still lies within the fact that most Americans are not willing to become involved with politics nowadays. It's sad that most people in this country don't realize that we can actually vote ourselves more money, let alone get involved.
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As opposed to the current system where only middleaged, privledged, white, predominantly protestant men control the executive branch...
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
And that's worse than the current system how?
This would effectively give a small number of states control over the electoral system. Looks like your candidate won't be winning the popular vote? Have states that might otherwise support him drop out of the system, either causing the system to collapse or become ineffective. A few states dropping out would then cause a chain reaction of other states dropping out to counteract the problem.
The electoral college is in many ways a bad idea in modern times, but a constitutional amendment is the best way to go about fixing it.
So basically, their plan to update the Electoral College is to give the presidency to the winner of the popular vote? Isn't that more of a removal than an update, since that would make the College useless?
I love how fruity the left land of silliness is! How about this for the importance of the Electoral college? Make the State Senates vote for the US Senators; that would put a bee in their bonnet!
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is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
The blurb should really point out that this is a Stanford Comp Sci professor, and not Polisci or something else that might be more expected (and before you geeks out there laugh, modern polisci definitely has a strong technical aspect and Stanford is quite well respected for it). Regardless, an interesting idea.
to vote for the winner? How does that one work?
Tell me why we cannot move to a count of the popular vote instead of funneling it through this outdated system again? Am I wrong or was the electoral college not setup first to make it easier to tally the votes and who won? Oh and to prevent the people from auctually electing a president. I'm sure that was a reason at one time.
The whole point of the "United States" is that we are a federation of 50 states. That means that we have intentionally crafted a system in which each state gets a certain minimum representation, both in Congress and in selecting a president. Proposals such as this would change the rules under which smaller states joined the union; their voices would cease to be heard.
If this is really the way we want to go, then we should eliminate state government, replace it with regional governors to attend to regional issues, and stop pretending that states matter.
Currently... only those states with Diebold machines are subject to having their electoral votes given to a candidate that won because of vote fraud/fixing.
Those of us in states that still use machines that allow for verifiable recounts don't want to have our electoral tally tainted by some neighboring right-wing Diebold-controlled state.
Going to a national popular vote would INCREASE the ability of Diebold to throw close elections toward the candidate of their choice.
Sorry... if the red states are rigged to stay red, at least they only affect the electoral votes in those states. Get the Diebold machines out of enough states totalling 270 electoral votes, and we have a chance to overthrow the right-wing coup of our government that began in 2000.
Really, all this represents is a way to getting in Proportional Representation via the back door, with all the advantages and disadvantages that PR provides - and in a way that can bypass any wingeing states/parties who might complain about reductions to their political importance.
Not to say that this is a bad idea, but just to note that it's only the method here that is new, not the end result.
That's the worst idea ever. The president was NEVER supposed to be elected by popular vote. The Framers hated that idea to the core. It's a bit of a "states rights" thing but it's up to the states individually to determine how they will cast their votes. There's nothing in the Constitution itself that says people are suppose to vote for senators or presidents. To the Framers, that choice was supposed to be made by the officially elected state government. That way somebody smart, and already elected once was making the choice for who the next higher up officeholder would be. On the surface it seems anti-democratic, but in reality, many of our Federal govt problems are directly related to Federal elections and officers being separate and disconnected from the lower branches of government. Think of how fast all the issues with Bush would be resolved if he and the senate had to answer not just to the idea of "voters" but to specific branches of state government.. Where would we be if our state legislatures or governors could call our Federal Senators on the carpet and demand their votes the way the States demand it to be because they appointed them, not the voter sheep. We'd see a much higher quality of govt if the feds were responsible to somebody local not "everybody" in a nebulous get elected next term way.
The electors, who are actually elected federal office holders, albeit with a very short term and only one permitted act, cannot be bound by any state or federal law to vote one way or another. It's not possible to prevent 'rogue' electors from voting for anyone they wish, anymore than it's possible for a state legislature to force the state's senators and representatives to vote a particular way on a bill.
Right now, electors represent the party of the candidate they pledge (i.e. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc). You would have to change this to non-partisan electors who agreed to vote with the national popular vote. And even then, you could not guarantee that the electors would do that, since they can't be forced to vote one way or another
The only way you will ever change this is to ammend the Constitution. And it's not clear that it should be changed. The Electoral College reduces the weight of large states and increases the weight of the small states, which makes it less likely a candidate will try to run up huge numbers in CA, NY, FL, TX, OH, VA and other large states so he/she can ignore the smaller states. Right now, you gain nothing from winning NY with say 70% of the vote vs 50%+1. That helps keep a few large states from dominating the process - the leveling effect limits their impact.
Of course, I know a lot of people don't agree with me. But that's no surprise, they mostly object to my calls to repeal (among others) the 17th Amendment and restore a true federal system.
I'd be curious to see how enforceable the contract turns out to be. I can imagine a state changing its mind midway through the voting, or secretly changing its vote, or something. If the other states sue to enforce the contract, would it prove valid?
It does make recounts rather a mess. One advantage to the electoral college system is that as messy as the Florida recount was, at least it was in only one state. The election of 2000 was very close even in popular terms, and without the electoral college every single state would have ended up having a recount, because every single vote would matter. But gosh, other countries manage to work it out.
The states that have already talked about signing on are big states: California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri. States who are under-represented in the electoral college. The little states, who currently benefit from having their individual votes be worth nearly 3 times as much as a voter from California or New York, will pitch a major hissy fit.
I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect that such a scheme will tend to favor Democrats over Republicans, at least with the current distributions. Those small states tend to be red states. Certainly the one recent example where one can point to a candidate getting an advantage from the electoral college favored a Republican over a Democrat, so any attempt to swing it towards a proportional vote will be greeted in red states as an attempt to make it more blue.
IF executed this idea would take power from small (in terms of population) states and give more power to large states. Small states will have none of this. One of the comprimises made by big states (during the forming of our nation) was to have the senate, which gives more power to small states hence making their influence more equal to big states. The current implememtation of the electoral college continues that spirit of comprimise.
I don't think we need to do away with the electoral college altogether. Allowing each state to have a minimum possible voice is valuable. New York and California already have a lot of electoral votes, but not entirely in proportion to their populations. The problems with the electoral college could be mitigated if only the votes from the college were more granular. As it is, in most states, the candidate that wins the popular vote in that state earns all of the electoral votes from that state. That means that 49% of a state's votes might "not count" in the final decision. As a citizen of Ohio, this problem was really driven home in the last presidential election. The two principle candidates were nearly equal in terms of popular vote, but the state's entire contribution was to George Bush. Let the two "senator" votes go to the popular majority, but let the "representative" votes be divided proportionally to the popular vote.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
What a remarkable idea. And _so_ retro! I like it! Could a state bring their senator home if he wasn't properly representing it?
Let's Do It. Repeal the 17th amendment!
Now see, that's just your apathetic goth self talking.
Legally you have to be older than 35 to be President... barring an amendment, they will always be middleaged.
But the reality is that the whole executive branch could represent nothing but the suburban/city areas, and the entire rest of the United States would be screwed. You think environmental concerns are bad now? Try handing them directly to the 80+% of the United States which work in the middle of a city in which their monetary benefit and/or job security is directly related to how poorly the rest of the US is managed, or how much they are allowed to clear cut, or what the price of electricity is.
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Uh, how bout, a resounding no?
The WHOLE point of the design of the Electoral College was to disallow states with an overwhelming population to have an overwhelming say in the choosing of the President. If it was based on population alone, California, New York etc would always get who they wanted, and thus would always get the issues they wanted addressed, and the rest of the country might as well not bother. That was the whole reason for the development of such a system, it gives the little states a very important say in the matter as well, instead of some group of people from a relative minority of states having the power to do whatever they'd like.
From the wikipedia article:
"The Electoral College may have been implemented to negotiate compromises in cases of a split vote where each state was pushing its own native son. The United States presidential primary and the emergence of a two-party system has largely rendered this historical. One lasting theory is that the Electoral College helps dilute the effect of votes from densely populated centers which may steer away from the concerns of the rest of the country. Others have noted that the Electoral College enabled the Founding Fathers to deftly incorporate the Connecticut Compromise and three-fifths compromise into the system of choosing the President and Vice President, thereby sparing the convention further acrimony over the issue of state representation."
- It's a "boil the ocean" solution; it doesn't work at all until it is fully operational. Nothing ever works like that with 50 states. This is also related to the next reason:
- The benefits of cheating are too large once half or so of the electoral votes are in the agreement. The benefits of defecting, or threatening to defect, become large, because suddenly the votes become bargaining chips, useful to extract concessions from the other states. This makes it effectively impossible to get to all 50 agreeing anyhow; the more people in the agreement before it gets to 50, the larger the spoiler effect.
This would make things even worse, because of the horrible bargaining and politicing that would ensue around the electoral votes. Indeed, this would come to swamp the entire procedure, and the game would become getting the states to commit electoral votes, instead of convincing the people to vote for you. Hopefully, it's obvious why this is bad.There's no idea so bad you can't extol its virtues for 600 pages.
Finally, to use the previous election for concrete names, do you really thing California is going to stand for seeing its electoral votes go to Bush? Or Texas for Gore? Unlikely.
I love how fruity the left land of silliness is!
You, sir, are the biggest fruit in this discussion.
One thing this proposal totally misses is the fact that the U.S. Constitution specifically set up the opportunity to disproportionally represent voters in smaller states over those in larger states, so that a Presidential candidate would have to appeal to voters of those smaller states like Wyoming, Hawaii, and Delaware in addition to major voting hubs like New York, Texas, Florida, and California.
There is no way a state compact could ever be made that would ignore this issue.
Of the various electorial vote distribution systems that have been proposed, I like Colorado's idea (that was voted down) as the best of the bunch, although the Nebraska & Maine system of having each congressional district determine their own "vote" does seem at least as an alternative. The current "winner takes all" approach that most of the other states use is really the source of some of the current problems.
Colorado actually proposed proportional electorial votes based on percentages of votes cast. That would mean states doing this would still get attention even if there was a huge percentage of voters in that state voting for one candidate, but one candidate could still just collect a few thousand more votes in order to get one more electorial vote from that state. Interestingly enough, Al Gore would have won in 2000 had this system been used in most states, and it is the democrats who don't want it changed.
It should be noted that the Bush campaign comittee specifically targeted the smaller states for electorial votes and it was a part of their strategy to win these "neglected by the Democrats" parts of the USA in order to win the presidential election. This strategy was specifically encouraged by design by the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
If we want to change the Constitution, the procedure exists, and affords suitable prohibition of bad ideas.
Setting up an end-around will only weaken the sanctity of the document.
Peering into the future, the subsequent election of CowboyNeal ought to be a sufficient caution for us all.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Who comes up with this crap... it's bad enough we've got elections that are rigged, now all you need to do is rig a couple of high population states and the whole game is yours... Don't people think things through... if anything, we should have the "electors" vote in ratios that represent the state's popular vote, that way there is at least some hope of returning to a representative democracy.
For f's sake..
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think this plan will ever succeed.
The problem is, in order for the plan to make any difference in a given election, some states will have to cast their electoral votes against the will of their own electorate. If that happens even once, the people of the state will be pretty pissed, and that will translate into a lot of pressure on the state legislature to repeal the state's adherence to the plan. Moreover, an expectation that this would happen should be enough to dissuade states from signing up in the first place.
As an example, I am a liberal who lives in Connecticut. Of course I would be thrilled if Wyoming, Utah, and Texas signed up for this plan, but that's only because they would otherwise be voting for the republican candidate 100% of the time. On the other hand, I would oppose Conneticut signing up, since it ALREADY goes blue 100% of the time.
I also wonder if there would be constitutional problems with a state assignings its electoral votes without regard to its people's wishes. This is not a question of expertise or law, I think, so much as a political question of what the Supreme Court would consider to be the more judicially modest option: contravene the will of a few states, or permit the few states to overturn an institution that was very clearly within the intent of the Framers.
As it stands now, The average citizen in Wyoming is 1/160,000th of an electoral vote. The average citizen of New York State is about 1/300,000th of an electoral vote.
Why should the Wyoming citizen's vote count for twice as much as the New York citizen's vote?
One man (or woman)... one vote. Any system which gives greater weight to a citizen of one state's vote over the citizen of another state is a flawed system.
The electoral college system guarantees that the citizens of lightly-populated states like Wyoming, Montana, Deleware, and the Dakotas have a greater percentage say in who is the President than a citizen of California, Florida, New York, or Texas has.
That is a patently unfair system, and the only equitable system is one in which each of us has the same 1/280,000,000th say in who the next president is. That way, there won't be campaigning in just "swing" states... because every vote in every corner of the country counts the same. The Democratic candidate would have a reason to go to Texas and campaign... the Republican candidate would have a reason to go to Massachusetts to campaign... there are votes to be gotten there and they would count the same.
I am just as much a citizen of this country as some farmer in North Dakota is. His vote shouldn't be worth twice as much as mine.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
This strategy of the state going for the popular vote is very interesting, and I guess in a way it would work, but it doesn't fix the problem of misrepresentation. In fact, it would undoubtedly make it worse. The state would represent itself poorly if the majority of its votes were for one candidate, but the national popular vote forced them to vote for the other candidate. That's not fixing the electoral college problem; if you're going to use this system why even use the electoral college? I realize it's a possible workaround, but senators/representatives would never let this agreement happen in their own states.
What I think would be fair is a system that allows the electoral vote of an entire state be split. If a state counted as 7 votes, it would be allowed 3 to one candidate and 4 to another. This allows a much more proportional representation. There's absolutely no reason why votes should count more in Ohio/Florida than any other state. This method also allows independent candidates to actually have a chance. It's unfortunate that nothing like this will ever be passed in legislation today because of our stagnant political system full of selfish scum.
at the constitutional convention! This gets brought up every couple of years and will never get rattified by the states. The electoral college is about making sure the smaller states get proper representation. It's up to the states to determine how their electors should (not must) vote. A couple of states split their electors proportionally. The vast majority of states go with an all or nothing approach. Both methods are constitutional.
Just ask the good Jedi how they feel about "Balance" now...
Why not do something logical such as "The winner of the popular vote in a particular region will have the corresponding electoral vote" or even "Each candidate will receive the proportion of votes determined by the popular vote")
Part of the reason the electoral college exists is so that areas of sparse population have as much voice as areas of dense population. The current system used where "The winner of the popular vote in a state gets all of the votes for the state" doesn't always reflect the will of the populace. The current system rewards marginal victories equally to landslide victories. If a candidate wins 60% of the population in a state, that candidate should be awarded 60% of the state's votes.
I'm not saying my proposal is flawless (large population centers could still be overruled by sparsely populated regions), but it would, at least, be better than what occurs now.
If you want to be the President, then you should have to win over the majority of the populace, not "just enough people" in a few key states.
But then again, I'd rather see more drastic changes. The government we need now is not the same as the government we needed in 1787 (when the design was written up).
This is going to piss off a whole lot of people who don't understand it.
While it may be possible legally, politically, it would be a firestorm.
People outside those states won't like the idea that the bigger states are making the decision for them. And people inside those states won't like the idea that their electoral college votes are no longer based on the votes in their states.
According to this article dated May 31, this is already a work in progress. I'd bet its the same professor, although I was unable to confirm.
The idea is that you don't need all 50 states -- you need 270 electoral votes, the smallest number which guarantees a victory (of the 538 total votes cast). So, the compact doesn't go into effect until enough states sign such that 270 electoral votes are at stake.
According to the article I've linked, in addition to California the legislation is "in progress" in the New York Legislature, and its got some support in Illinois, Missouri and Colorado. That doesn't guarantee passage, of course.
Note also that this does not require a Constitutional Ammendment because each state is free to determine how to divvy up its electoral votes. There is no Federal requirements on how to allocate the electoral votes, just requirements on who can (and can't) vote. States have additional input, which is why prisoners, parolees, and those who have been completely released by the penal system may or may not be allowed to vote, depending on the state in which they live.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
An interesting proposition, but I think efforts would be better spend on getting Congress to disband the electoral college and actually having a vote count as a vote.
The Electoral College was useful in the pioneer days when information took much longer to get from place to place. Not everyone had the opportunity to be informed, so they voted towards a certain party and the state threw all of its electoral votes behind the winner of that popular vote.
The modern day is much different. Information is instantaneous, and people are finding out every little nuance about politicians if they dig deep enough. While the modern citizen probably isn't well informed, they do have the ability now to be informed- they merely need to go to a library to use a comptuer for an hour, or read a few newspapers. This means that citizens can discern which candidate they want. Votes are tallied quickly with the use of punch cards and now electronic voting machines (faults aside). The public's vote should be the only thing that counts now.
we could combine elector reform with this professor's last big idea and have a scratch off lottery type of ballot for president. Considering I (and a number of other people) don't trust either of the 2 big political parties anymore, maybe a random election wouldn't be too bad.
"22 astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" Stephen Colbert
Ugh, if this gets implented we won't be the United States of America anymore. We'd be the United States of California and New York.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
A better idea would be to require that Electoral votes be counted by House District (except for your 2 Senate votes, which should still be counted by popular votes in the state).
That way, subsets of a state could vote against the state as a whole; Austin, TX could vote D, east California could vote R, etc.
This is probably also legally doable by Congress without an amendment; it also keeps the strong-and-broad support the Electoral College requires (which is better than the Strong support a majority-only system requires). It also isn't an invitation to fraud/gamemanship, as TFA's proposal is. (well, gerrymandering would still apply, but that's a separate problem that needs work anyway).
It would also reduce the number of Florida 2000 debacles (since you'd have to be within about 2 EVs of the other guy to need a state-wide recount).
For added bonuse, senators could be done the same way in states with at least 3 districts.
--Fire up the clue combine and harvest a clue!
--Intrope
Eh. There are advantages to the current system (which constantly get ignored by those who think that a pure popular vote is the One True Way (tm)).
What you have to ask is "what do I want from the federal government?" As in, what's their job? What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to be a true federal government, setting down laws for the people, framing their society based on their wishes? Or are they supposed to be a confederacy, letting smaller, more local governments frame society, and just setting up the rules for how those governments interact with each other?
The Electoral College's current approach is appropriate for the second - a popular vote is more appropriate for the first. I'm personally of the opinion that the United States federal government is intended to be more like the second approach - what with the delegation of duties downward to the states, and then to counties, etc.
Honestly, I don't get the "reform the electoral college" crap all the time. The solution is simple: 1) increase the size of the House of Representatives, and then 2) citizens from each state should whine and complain if they don't like the way their electors are forced to vote (or better yet, move to a state that does it in the way that you want it to).
1) doesn't require actions from the states, either. Just a resolution from the House. Easy as pie.
There are two big differences between the US and other democracies.
1) we're larger, both in population and geographical distribution. You can't compare our problems with, oh, European countries that have 1/6th the population in a single timezone. Our peers are India, Russia, and...? Maybe Mexico, although she has a third of our population.
2) other countries have elections run from the top down. Single national standards, single national ballots, etc. We have something like 10,000 separate elections. States will usually have their own standards, but it's ultimately run by county clerks etc. There are profound legal problems with having election standards set at the national level -- things that work great in urban centers on the eastern seaboard will fail miserably in rural Montana, and vice versa. (I know, let's just ignore Montana since her population isn't that large!)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
"What about those of us living in 'blue' states, who want to vote 'green'? Our votes already don't matter. Something drastic needs to happen"
You mean the Green Party, which represents the interests of about 1 or 2 percent of the voters and manages to catch this percentage in elections? I don't think anything "drastic" needs to be done in regards to the Green Party either way.
Where were you when the voynix came?
This post makes the point I was trying to make in a reply earlier in the thread, only much more cogently. Kudos.
Because that was the way our founding fathers configured it. Intentionally.
Or perhaps I should say that our Founding Fathers configured it so that each state would have a say, not the individual. The only reason why a person in New York has a vote at all is because the state of New York decides that you have a vote. Comparing your vote to the fellow in Wyoming is ridiculous. He's voting for how his state's electoral votes will be counted, and the New York fellow is voting for how his state's votes will be counted.
If Mr. New York wants to be a prick about it (Whaaa! Mr. Wyoming has more of a fraction of his state's vote! Whaa!) then I suggest that the state of New York remove voting privledges from its population, and decide the matter inside the state government. The population will then be forced to chose between their existing leadership and the right to vote for their state's electoral votes.
The only way it's "patently unfair" is if Mr. New York thinks his state should decide the outcome of ALL federal elections. In which case, what do we have states for anyway? Better dissolve the individual governments, and subject them all to total rule from the Federal government. It's so much better to give the President and Congress absolute power so that we can ensure that they are absolutely corrupted. While we're at it, why don't we dissolve the Senate? Wyoming has way too much power there, as well. Ooo, and why don't we eliminate the Supreme Court? They've been a real pain in the rear for the Soviet Socialist Republic of New York.
In case you're not catching on to the sarcasm, the electoral college is one of the many checks and balances built into the US constitution. Each of those checks that gets knocked out further weakens the nation. Thus whining about your "right to vote" is exactly that: Whining. The nation might even be a better place if we removed your right to vote. At least THAT would be constitutional.
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What? Moving towards a system that makes each person's vote count equally is somehow ignoring 90% of the country? I'm probably missing something and I would love some clarification if anyone is up to it but I'm pretty sure there isn't a combination of words in the English language that will make it make sense.
You will never see a presidential candidate in a state other than NY, CA, TX, and FL. Everybody else will have to choose a president based on what they promise to do for those four states.
There is a reason the framers of the constitution hammered out these things they way they did. Some things could use some modernization, this is not one of them.
To bring this back into geek terms:
This is not a bug in the electoral process, this is a feature and is working as intended.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
A popular radio DJ around here used to say "If voting really made a difference, they wouldn't let us do it!"
Well, even that unrealistic percentage would be better than the current system, where success can usually be ensured just by pandering to the residents of Ohio and one or two other states.
Whiney liberals. We are not a DEMOCRACY we're a REPUBLIC and for good reason. The Majority should never be allowed to rule over the Minority, and vice versa. Each state gets a vote so that New York, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Philadelphia, don't control the country. You guys are just mad because your politicians think this is a Democracy. Do you really want to vote for a guy that doesn't understand how his country works. F*ckin socialists. Move to france and take the friggin right wingers with you. Leave this country for those that enjoy their freedom.. Scum bags!!!
I am in the minority on what I am about to state, but I believe it nonetheless. The United States of America are exactly that: a union of separate States. These States are entitled certain rights, among those are the authority to cast their vote via the Electoral College as to whom should represent that Union as President. States may choose to cast their vote along the lines of their constituents' popular vote...or maybe not. That decision is up to each individual State. The response of the State's citizens is a different issue, should the State's EC rep vote against the popular decision. Our Federal government has been assuming what should be States' rights for far too long. Forming a "compact" among States to cast EC votes based on the popular national vote only serves to lessen the power of the States even more.
We should be taking States' rights back from the Federal government, not surrendering more. The Feds, both Republicans (the party as which I registerd to vote) and Democrats, have proven they are out of touch with the citizenry and are not concerned with our best interests. Most of the law making responsibility and care of citizens was intended by our founding fathers to be at the State level. Career politicians have usurped these roles over time in order to provide "guaranteed employment" for Federal politicos.
Let's start a groundswell of support for reverting to States' rights and for our government, both State and Federal, serving the people instead of vice versa.
</soapbox>
Now I understand why the president is constantly working on measures to benifit Cheyenne, WY and Rapid City, SD and I NEVER hear anything about New York City and LA in the news. (that was sarcasm by the way)
So this is all about inclusion huh? As soon as this is instituted we'll see democrats campaigning in Texas right? Here's a more likely scenario. You'll never see a democrat outside of a major metropolitan area ever again. They will spend every minute of the campaign in New York City, LA, Chicago, Philly, Detroit, San Fransisco, Baltimore, Boston, Seatle, and Denver. OK, maybe they'll visit Dallas/Ft Worth once.
The point is they'll be trying to get the best bang for their buck and they'll know that they can get 80+% of the vote in those areas which is almost enough to win the election. They'll lob some national ad campaigns out there to try and get the rest. So that's less air time to puchase, less travel, fewer events to organize and equal or better payoff.
Meanwhile, Republican's will need to campaign through the remaining 95% of the geography of this country. That means more time spent visiting all the little communities across this great land (translated for democrats: flyover country). More ad purchases in all the local market TV and radio outlets. More events to plan and execute with less return per ralley.
In theory your ramblings about equal voting power sound very noble but in reality you can't tell me that New York received less attention last election than Montana. (at least not with a straight face) Electoral college keeps candidates from only playing to their concentrations of safe voters and forces them to go out and campaign in other areas, straight vote would provide more power to the party with geographically concentrated population base but wouldn't provide a better campaign experience.
Hopefully people will see past the "Anonymous" poster and tag this insightful.
PS Even under electoral college big states tend to get a lot of attention because it's a good way to pick up a lot of votes at once. You need to get close to 50% before you can work on "swing states". That's why you always see lots of events in New York, Texas, and California, even though the residents have "less representation". Not to mention that conventions are always held in major metro markets etc...
I've proposed a number of times (elsewhere) a rather simple change to the current
popular vote.
In my opinion one of the greatest fundamental problem with the current system is
it enables somebody who received 50+ % of the votes to behave as if they've received a
'mandate' from the masses. They go on to behave as if 50% or more of the population
actually approves of their position.
In practice a significant (and potentially large) percentage of voters cast their vote
not 'for' candidate A but 'against' candidate B. Numerous exit polls showed voters
voted for Bush because they didn't like Kerry or voted for Kerry because they didn't
like Bush. Many voters (for instance myself) typically feel much more strongly about
their dislike for a candidate than they do their attraction to a candidate.
The rather simple solution is to provide, just as now, voters with exactly 1 vote for
president (or whatever office is in question). The difference is that vote can be for
*or* against a candidate. For votes count as +1 and against votes count as -1.
Assuming for a second the exact same people vote and vote correctly (and I'll
address this later) the fundamental outcome in such an election will be exactly the
same as the currrent system. Somebody who previously vote for candidate A
because they hated B would now simply vote against B. One less vote for each
candidate so net zero change.
The significant difference is the final vote results. Instead of candidate A getting
53% and candidate B getting 40% (with the other 7% spread acrosss c,d and e) you might
see candidate A get 35% (aggregate for - against) and candidate B get 27% (for - against).
It's distinctly possible that candidate C (the green one) might now get 22% since in
previous elections people who might be inclined to vote for C voted for B as a vote
against A will now actuallly vote for C. Candidate C voters are only competing against
voters who prefer A or B not the sum of people that prefer A and hate B.
Now the results more accurately reflect the 'opinion' of the populous. Only 35%
(or lower) of the people actually approve of you. I'd love to have seen the last election
results end up as Bush 15%, Kerry 14% and (pick random independent) 12%. The
end result would be the same but Bush wouldn't be able to claim any mandate. Telling
the whole lot (congress, president, city council) hey only about 20% of us think your
not a twit is a better reflection of reality.
I'd be relatively suprised if such a system didn't generate higher voter turnout as
well. I know numerous people who frequently don't vote because they don't believe
in either candiate. They take voting seriously enough that they will only vote in candidates
they believe in, as opposed to simply voting for the alternative to the one they hate. I think
you'd see many of these voters come out to cast 'against' votes.
When I've proposed this before people worried about confusion in the voting booth.
I'm certain people will make mistakes and vote the wrong way. I'm also certain that
already occurs. If we expect the populous to be able to operate a cell phone and ATM
then I expect they can figure this out. The percentage of ones that can't must be
very small.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. U.S. Constitution: Article I
The proper function of an interstate compact is to resolve fundamentally local problems, not to restructure the federal government. I would thinking long and hard before giving support to a cause that is intended to disenfranchise a minority.
Federalist #68
...It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Well, it sounds like a great idea, but as the article points out the weakness of moving to a system based more on popular vote is the belief that cities will end up holding the balance of power, which in the current system is held by states with the largest numbers of Electoral College votes. As a Canadian I can understand a lot of the criticisms of the Electoral College system as it shares a number of similarities to the "first past the post" system we use to elect our Parliament. It's also the antithesis to the concept that the United States is a union of sovereign states bound by a collective will.
While the Electoral College has its weaknesses I do think it's a fair compromise, but if I was American I'd be far more concerned with the actual administration of the election as from my point of view the management appears not only intransparent but downright corrupt. We're talking about a federal election here and while I understand that many Americans are loathe to see more federal power, I don't understand why there isn't a federal election agency that actually operates, not just oversees, the election as we have here in Canada. Every aspect of our federal election is overseen by an nonpartisan, independant agency called appropriately enough, Elections Canada. From the hiring of elections officers to the counting of the ballots and administrating recounts, if necessary, the rules and system are exactly the same right acrosss the country in every riding (district) in every province. The system is designed to be as transparent and self correcting as humanly possible. It just boggles my mind that Americans tolerate the level of intransparency, corruption, partisanship, confusion and outright politicising of their election system. I don't think it's asking a lot for someone in Ohio to vote with confidence knowing that their citizen counterparts in Florida are voting with the same system and the same checks and balances.
I won't even get into electronic/touch screen voting machines, which are not used in provincal or federal elections in Canada.
is through the Maine-Nebraska Method. Instead of a winner-take-all system (if a candidate wins a majority of electoral votes in a state, he gets all the state's votes), it splits it based on districts.
Remember: the number of electorates = # of Representatives + # of Senators
The 2 electoral votes that go towards Senators would go state-wide (like we have now). The "Representative" votes would be split based on the popular votes of the individual congressional districts of the state.
It fixes several problems of the current system. Your vote counts more, because the division isn't state-wide, but district-wide. At the same time, it doesn't make the division too small (individuals under a popular election). If each person's vote counts equally, then a candidate could win a couple of large states (California, New York, Texas), and win the election.
The Maine-Nebraska method also doesn't require a constitutional amendment.
That is a patently unfair system, and the only equitable system is one in which each of us has the same 1/280,000,000th say in who the next president is.
No, you miss the point completely. The reason the the NYers vote counts 'less' is so that rancher out in the midwest doesn't have HIS rights trampled by the majority. Majority rule is nothing more than mob rule, and if you're NOT in the majority, you end up being screwed. That's EXACTLY why the electoral system is in place, to stop mob rule.
Please, go READ the words of the founders, they'll tell you exactly why mob rule is a bad idea. We are a Republic and NOT a Democracy for a very good reason.
That's how the system is supposed to work. You get one electoral vote per representative and one per senator. Funnily enough, every state has a minimum of two senators and one representative. This was done for a very good reason when our country was founded. It was part of the Great Compromise, and without it our country would never have been able to patch itself together. If we went with your suggestion, it would defeat the entire purpose of the electoral college in the first place.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The purpose of the electoral college is to keep power in the hands of an oligarchy, as it should be. If you look at the composition of the Constitution then its pretty obvious that the Founder's never meant the nation to be ruled by the mindless horde. The Founder's were all middle/upper class citizens who were fed up by not having power, so like many before them (and many after them) they convinced the masses that the current power was wrong, used the masses to fight their war, and then took power for themselves regulating the masses to more of a symbolic role (which is better than the masses get in most other "people's revolutions"). The electoral college is part of a checks and balance system designed to ensure that the mindless horde does not elect an imbecile who would tear this country apart and destroy the Union (or later on diminish its economic power in the world--as that was how our nation rose to power... now we just shoot anything that moves... oh, and we also use the UN, which if you read the Charter is also more of an oligarchy then anything else--placing the 5 super powers of the itme of its creation in a place of permanent power, thus cementing their super power status well beyond the time that their influence should be little or none... like Russia...)
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The main problem with using house districts is gerrymandering. If you think Gerrymandering is bad now, under this system it would be absolutely cut throat. If you must use a proportional system, the Colorado proposal would better, because it be more difficult for the politicans to game.
"The electoral college is part of a checks and balance system designed to ensure that the mindless horde does not elect an imbecile who would tear this country apart "
By that definition it seems like it's broken to me then!
This will have such little effect on politics, why bother? A candidate lost with the popular vote only twice, and winning on electorial votes is arguable a legit tactic (in order to keep candidates from ignoring every state but California, Texas, Florida, and New York).
Here are some things that would actually improve the political process:
1. Use a politically neutral algorithm to devise voting districts, to eliminate gerrymandering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymander
2. Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, and let state legislators vote for Senators (in order to eliminate centralization of power on the federal level).
3. Let state legislators vote for the president directly (something similiar to the Swiss Canton system), which once again would eliminate the centralization of power in the hands of the federal government.
4. Eliminate all regulation on political parties and elgibility requirments for elections, that essentially ban all parties but the Democrats and Republicans from elections.
5. Enforce strict term limits to keep career politicians out of government.
6. Eliminate all government funding to political parties.
7. A constitutional balanced budget amendment. An amendment to strictly limit federal taxes. etc.
Can you picture Florida in a replay of 2000 saying, "yeah, well we could vote for the governors brother or we could honor some compact we joined...screw it we're going to vote for W. no matter what."
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I agree completely. While we're at it, let's get rid of the 16th. 1913 is not my favorite year in history.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Sounds like a bad idea to me. The current system works fine. Has for 200 years. With this in place, GW would have won in a landslide in 2004. (instead of just a small percentage.) People say their vote doesnt count nowadays...this would guarantee it.
I was actually thinking the same thing as I was typing it up (in regards to 'Dubya')... especially since he also weakened our world position by overextending our forces, angering our allies, and (arguably) weakening our economic influence (or at least allowed the growth to slow--mostly in terms of science and technology). If we want to stay on the forefront of science/technology and therefore the modern economy, we NEED to keep our resources (e.g. people) inside this country, give more federal grants to research, remove bans on stem cell and other types of research, and actively recruit PhDs of other nationalities (like we used to--now we just give H1-Bs out and send them back home after they've made their money so they can set themselves up as competition to Americans).
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The thing is, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the goverment works and is *supposed* to work. Your vote is designed NOT to vote for the president. Even now you don't have a 1:280000000 voice for the choice; it's an illusion, and one that's not serving you well. That's not meant as a flame; way too much of our population suffers the same illusion.
YOU DON'T VOTE FOR PRESIDENT. That's not screaming; I'm just too lazy to use em tags. States determine how electors are assigned, and it's as simple as that. Your involvement is only indirect.
As said in way too many other posts here, the level of abstraction helps prevent stupid, flavor-of-day ideas from pervading our federal government. All we need is Hugo Chavez to appeal to misguided people at the last minute.
--Jim (me)
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What democracy are you talking about?
(hint: there has yet to be a democracy on planet earth)
To claify my last comment, Democracy failed. Study the end of ancient Greek civilization (as our Founders did).
This is not how the founding fathers set it up. Trust me lawsuits would fly. Either that or you just need some judge to legislate from the bench. Which even that would be hard since this is spelled out already very clear. It's not like it's hidden in there like abortion.
Changing the rules just cause a certain group doesn't like the outcome isn't right. The flyover states are just as equal as the coasts. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT AFTER ALL.
If the Democrats or the Republicans or whoever want to win they only have to do the most important thing. Put up a canidate people will vote for and one that will have a lot of crossover appeal.
there is no needs for it.
It is unfair to states with large populations,allows dispoportionally reflects actual votes, and makes it difficult to detect vote tampering.
Side note:
Vote tampering is serious and should be looked at very harshly, even if the person you voted for wins. I'm look at you republicans.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This seems like a lot of work to fix a relatively minor problem with our election system. Sure, sometimes it happens that the winner of the popular vote does not win the electorial college vote, but those are close races anyway. I can only imagine that people think the electorial college is "more unjust" than it is because a slight minority in the popular vote can appear to be a landslide in the electorial college vote.
But let's go back to 2000 for a minute here. The other factor which I believe is a MUCH BIGGER issue was that Ralph Nader ran. I believe that the 2000 race was close enough that had he not run Gore would have been president. And in this case there is a well known and understood fix that would both have allowed Nader to run and Gore to have won. And if we're going to spend time fixing any part of our voting system, I would rather see it spent implementing this fix.
Specifically one would vote for their 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place (if necessary) candidates. Say 45% vote first for Gore then for Nader. Say another 45% vote first for Bush then for Buchanan. Say a final 10% vote first for Nader then for Gore. All the first place votes are tallied and if there is a 50+% winner you're done. If not, throw out the lower candidates votes (Nader in this case) and move on to those folks 2nd place vote. Under this example, this would give Gore 55% and Bush 45%.
I seem to recall both a Scientific American article on this form of voting that was published near the time of the 2000 election, and I believe that article mentioned that several other countries already use a form of voting like the one I describe above.
What they should do is get rid of the Winner-takes-all laws in the 48 states that have it. This would give the incentive to candidates to listen to their supporters in states where support for the opponent support is strong. The opportunity to get half minus 2 of any larger states' electoral votes will bring candidates to states they normally would avoid.
Also, what the Stanford professor is suggesting is changing a number of states' laws to force Electoral College electors to cast their vote for the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner in just there state. I don't think this would last past the first unpopular popular vote. Imagine New Yorkers' surprise when all of their EC votes go to a Republican, even though 75 percent of them voted for a Democrat.
The Electoral College system was not put in place for reasons that were specific to the time when it was created -- but because of the nature of our country. We have various centers of population that are far higher than other parts of the country (i.e. New York, LA, Chicago, Philly, San Diego, San Jose...) that are consolidated into just a few states. Because of this, it wouldn't take too long for Candidates to realize that if they want to maximize their campaign dollars, they just need to placate those centers of the population and leave the other 95% of the geography of the country and their population behind.
The system used in this country is designed to give the entire population a say, no matter their size or location. Further, it is designed to move slow -- so some fad, no matter how popular, can't damage the country too much.
This also brings up another interesting topic -- How the Hell did this Stanford professor get his job in the first place? Honestly, did he not realize something so obvious? Seriously, it is a basic concept that is repeated time and again throughout the constitution -- it is THE key reason why this government has worked for so long.
Sorry.. I get the point entirely.
My view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is as much a U.S. citizen as the rancher in Wyoming.
Your view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is less of a U.S. citizen than the rancher in Wyoming.
The Electoral college doesn't stop the "mob rule" scenario. It just rewards a different mob. It is the reason that Homeland Security money is being disproportionately given to communities with almost zero chance of being hit with a terrorist attack, at the expense of big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas.
Majority rule is nothing more than mob rule, and if you're NOT in the majority, you end up being screwed.
Really.. so it is preferable that the will of a MINORITY of the people supercede the will of the majority? Think about your statement. You are advocating that a "mob" made up of a minority of the people "screws" the majority. That system is better HOW?
The REAL heart of your argument is this... when the "decision makers" are made up of urban, inner-city folk that aren't like you... it's a mob. When the "decision makers" are made up of bible-thumping, gun-toting, rugged individualists that are a MINORITY of U.S. population, it's "what the founders intended".
Bullshit. If Gore would have gotten 1000 more votes in Florida in 2000, would the resulting government be "mob rule"? How is a government run by a man who CAME IN SECOND NATIONALLY less of a mob?
Prior to 1865, blacks in slave states were considered 3/5 of a person in deciding a state's representation in the Electoral College.
You are advocating for a system that says a California citizen is worth 1/3 of a Wyoming citizen in deciding a state's representation in the Electoral College.
As far as electoral standing goes, today's Californian is worth less than a pre-civil war slave.
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" don't think they anticipated our disparity in state populations. I think the ratio between California and Wyoming is close to 100:1."
s .htm
This sort of thing is easy to check. Look at this page of population stats:
http://merrill.olm.net/mdocs/pop/colonies/colonie
Compare the population of Virginia to Tennessee in 1770. The disparity was 447:1: significantly greater than that between modern California and Wyoming. (I know they didn't count slaves or likely Indians either. But these was the population picture they were looking at at the time: this is what they considered for voting and representation).
Where were you when the voynix came?
actually, the founders were concerned about a "tyrrany of the majority." that voting based solely on population statistics allows the majority group to dominate politics "democratically," even if the result is un-democratic. this, of course, means you do not end up with a democratic government. the electoral college system tries to balance this by taking into account that similarly situated individuals--generally those in the same geographic area--maintain like interests or motivations. thus, while new york or california present large populations they represent in terms of interests much less political diversity. as an aside, it's certainly de mode to bash the founders of this country, but it's a bit overzealous to say that they engaged in the grueling process of government formation merely for personal gain--that the system has held up so long under their design is certainly proof of that. lest we not forget, the united states represents the longest sustained period of government by free people without monarchs or dictators in the history of the world. that's not something we should be willing to change hastily or for short-term personal advantage.
is to have the electors agree to vote in accordance with the popular will of their assigned district. on the one hand, there's an incentive to be somewhat more reasonable about how districts get gerrymandered (a finite supply of partisan voters which would now need to be spread to maximize impact across several districts rather than concentrated in a single district)
States such as Rhode Island, Conneticut, New Hampshire, basically the smaller states would never have ratified the constitution without these provisions.
...peon states should've just been conquered and swallowed up by New York anyway.
These won't really change much. The real problem is that our electoral system gravitates towards having two dominate parties. I believe more people would be better represented by a system that provides Proportional Representation. In such a system the green party would actually have an impact. A system with two dominant parties like what we have now in the USA is much easier to manipulate then a proportional system. That's what we really need, not a winner takes all.
The only states[1] that would want this are the ones that generally vote on the liberal side (e.g., California). Most of the conservative states (e.g., Indiana) would be less represented (in terms of electoral votes per capita) in such a system than in the current one, and the swing states would receive much less attention during the campaigns. States with a strong view of States Rights (e.g., all of the southeastern states) would also be philosophically opposed.
Therefore, only the liberal states, cheifly California and New England, would favor this proposal, and their adoption of it is unlikely to have any significant impact on the outcome of national elections, unless some conservative from California runs again (along the lines of Reagan, but in Reagan's case it wouldn't have mattered since he won by clean landslide anyway, both times; I suppose Schwartzenegger could fit in this category if he were a natural-born citizen). Which raises the question of why California would agree to it, since they'd be giving up their ability to swing things in favor of a local conservative should they choose to do so. Sure, they'd do it if they thought that by doing so they could get all the other states (especially ones like Indiana and Idaho and so forth) to agree to it, but... surely they're not naive enough to think that will happen.
The New England states might go for it anyhow, since few of them individually have enough electoral votes to reliably elect a local conservative, even if they wanted to do that (e.g., someone like Giuliani perhaps), without significant help from the swing states, so it would only matter if the election were _very_ close, which, the last two notwithstanding, on the whole does not happen all that often.
But that's not enough states to make the thing meaningful.
Furthermore, it's not such a very good idea anyway, because it would de-emphasize the desires of the moderate and compromising swing states and encourage get-out-the-vote campaigning, catering to the desires of the extreme ends of the spectrum, which would lead us into increased disunity and ultimately civil war. Do you really want the Dems promising in California that they'll make gay marriage legal nationwide, while the GOP promises in Indiana that they'll end abortion once and for all, eliciting enormous cheers from the crowds? Do you want to find out what people will want to do to eachother when that happens? Sounds like no fun whatsoever to me.
I like the electoral college. It forces the politicians to limit themselves to moderate things, things that they can say where conservative and liberal people both have to live nextdoor to one another, with progressives and moderates across the street, and have learned to limit their expectations as a result (e.g., in Ohio). This wasn't the original intention of the electoral college, but it is a wonderful side effect. Let's keep it.
[1] Note that by "states" here I do not mean "people", but since this is a decision that would be made by the states as units, rather than by individual people, that is the more relevant consideration.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
goes to you for completely missing the point of the post you replied to.
Under the agreements that led to the electoral college system states with lower populations
are SUPPOSED to have a disproportionately larger share of the votes. All states, including
Wyoming and California, joined the union under this system and this is the point that you
failed to understand.
Although the present system could certainly be improved there are very sound reasons why
disproportionately assigning electoral votes is inherently better than a simplistic, nationwide,
majority-rules approach to choosing the president. The logic is based on the understanding
that the majority is not always right and, more importantly, that what makes sense in
California or New York is not necessarily good for Wyoming. The current system gives some
protection to the smaller states so that their unique interests have a chance to be heard
making it more difficult for them to become dumping grounds for the more powerful states.
The current method of distributing electoral college votes is a direct outgrowth of the
Great Compromise which led to the bicameral legislative branch where in one body (the House
of Representatives) states are represented (mostly) according to their populations but
in the other body (the Senate) all states are represented equally regardless of size.
All of the knee-jerk reactionaries who are ignorantly dumping on the way electoral college
votes are distributed need to first think about whether or not they think the basic structure
of the U.S. congress is fair to California, New York, Texas, etc.
IMHO the main problem with the current electoral college system is that almost all states
award their electoral votes to a single candidate. However, each state is allowed to choose
its own system for awarding its electoral votes and very few states will ever be willing to
weaken their own influence in a presidential election by spreading out their electoral votes.
I doubt this will ever change.
Interestingly, I did take a semester of "Utah History" there, and a couple of friends of mine who went to school in Virginia said that there was a state curriculum there as well. Perhaps it's just Maryland... ;)
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Personally, I like the electoral college. I think preventing the masses from actually being in control is a good thing. I wasn't bashing the founding father's, just stating what their history (Free Mason association, various writings of the time, public sentiment BEFORE the propaganda began, etc.) leads me to believe. Let's not be deceived by what their actual motivations were--each of them took a place of power after the dust had cleared. They also all saved money on taxes ;-)
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The electoral college was never intended to be a convenience, as so many people seem to think. There was never an issue with collecting the popular vote and comparing the totals. We have an electoral college for the same reason we have a bicameral legislature. Smaller states wanted a system in which each state would have an equal number of electoral votes; larger states wanted a popular vote. In order to get all of the states to agree to join the union, we had to reach a compromise.
This compromise has not changed. To remove it is tantamount to removing state sovereignty, which would be a shame. State sovereignty has been essential to the social advancement in this country. If people in state A don't like something (eg. gambling), its citizens can still go to state B (Nevada) and do it. This cuts down on unwanted activity in State A, while still making it available for the people who want it.
The bottom line is that we do not live in one large homogenous state (in spite of recent efforts by fools and crooks), nor should we.
And by the way, to all those people who have jumped on the anti-electoral bandwagon because they are sore losers: Gore did not have a majority of the vote, he had a plurality. If we did have a purely popular vote (not the half-assed system currently proposed), it would have gone to a vote in the House, and Bush still would have won. Furthermore, Clinton did not have a majority in either of his elections, and could have possibly lost either or both of those; I don't remember the statistics of the House at that time.
One final note- the first time a state's electoral votes went to anyone who lost that state's popular vote would be the last time that state participated in this "alliance."
And really, all that matters in this equation is whether or not the needs of the people are being met by the government which they elect. Hare-brained, trendy political or economic theories mean exactly jack shit to the rest of us.
Current political conditions thrive because the parties play on apathy to drive their oppositions' fans away from the polls. With mandatory voting, everyone would at least have to spend the 20 minutes doing their civic duty and I warrant a good many of them would do their homework accordingly. Along with mandatory voting, let's also have mandatory national holidays on the dates of national elections. Like any other important project in life, if the citizens of a democracy don't bother to invest time in the running of their government they shouldn't expect anything but a sloppy result. Which is what we have.
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that porportional representation is worse because "only" 80-90% of the population would get attention compared to the electoral college where 20%(at best) gets noticed in a campaign.
People are going to get ignored no matter the system, but it's clear which scenario is better here.
...does not specifically grant the right of the people to vote in Presidential elections. It amazes me that citizens know so little about the civics of their own country. According to the constitution, state legislatures choose electors to vote for the president. Not that it would happen, but it is contitutionally legal for a state to pick up a bunch of hookers of the street to be their electors. The way it is setup now in most states is that the candidate with the most popular votes gets all of the elector's votes. A few states split the electoral votes based on % of popular vote. I see no reason that the Electoral college should be changed. Every election cycle the media trots out some whacko that wants to change the status quo because "it will better represent the people's wishes." The premise that this country is a democracy is a fallacy and those who believe it should be banned from voting for life. If you want to make this country better, we need to restrict voting to the more intelligent and educated and not pander to those looking for free handouts.
Seriously though, most of the highly moderated comments here seem to be of the position that "little" states deserve more representation than "big" states. Bullshit. No person should receive more representation than another. Unfortunately the founding fathers' opinions on this matter were severely flawed; if you'll recall, they set up a system allowed slavery, they defined slaves as 3/5 of a person, and they didn't allow women to vote. There's no sense in saying we should keep the Electoral College because it's "what the founding fathers intended." Basically, the founding fathers intended for the Electoral College system to give wealthy landowners more say than the working class. I for one think it's time to do something about that.
For those who say "but California and New York could just swing the election", I think you're forgetting that Texas balances out California and Florida + Ohio generally balances out New York. Besides, under the current system, it is theoretically possible for some billionaire to pay to move a million of his nearest and dearest into an underpopulated state. How much would it cost to buy Wyoming's electoral votes? Probably less than $50 million. That type of power play would not be possible in winner takes all election.
(*) Astute readers will note that my subject is a reference to our shameful past when our great great grandparents tried to prevent former slaves from voting.
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The world is made by those who show up for the job.
...is for each state to split their electoral votes along the closest percentages of that state's popular vote. That way the smaller states get their inflated (per person) influence in the election, but the electoral vote would much more closely match the popular vote.
As it ensures a Republican mandate, forever. Let's see how it plays out: The blue-blooded New York and California split their votes while the Rectangle States (which already have disproportionate amount of power to their population) all stay winner-take-all, and bright cherry red at that. The spoilers here would be Texas and sometimes Florida, both red states, but bluer than one would think (Florida is a fence-sitter, Texas has been known to swing wildly) but it still wouldn't be enough to offset the gross imbalance of power that would shift to Rectangle Land remaining winnner-take-all.
Basically, unless this proposal is implemented for all states simultaneously (requiring a constitutional amendment), it gerrymanders the entire goddam nation.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
In other words, it has a snowball-in-hell chance of becoming reality.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... because the people who live in small/medium-sized states, the ones with all the power, would never go for it.
Wow... that took some smarts.
Instead, give is a Preferential Ballot system where, instead of just casting your vote for the lessor of the two evils (lest you throw your vote away otherwise), you cast your precious vote for a First Choice, a Second Choice, a Third Choice ... down as far as you care to vote. Then, if you First Choice is the lowest vote getting candidate, you vote automatically gets cast for you second choice, and this continues until there is a popular vote winner. In Ireland this is called the Instant Runoff system. Computers make this type of vote tallying a snap.
If we're going to fix this system, let's just bite the bullet and fix it right from the beginning.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
No, instead campaining will just never happen in lesser populated states. Why would a candidate spend the same amount of time, money, and effort going to Wyoming or Montana, when they can get 10 times as many people by going to just New York.
The electoral college system forces candidates to seek support from the entire nation, rather than just California, and a few east coast states. Yes, there are problems that one side typically goes for votes in one part of the nation, and the other side goes for votes in another part of the nation, with the outcome being decided in "swing" states. But that marginalizes groups much less than removing the electoral college would.
Please ignore any obvious problems in this post.
If every American can pay income tax using the same form then they can certainly vote in the same manner. I understand that the actual ballot will contain different names, parties and referendum/state level questions depending upon the district, but that doesn't mean election officials, ballots, voting machines, operation and execution of the election can't operate under nation wide standardized rules and regulations under an independent federal agency. It is in part a FEDERAL election after all. Walking into a polling station in Nebraska should involve exactly the same mechanisms as voting in Kentucky, or Vermont or wherever. *sigh* I know what I am suggesting is probably unrealistic, but I really don't understand how Americans tolerate an election system where every county, never mind state, seems to do things there own way. Maybe election reform is something better left to the individual states and I do understand that some states are much better than others at running their own elections.
As far as voting machines go, what did they do before eleciton machines? Ten times the population also means they have ten times as many people to count the votes. I don't think what we accomplish in Canada on election night is really all that incredible (no witicism intended) having worked at a polling station in the last federal election (and you meet a lot smart, hot girls!).
Math Against Tyranny
I recommend this article for anyone who has a strong opinion about the Electoral College either way. This article (written in 1996) gives a sound argument for keeping the Electoral College and not going to a pure, popular vote. Essentially, as quoted from the article, "...our electoral system increases voters' power."
Henceforth, all U.S. Presidents shall be decided by Slashdot Poll.
Constitution, shmusion; it's "just a piece of paper".
I for one welcome Cowboy Neal, 44th President of the United States.
(If Neal is unavailable, can we pick Sir Francis Drake instead? Just *imagine* his response to the **AA and their endless allegations of "piracy")
barack to the future?
Of course, now you'll have to count all the absentee ballots every election.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The entire reason the Electoral College was created was to prevent this exact nonsense. The college prevents high population states from deciding elections. Since different regions of the nation have different needs and concerns, the Founding Fathers built this process. It protects states with smaller populations from having too small a voice in determining national policy.
To adopt this policy essentially negates the college and allows New York and California to influance elections to a massive degree. I don't know about the rest of you, but the idea of those two states deciding our elections scares the cornflakes out of me.
I don't like the idea of this. Why? The popular vote can be even more inaccurate then a electoral College. The compact idea will give voters LESS power....not more. Here's my idea:
Expand the idea of the electoral college. Let me explain....I live in Ohio. Ohio was VERY close to 50/50 in the last election in the popular vote. What I propose is states that exceed X amount of population be devided in half (just for the elctoral college). So instead of the whole of the Electoral Votes going to one or the other, you could split the state in the middle....East Ohio gives vote for Democract and West Ohio votes for the republican....
The sad side is most of this debacle of the Electoral College is not really controlled by the Federal goverment....State Law is what guides how the electoral vote is given. The states themselves would have to make laws that would make this possible as well as the Federal Government.
Gorkman
It took 620 pages to basically say "Let's just get together and do what the popular vote said."?
Not only is he long-winded, he's naive to think this could ever work.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
We've got the technology to count every vote in the country. That's the way it SHOULD work. Let the people decide. Who cares if a small town doesn't have enough pull? We want the big cities making political decisions anyway since that's where most civilized and cultured people tend to live. Cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, for example, should decide the direction of the country. Not the wankers who live in Peanutville, KY. I'm sure you'd see a lot more progressive changes if every vote counted as the city slickers would outnumber the rednecks.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
No, you miss the point completely. The reason the the NYers vote counts 'less' is so that rancher out in the midwest doesn't have HIS rights trampled by the majority. Majority rule is nothing more than mob rule, and if you're NOT in the majority, you end up being screwed. That's EXACTLY why the electoral system is in place, to stop mob rule.
Sorry.. I get the point entirely.
My view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is as much a U.S. citizen as the rancher in Wyoming.
Your view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is less of a U.S. citizen than the rancher in Wyoming.
Have you ever heard of the phrase "the tyranny of the majority"?
In the 18th century, the majority believed it was okay to own other people. In the 19th century the majority believed it
was okay to deny women the right to vote. In most of the 20th century the majority believed that looking different made
you a second class citizen. And today there's a majority that believe that people of the same gender shouldn't enjoy the
benefits and protections of marriage.
Sometimes it's worthwhile to place a limit on the power of the majority...
It's a workaround.
Badass Resumes
My view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is as much a U.S. citizen as the rancher in Wyoming.
Your view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is less of a U.S. citizen than the rancher in Wyoming.
Oh, bullcrap. You're forgetting (or never knew) one thing: you've never voted in a U.S. Presidential election in your life. Neither have I. Neither has anyone who has not been a chosen representative to their state's electoral college.
What we vote for isn't the guy running for President, not really. What we're really voting for is which group of electors will be sent to vote on our state's behalf. This is why you can not compare the "vote percentage" from one state to another. New Yorkers select who votes for President on behalf of New York. Wyomingians (?) select who votes for President on behalf of Wyoming.
It would be just as wrong to complain that New Yorkers get more impact in a Presidential election because their state sends more electors to the real election.
I believe that Gerrymandering persists because voters simply don't know the outline of their districts. If electoral votes are awarded by district then severely Gerrymandered districts will stick out and voters will address the issue of Gerrymandering on its own merits.
Just FYI, if you look at a map of red vs. blue states, you'll see that those middle city schmucks more often than not vote democratic. And the democrats do a lot better with the environment than the republicans do. "Healthy Forests Initiatve" my ass.
The inner city merchnat in the Bronx is just as much a citizen of New York as the rancher is a citizen of Wyoming. In the Senate, Wyoming and Ney York have equal representation. In the House, the two men have equal representation. The executive splits the difference.
Are you trying to argue that the system should be fair? Why should that be the goal? We want the system most likely to make America successful, not to appease someone's sense of fairness.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This is already possible -- in fact, it is already done in Maine and Nebraska. Each individual state decides for itself how its electoral votes are spent. In Maine and Nebraska, the winner of the congressional district receives one electoral vote; the two remaining votes are given to the plurality winner of the whole state. This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though neither has ever actually split its electoral votes.
So if you like this system, lobby your state government to enact something like it, not the federal government.
Repeat after me: "The United States of America is not a democracy. It is a representative republic."
The Electoral College exists for the same reason (and to the same benefit) that Congress exists. Put unlimited legislative power directly in the hands of the people, and they will make irresponsible choices, primarily in the redistribution of wealth. The Framers knew this, and have protected us from a fundamental human weakness.
Can you imagine what would happen if the people of the United States of America voted on laws directly? Just look at California's numerous approved Propositions, and then expand to a national scope.
An any sufficiently large society, pure democracy eventually leads to ruin.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Wait! Before you type your opinion, is it already here?
Your abstraction doesn't seem to have the magical powers you ascribe: it sure as hell failed to stop neoconservatism.
This proposal assumes that electing the President by a more "democratic" process is a good thing. Have the authors not read The Federalist? How do they reply to the reasons for the present system -- which is already sufficiently subverted so as to allow all the problems the Electoral College was supposed to avoid in the first place.
The better solution would be to return to using the system as designed. But there's very little chance of that as long as "democratic" retains its incantatory power.
And the brethren went away edified.
Such a system would have to be supported by one or both of the two parties. But it benefits a third. Care to place a bet on the chances of that happening?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Honestly, I don't get the "reform the electoral college" crap all the time.
Let me explain it to you. People who want reform are usually from the large urban centers. They don't like that it's not "one man, one vote", because they know that in such a contest, whoever can cater to the urban centers the most will almost always win.
People who already have power in the large urban centers like this idea, because they're already catering to those urban centers, and they like the idea of having more power.
Professors write books like this to curvy favor with those in power, who reward the professor with grants, book royalites, etc. The way all ruling elites have rewarded fawning intellectuals who provide excuses why the way the elites want things to be is the way they should be.
Of course, people in urban centers also tend to forget that the people in rural areas are the ones who provide them with food, most of their water, and tend to have guns. And that history shows when people no longer feel like they're part of a system, they tend to want to leave it or change it, rather vigorously.
City dwellers: you need the farmer growing wheat and corn, the rancher raising cattle, the dairy owner providing milk and cheese. None of them need a damn one of you.
Why put duct tape on the space shuttle?
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
We want the system most likely to make America successful, not to appease someone's sense of fairness.
Actually, I think the reason America was created was to create a land of fairness. Perhaps you have heard this before:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
What ideal do you hold as good, if not fairness? What possible justification can you have for making one person's vote be worth less than another's?
But I don't see this at all - how are state divisions meant to prevent mob rule?
From my direction, the opposite seems true - state divisions encourage mob rule. This is because to have a majority totally mask the wishes of a minority, it is not neccessary in a states system to swamp the entire national voting structure, but merely to achieve a local advantage. Likewise, the states system effectively suppresses low density, geographically homogeneous groupings because they will never be able to achieve an ascendency in any single division.
Electoral college systems have nothing to do with decentralising power - rather, it is proportional representation systems that do so, because all individuals will have equal power. What electoral college systems do is to provide local centers of power at the time of an election - that is all. Nothing says that you can't have a system that electorally disregards state divisions, but allows states autonomy at a local level in terms of legislation.
Even if you believe that rural areas should be given greater emphasis than urban areas, the electoral college system is a bad way to achieve that result. If you want that, why not just apply a multiplier to votes recieved from rural regions? In such a case, PR would be capable of more fine-grained control, since you would not have to unfairly reduce the power of certain rural populations just because their state also contains a city. And if we categorise by such objective means, we will be able to have an electoral system that adjusts somewhat automatically, without triggering the partisan fighting that crude manual decisions involve.
You're completely off base in re: the EC system. Actually, I suspect you are way off base in re: the Founding Fathers' thoughts on representative government. It's not "one man one vote" and it's not "don't let the little guy get trampled" -- it's "each state has electory power proportional to their population."
The tyranny of the masses or 'mob rule' is a problem -- but it's to be fixed at the state level, not the national. The reason NYers' votes count less is not to prevent the trampling of rights of the rancher -- it's because the distribution of electoral votes have been skewed. The original intent was to ensure elective power is relative to population. This is a direct result of the 2-votes-per-state in the Senate, not that there is anything wrong with that.
The root problem with the tyranny of the majority wrt the Executive would disappear if the Executive were as limited in power as was originally construed. You can't have a tyranny of the majority if there is not the possibility of electing someone with the power to be a tyrant.
I firmly believe the bicameral Congress holds the key to preventing the tyranny of the majority -- that's why we have non-proportional voting power in the Senate. Now if only we could put the chains back on the Executive Branch...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
2. The elctorial college is all about limiting the effect of fraud on the US. Lets say instead of a few dicey votes in Florida - you have the ability to have the dead rise to vote in Chicago. Well, the damage that the chicago precinct can do to the national election is limited by the number of electorial votes in Illinois. So without the college - there would be a huge increase in vote fraud in places that you can control (basically - Illinois tends to vote democrat anyway, why have the democrats that run the election polls in chicago rig for more democrats to vote if it isn't going to do any good)
3. It balances the nation... Want to see a candidate not leave Florida, Texas, California, New York, and Illinios ??? Just use this system. Why even bother to campaign in Iowa - it just doesn't matter as a state population wise.
4. It really doesn't make a difference anyway. In about 200 years (50+ elections) there have been only 2 times the winner of the popular vote hadn't won in the electorial college that I am aware of... That is a 4% "failure" rate. Overall it just doesn't matter to fix 4% to open the country up to the problems above.
5. Frankly, despite what people say... Who is president for 4 years really just doesn't matter. The president has rather limited power. You want to complain about the spending explotion in this country (the deficit) talk to congress. You want to talk about the war in Iraq - talk to congress. You want to complain about most things - talk to congress. If that doesn't work - vote the idiot out in 4 years.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
- Communism
- Democracy
- Fascism
- Anarchy
All four of these are perfect forms of government. All four of these are impossible to correctly implement with human beings. We are not a democracy. If you want your vote for the [INSERT FRINGE SINGLE ISSUE PARTY] party to count, move to the UK.FanFictionRecs.net
So, instead of a constitutional amendment, which which would require the approval of Congress and 34 states, he proposes to implement this through a compact approved by Congress and all 50 states?
My view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is as much a U.S. citizen as the rancher in Wyoming.
Your view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is less of a U.S. citizen than the rancher in Wyoming.
No, they are both U.S. citizens, and the federal government equally denies both the ability to directly elect the President. Let's look at this another way...
Your view: Wyoming is a less important state than New York. (Presumably because it has fewer people)
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
To answer your second question, why should I not have the right to do something because a majority of you on a whim decide to outlaw it? Don't think of things like murder (which no one has the righ to do), think of things like not being a Christian.
So, what if a state decides to do it? I find it more comfortable thinking that a national majority of several million would be required to make such a change, instead of a local majority of a few thousand.
It may be easier to vote out my governer, but it is also easier to vote in a bastard in his place. I, for one, want a government that is restrained by the inertia of having to persuade a nation. I don't want a state government that can implement horrific policies at the drop of a hat.
Well, if you want more people to vote you could make it a holiday so that people have nothing else to do except go vote. There even happens to be a nice holiday on November 11 we could either move to the second Tuesday or we could hold elections then.
There are many states that have the minimum number of representatives because they have a small population.
To agree to vote with the majority popular vote would in effect diminish their representation. In otherwords, right now they have more power then their population would dictate.
They would be stupid to agree!
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
Right now, if you are, say Wyoming, with less than a half million inhabitants, you have three electoral votes. By contrast, California as 55 electoral votes for almost 34 million residents. That means each resident of Wyoming gets 6 x 10-6 votes, as opposed to CA residents who get about 1.6 x 10-6. In other words your presidential vote counts three times as much. Which makes you a bargain for media spending and pork barrel favors.
The important thing to keep in mind is this: The electoral college (and ) was set up this way on purpose. Like the structure of congress, where Wyoming counts as much in the Senate as California, the idea was to shift power away from the big states to the small states. Any individual big state is more powerful than any individual small state, but the small states can band together and have a disproportionate impact.
So, you will never get a compact that matters, because the small states will lose the advantage given to them by the Constitution. Without their cooperation, the compact is meaningless.
If I were to reform the EC, I'd do it two ways.
The first way is that I would divide each state's votes proportionally. I happen to live in Massachusetts, one of the bluest states in the nation. If I were, in a moment of insanity, to decide to vote for a Republican presidential candidate, it wouldn't make a damned bit of difference. In fact all the Republicans in my state are disenfranchised when it comes to the actual presidential election. Furthermore, one of the reasons that the Republican party remains relatively weak in my state is that on the biggest political events of every decade, the two times we elect a president, they're on the sidelines, which is kind of like trying to build up a college football program without playing in any bowl games.
Secondly, I would not have the number of electoral votes determined by the state's population. Instead, I'd start with the base two electors (corresponding the the two senate seats every state gets), and then have the variable number of seats assigned based on the number of people who actually bother to vote. If Wisconsin turn out is twice as high as New Jersey, then sorry New Jersey.
The point of these changes would be to encourage politicians to get out and (figuratively speaking) speak to as many Americans in as many places as possible. To ensure nobody is ignored because their state is in the bag, or a hopeless case. And to punish the electoral strategy of spreading disgust and illusionment as a way of discouraging swing voters from participating in what otherwise would be competitive states.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But the Wyomingite has just as much right to be a Wyomingite as the New Yorker has to be a New Yorker, as well. If the minority Wyomingite didn't have some built-in "hedge", the USA would essentially be (from his POV) just New York++. What benefit is it to Wyoming to be in a country like that, where their identity is squashed, and "the majority" sees them as little more than a resource to be tapped since they can't compete on the basis of sheer numbers? Small states would never join a Union like that - why should they?
Any marriage must be a union of equals, else it won't work. But the states aren't equal. The EC, and the bicameral design of Congress, are attempts to work with both ideals. They may be slightly clumsy attempts, but that's all we have. The alternative is to have tiers, with Class AAA United States, Class AA United States, and Class A United States, something like school sports.
Constitutionally Correct
Another reason is there is no such thing as popular vote. Popular vote is a myth created by TV news and political pundants. There is your state vote for who you want your state to nominate and vote for president.
Yet another is logisticaly this would create power centers clustering around large population states, and this would dissenfranchise rural voters.
Yet another is Senate Nullification. If the states were to anger the Senate, the Senate doesn't have to accept the Electoral votes if they consider them tainted. Imagine the Lawsuites flying should the Senate deny such a candidate based on this system.
The electoral college system guarantees that the citizens of lightly-populated states like Wyoming, Montana, Deleware, and the Dakotas have a greater percentage say in who is the President than a citizen of California, Florida, New York, or Texas has.
You need to repeat American History. Any system that will spilt the popular vote will never pass the smaller states. You think that is unfair. Nope. We of the smaller states think that it would be unfair that all future presidents would be from California, Florida, New York, or Texas and ignore the rest of the country. You know the best that I could come up with is another voting block on the election form on if your state should split their electoral votes or combine them. That would make things very exciting. It would force future Presidents to visit smaller states because you'd never know if those states will vote together or be split. The big fun thing would be the effect on the large states of California, Florida, New York, or Texas. I'd bet that they'd always split their votes rather than combining them, which would actually make your vote count for less if the smaller states stuck together rather than splitting their votes.
The really sweet thing about this plan is that there will still be people complaining about it. Just like if G.W. Bush didn't win, SNL would still make fun of the president, and you would overhear people saying "the president sucks".
From Article I, Section 10:
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
There is no way to protect from a "tyranny of the majority" that does not bring about the problem of a tyranny of the minority.
In other words, if 51% of a state's voters choose Candidate A, but the nationwide vote is 51% for Candidate B, then the state electorates go against their voters. Geez, talk about emasculating states!
The Electoral College is there for a reason. This proposal would coerce small states into doing what the big states tell it to.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
If a state can decide to cast its electoral votes not either for the winner in that state, nor in a way proportional to the votes in that state, then the state could equally well decide to simply cast its votes to whichever member of the Bush family is running that year. If enough states consent to do this, we can have the monarchy that evidently a majority of Americans desire, without having to abolish the rituals of voting.
It's a win-win.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The genius of the proposal is that it gets around the collective action problems raised by alternatives like the one you sketch out. It is not in the interest of an individual state to divide its electoral votes proportionally, since it can lower the stakes of the election. Nor is it usually in the interest of the state legislators who are in the majority in a state government to vote for such a proposal, because it will probably reduce the electoral votes that go towards presidential candidates from thier party (ie if the state legislature is controlled by Democrats, the state's electoral votes probably usually go to democrats). The nice thing about this compact is it doesn't go into effect until there are enough states to get an electoral college majority, so there's no cost to states signing on in the meantime. The proposal works less to shift electoral power from less populous to more populous states (recall that the popular vote winner has won all but two American presidential elections, and the Seante ain't going anywhere) than from "competitive" to "non-competitive" states. Since (almost) all states are winner-take-all and no individual state has an incentive to granularize its electors, presidential candidates from both parties are free to all but ignore the particular interests of states where one candidate or the other has a sufficiently large lead. The current system distorts policy by overemphasizing interest groups and issues that are important to the voters who happen to live in states with roughly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats.
This is npt the reason for the leectoral colleg at all,a nd the whole mob rule thing is so out of context as to be funny.
You had, basically, two sides.
1)The Representitves vote with no input from the people
2)the people voted directly.
The primary argument for representitives voting was that many voters would not even know who was running.
The mid west did not exist a the time, therefore they were not taking them into account, not was it to help balance things.
Those deception are played by whoever stands the most to get by having mid-west states vote for them.
The arguuments for only representitves getting a vote are all dead.'
Hence that side of the argument is dead, ergo the compromisse should be dead.
But you keep riding the republican train where they will do your thinking for you.
Remember - "reality has a well-known liberal bias." - STEPHEN COLBERT
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Because many of the low-population states were US territories before they became states. They were already part of the US, they weren't going anywhere else, and statehood would be an improvement even without the heavy overrepresentation they enjoy in the federal government.
I think the proposed system is far too simplistic and falls into one of the main problems with the popular vote. It is tyranny by majority all over again. Instead of focusing campaign advertising on populous states, the new era of campaigning will focus in on populous cities. Instead of New York and California it will be New York City and LA.
A better way would be to use a system inspired by the way seats are assigned for the two houses of congress. Lets say you have 2 points for each state. The winner of the popular vote in that state gets 2 points. Or 1 point for the District of Columbia. Added up there are 101 points. Then take that number again, 101, and divide it according to the national popular vote.
So lets say Candidate "A" wins 30 states with 45% of the national popular vote. That is (30 * 2) + 45.45 = 105.45 points. Candidate "B" wins 20 states and DC with 55% of the national popular vote. That is (20 * 2) + 1 + 55.55 = 96.55 points. Candidate "A" wins the presidential election.
This candidates not only have to appeal to the most people, but they also have to represent the interests of a broad constituency across as many states as possible.
True, it doesn't require a constitutional amendment... it requires about 20 constitutional amendments... to about 20 constitutions.
What Florida taught us is that the Electoral College has 50 vulnerabilities to small errors. It's a lot harder to have 50 errors change the popular vote for over 100,000,000 voters.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Why do you feel the need to say rancher? I guess those stupid red necks don't deserve representation. How dare they tell some enlightened city slicker how to live, they only have to worry about tending horses. Oh such simple folk.
The electoral college guarantees a president exceptable to the majority of states (nearly) not the majority of citizens. The United States is a union of states and each state has representation in the college proportional to its population size.
Now, I bet if the 2000 election was reversed with Gore winning the college but not the popular vote we wouldn't be having this discussion. This conversation only started when the left couldn't stand losing. They always site the following reasons that they lose:
1. stupidity of the voters (they don't understand the platform, butterfly ballots)
2. the college
Sure, the electoral college does a decent job of preventing candidates from only paying attention to (and thus, if elected, only working for) CA, NY, TX and FL, but that doesn't mean that small states are getting their due. It's the swing states that get all the attention. The likelihood that a state will vote one way or another is analyzed to death, and candidates try to maximize the impact of their resources by only focusing on a handful of close races. So in the end, it still winds up being the case that a small number of states are pandered to, only they tend to be medium-large states rather than largest. If half a dozen states are favored either way as far as federal resources are concerned, I'd rather see it benefit a larger population. If I got to choose between keeping the current system or scrapping the electoral college, I'd grudgingly go with the latter. But I'd probably want to take a shower after.
What people aren't taught properly in our public school system is that the STATES elect the president of the republic and the populace elect those in their states and those to represent them in the republic government over the states. The electorial college was a compromise for the smallest and largest states. Many plans were proposed before the existing system was agreed upon. Oddly enough, not one asked for the populace vote. One was the congress voted for president, one was each state got one vote (as each was an equal member of the republic), etc. The largest states complained that the likes of Rhode Island would have too much voting power and the smallest states argued that because the house of representatives would have more votes for a president the largest states would dominate. The compromise was the electorial college. The states are democracies and the republic has parliamentary rules (which are democratic). The republic itself is not a democracy, although the congress is democratically elected. This is why the President appoints judges and the congress says yes or no, why the cabinet is appointed by the President and the congress says yes or no etc. Everything at the federal level is a republic, not a full fledged democracy. This why the three branches were created, so one could not be ruled by the other.
So, ruining the electorial college and identity of the federal from the state would pretty much be a stupid thing. You might as well get rid of the state governments and turn it all over to the federal (liberals would love that). That would essentially make a smaller amount of politicians too powerful. No, we need the states to govern themselves, thank you very much. Keep the electorial college. Just because millions in New York and San Francisco want something, doesn't mean thousands in Oklahoma must be forced to accept it. Each state has different interests and no matter the population, one would always be a bully over the other states.
the candidates with the most votes should win.
You can create mathematical scenarios where almost any outcome wins, depending on the number of candidates and distribution of votes.
The electoral system (as indicated by previous posts) was created by an intelelctual elite who didn't entirely trust pure democracy. It has several advantages:
-You voted for an elector, who then weighed the candidates and picked whomever was his best choice.
-It was weighted to smaller states (like the senate) to prevent a few larger states from "sweeping" the vote.
-it also prevented a larger region or voting block from dominating simply on size. You needed 50%; just getting 30% when the rest were getting 20% or less didn't win.
-Because nobody was likely to be popular enough to win 50%, (except a major war hero like Washington) they expected most elections to pass to Congress; the electors just picked the top contenders. Remember, originally the second-most popular candidate would likely end up as Vice-President.
After all, what were the odds in the 1700's that anyone would get a reputation so good in 13 widely-spread and isolated colonies, to sweep the college? Unfortunately, party politics came along and "committed" electors became the norm, wrecking a carefully crafted system. The "vice president" ticket came because of an electoral college so disciplined, they forgot to vote one less for VP than president, so the tie threw the election to Congress for the only time.
The "ideal" would be to have each district provide an elector, and the 2 electors for senator dependent on the overall state outcome. This sways the balance back from the big states and their "winner-take-all' to the little states. But, there are so many little states that the odds are nobody will sweep them all and the gain from each small state taken is not as enormous as making Florida or Ohio or Pennsylvania a tie-breaker. Those midwest "blue" states offset the New England "Reds", and California, and New York. Candidates will have to campaign everywhere, not just the giant swing states.
Unfortunately this won't happen until all the states agree at the same time to follow the same system. And, if it does become a debate, watch for every recent election to be recast to show why this is a bad idea for either party... But, it's a good idea for democracy.
First, you do realize that the body that actually makes the laws - Congress - isn't proportional to population either? Why aren't you crowing to fix that as well? There are 250,000 Wyoming representatives to each Senator, and 500,000 to each Representative - California has 600,000 to each Representative, and 15 million to each Senator. Montana gets royally screwed: they've got only 1 representative per 900,000 people, which means Wyoming voters count nearly twice Montana voters!
The Senate is fixed (and unamendable) by the Constitution - the House of Representatives is not, though. And if any other system is flawed, we really should be abolishing states altogether.
The Electoral college doesn't stop the "mob rule" scenario. It just rewards a different mob.
You're wrong. The Electoral College system has one huge advantage over the "one vote per person" system. It's flexible. One vote per person is not.
Remember that the House of Representatives has an adjustable number of people in it: it hasn't been expanded since 1911, and all it takes is a congressional resolution to do so.
Taken to an extreme, if the House had 1 member for each person in the US, the Electoral College would essentially be "one vote per person". The difference that the two extra votes from the Senate give would be negligible. Thus, the Electoral College system (and, in fact, our entire government) has a nice, easily adjustable system that goes from "Democracy-like" to "Republic-like". Going purely to a popular-vote based system shoves that slider all the way to "Democracy-like".
If, right now, the Electoral College is favoring "mob rule" by smaller population states, that just tells you that the size of the House should be increased (which it should be). The ideal goal is a balance between the two.
I don't get it. You're crowing to change a system that fundamentally mimics the legislature. Why aren't you crowing to fix the legislature as well? Why is a democratic President so much more important than a democratic legislature?
You are advocating for a system that says a California citizen is worth 1/3 of a Wyoming citizen in deciding a state's representation in the Electoral College.
See above. Even if you fix this, a Montana citizen still has 1/2 the representation that a Wyoming citizen does in the House of Representatives, and a California citizen has a minimal representation in the Senate compared to a Wyoming citizen as well.
Why is this okay, but the Electoral College is not? Your argument essentially undermines the entire foundation of the country.
Which is fine, mind you! It might be the way to go - but it's not the way that the founders of this country wanted to go.
Have the state's electoral votes represent the way the state voted, instead of a "plurality take all" mentality. Since the electoral votes are based on Congressional Districts, do something like this. If a candidate wins the plurality of a Congressional District for a state, that candidate wins the corresponding electoral vote. If a candidate wins the majority of the votes of a state, then that candidate wins the two electoral votes corresponding to the state's Senators. If no candidate wins the majority of votes for a state, the two electoral votes are then split between each of the two highest vote getters.
The drawback is that this assumes a two-party system. A strong third party could potentially mean no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes. This is why the electoral college has evolved the way it has. The other problem would be that a close election, like 2000, would not have a recount limited to a single state, depending on how close the races were in the individual districts throughout the country. More turmoil, but then again, potentially more fair, depending on your point of view.
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
Note - I am replying to a whole bunch of posts in general in this one not just yours - I don't want you to get the impression that I am putting words in your mouth.
Many of the original intentions of the founders no longer apply to the extent that they once did.
Yes, the founders originally intended to create a system that balanced direct democracy and rule by the Gentry class. Back then, the only people with any education to speak of were the wealthy. The only ones with opportunities to apprentice into government were the wealthy. Therefore they were the only ones fit to govern. That is no longer the case - we have universal (if mediocre) primary education, and anyone who shows merit and initiative can get an excellent university education, regardless of their class. While most politicians continue to come from political families, many others have risen from low beginnings, and have served the country well. The balances meant to keep the gentry in power are no longer necessary or beneficial.
Yes, the founders intended for the states to have more influence on the selection of national leaders, but they also intended for the scope of the national government to only deal with large inter-state issues that the individual states could not. Things like interstate and international trade, treaties, and national defense. The federal government has greatly exceeded those original aims, and now passes laws, collects taxes, and runs social programs that directly affects the individuals in our country, rather than indirectly though the states. Therefore, the citizens should have direct representation in the federal government, rather than indirectly through the states.
Yes, the founders originally created a system where representation was dolled out according geo-political boundaries, both in national government, within the individual states. But at the time, opinions and interests were very much clustered geographically. The difficulty of travel, the tightly knit communities, and the fact that the economies of each location was determined largely by it's natural resources, led to this. Again, this is something that no longer applies to the extent that it did when our country was founded. Now opinions on national issues vary as much between members of a community as they do between communities, and only the most popular opinions from each location get any representation in congress. Geographic representation used to promote a wide spectrum of views in congress, now it marginalizes them.
I agree that it is still useful for the states to have some degree of representation. My opinion is that for presidential elections the states should each have two votes corresponding to the two Senators, while the votes corresponding to Representatives should be determined by the popular vote. This would keep the current feature of smaller states having more influence than they otherwise would, while getting rid of the winner-takes-all garbage that turns elections into a political game and joke, rather than an accurate reflection of the will of the people.
I would even go so far to entertain the idea of electing the lower house itself according to some system of proportional representation, rather than districting. Why does my small arbitrarily (or gerrymandered) district need its own representative in Congress of United States of America? Really, now - are the views of its 0.25% of the population that much more different from the rest of the state to merit its own representation in the federal government? And yet a political party which holds over 10% of the registered votes - that represents views held by at least 10% of the population - by cannot get a single seat out of the 435 in the House.
Enacting proportional representation in the House, while maintaining state election(of populus or legislature) in the Senate, would preserve a balance between state (locally clustered) interests, and popular (distributed) interests. It would also break up the current two party syst
This is bullshit. The method by which minority peoples' rights are protected is the law and the bill of rights/constitution. The President can (and should) still be elected by the majority of people - other institutions take care of the rights.
Well said. It seems like the Electoral College is also a great way of keeping the genaral population from being completely whipped into a hateful frenzy, distracted by a charismatic sociopath, and voting for him en mass. This would have the potential to destroy a direct vote democracy in the long run.
Yes, there is. An adjustable system that if taken to either extreme allows the "tyranny of the minority" and the "tyranny of the majority". Then, you just place the adjustable system right in the middle of the two, and you've got a system that's equally balanced between the two. And hey, if you want to be real smart, you set up two systems, one that's slightly dominated by the minority, and one that's slightly dominated by the majority, and check the two against each other, so that if the majority starts to dominate too heavily in one system, the other can reign it back, and vice versa.
Oh, wait. That's what we have.
If you think that the major population centers aren't getting a fair enough shake, argue for an increase in the size of the House of Representatives. That's what it's there for.
If this is really the way we want to go, then we should eliminate state government, replace it with regional governors to attend to regional issues, and stop pretending that states matter.
I wonder if the US did that, if the resulting press conference would sound like this . . .
"The Imperial Senate has been disbanded. The regional governors now have direct control over their territories."
Actually, no. Ad buys generally cost an amount in proportion to the number of viewers of the ads. Candidates will place ads in low population areas, because advertising is cheap there. Economics actually would dictate an almost exact proportional distrobution of campaigning.
This sig has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease.
No, you miss the point completely. The reason the the NYers vote counts 'less' is so that rancher out in the midwest doesn't have HIS rights trampled by the majority.
Don't forget that NY state consists of more than just NY city.
So what about the rancher in rural NY? His vote doesn't just count less, it doesn't count at all, because however the people in the city vote decides how the electoral votes of the entire state will be assigned. A NY city citizen has a vote worth 1/300,000th of an elector, a Wyoming citizen has a vote worth 1/160,000th of an elector, and a rural NY citizen has a vote worth 0/300,000th of an elector. Sure sounds to me like someone is having their rights trampled.
I can agree with giving each state a fixed number of extra electors, even if this doesn't really do much to balance the number of electors or make the small states more important. NY and CA are still vastly more important than Alaska or Rhode Island. However this somewhat anemic attempt to prevent mob rule at the State vs State level actually creates a worse situation within each state, where those who are in the minority have their vote completely eliminated.
P.S. Our government is a Republic or Representative Democracy and is a form of Democracy (saying it's not is like saying some shape is a square, NOT a quadrilateral), which irrelevent semantic arguments aside means we have the same problems with Mob Rule as all democracies, and the electoral college does nothing to address any form of mob rule that isn't Big State A vs Little State B, and how many issues truly fall along these lines? This is why we have to have Constitutional ammendments preventing discriminatory laws that favor the majority. There is no system of voting that eliminates the problem of mob rule, and the electoral college demonstrates this failing.
The enemies of Democracy are
You realize that any change to the electoral college would result in two things:
1) Campaigning only in major population centers. WI wouldn't see a single presidential candidate.
2) Country-wide recounts. Consider the hash of the recount in Fla where there were the issues of differring vote counting standards between the various counties. Imagine this being country-wide.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I say we should use the scientific method!
/makes as much sense as what we do today //more...
Make all elections double-blind experiments and let the two major parties each run 1/3 of the country, leaving 1/3 as a "control" which would have no government at all. All elected officials would have their names concealed, their voices altered, wear hoods and height-evenging shoes, and the control region would have be appear to be governed by the animatronic Abe Lincoln in the closest Disney theme park.
At the end of the term, the winning candidate names and the regions they governed would be revealed by a research assistant named Smitty, who would receive AP Science course credit for running the whole experiment. The region with the best economy at the end of the term wins the right to appoint the next Smitty. If Abe Lincoln wins, the next Smitty is chosen by the banjo-player in the Country-Bear Jamboree.
I hold the ideals of liberty, life, and property as good. The system of choosing a leader which maximizes those goals should be chosen, without regard to irrelevencies like making someone's vote "count". Democracy is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Further, the point of democracy as instanced in our representative republic is not to simply choose the most popular candidate as leader. Why would that be a good idea? The common vote is merely a check to insure that a leader is able to keep at least a large segment of the people happy - e.g., we moved to the direct election of senators to prevent choices that say 5% of the people supported, which was not a viable system.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This author proposes a method to subvert the constitutional method of electing our President.
It's about a close to sedition as you can get. Maybe it IS sedition.
States' rights are under constant attack, and Article 10 is being dismantled in courts at every level in our country.
No surprise that large states are good candidates for this compact, nor that they may have come up with the idea. They see the proportionality as a problem for them. Damned right. They don't get to dictate so much, and that's as it should be. We are indeed the United STATES of America.
Nonetheless, I suspect every single state will get attention in the 2008 Presidential election. Some day you might need New Hampshire's two votes to get elected.
It's outrageous. Almost as bad as pure, receiptless electronic voting. Almost.
rick
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
These comments all seem to forget one really salient fact:
Even with voting equity across the states, computerized voting systems (read: DIEBOLD) can still be used transparently by malicious insiders (or outsiders) to ensure a "desired" outcome.
Your vote is worth nothing if you can't verify the system that tabulates it. Paper voting is full of problems, but if Australia can open source is voting system, so can we. And we don't have to do it for free, the gov't could easily mandate that whoever wants to win a contract for voting systems MUST open source their code. And we should have everyone (especially the academic community) actively engaged in making it secure AND accountable. In addition to the real security provided by an open model, we definitely need an auditable paper trail to fall back on.
Without these things, it is, potentially, just one big farce. Although I hope very much that no one actually is (or will) manipulate elections through insecure systems.
I think this is more of a movement by a political party (not mentioning which one) that has complained in the past that they won the popular vote but lost the electoral college vote. Well I am for keeping things the way they are. It does keep the states more level on power but it does make some of the nominees spend more time in the " battleground states" and pretty much ignore the states with smaller electoral votes.
The system is not broken and does not need any "fixing".
The benefits of cheating are too large once half or so of the electoral votes are in the agreement. The benefits of defecting, or threatening to defect, become large, because suddenly the votes become bargaining chips, useful to extract concessions from the other states. This makes it effectively impossible to get to all 50 agreeing anyhow; the more people in the agreement before it gets to 50, the larger the spoiler effect.
You don't need all 50 to agree - a few powerful states is enough. Even if that group isn't a majority, getting that block would pretty much assure victory.
As for defecting, remember that defecting would result in a situation where the majority of the country in terms of population are cheated of the result they would have recieved. The consequences and mechanics of that is equivalent to an existing president 'defecting' out of the democratic process when he fails to win a second term, or a state 'defecting' out of giving a representative result in the electoral college system when a politically opposing candidate would win. Of course, for the system to work, there needs to be an implicit trust in those who run it, but really, no more trust than is required in the current system.
My complaint about this isn't that it doesn't work, but that it would work too well. There is a good reason why there's a body of constitutional laws, and a major change like this should not be implemented in such a way as to short circuit the constitutional process.
Why would small states agree to this? They have a proportionately larger influence as things stand, and would be written off by candidates in favor of those with larger populations.
But we don't have either a President or an Electoral College! We have a Prime Minister and a Queen - oh wait, maybe the original news posting should have mentioned somewhere that it meant the USA? As Slashdot is quite widely read outside of America.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
The solution is not the popular vote. If the popular vote wins, then large population areas are going to be the only places generating any interest for the candidates - and those areas have vastly different needs than the rest of the country.
But the solution is simple.
The system could be fixed if states just voted with their electoral college in the ratio that their popular vote voted. The Electoral College is a great system, and not many people see the benefit of the Great Compromise, but this "winner-take-all" crap just doesn't make any sense, and this is the real problem, not the fact that South Dakota's residents have more voting power than New York residents.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Given the allegations of voter fraud and abuse, the computer hackery that seems to be incipient, I don't know if there is any legitimacy left in the government as it stands. The basic premise is that voting grants democratic legitimacy, but instead of making voting unquestionably honest and correct, they have allowed the polls to turn into a nightmare of malfeasance
> The problem with voluntary voting systems - such as in the USA - is that the voluntary voters
> aren't necessarily informed. However the voluntary voters are almost certainly opinionated.
But the ones motivated to go to the polls probably are the more informed citizens. If you don't know anything about politics it is because you don't care because there is certainly more than enough information available. Which is why I care not about turnout, in fact I go so far as to say "If you aren't up to speed on the issues and candidates the most responsible thing to do is stay the heck out of a voting booth." And if your sole source of information is 30 second TV ads (and the two minute puff pieces on the evening news) you are NOT up to speed.
I'm all for putting up barriers to voting as long as they aren't some half assed attempt to bring back Jim Crow (a D by the way, like most of the old southern racists, but you wouldn't know that from the evening news....) We don't allow any old ignorant 'tard to drive a car in public without demonstrating basic competence but we will allow them to vote?
But why couldn't we program these electronic voting machines to administer a short ten question civics quiz before displaying the ballot? Set the bar low, 50% passes and generate the quiz from a well publicized pool of a hundred questions. Nothing too hard, just weed out the clueless.
Democrat delenda est
California's house passed the bill that does exactly this months ago.
This guy didn't see the rioting going on at the Inauguration?
I see some problems with this particular approach. I haven't RTFA, but what if the natinoal popular vote is just barely in favor of candidate A, and everyone's ready to give all of the EC votes to them... and then, whoops!, Rhode Island decides to do a recount that drags on a long time like the Florida mess in 2000? It seems as though it would be like 50 people trying to rent a movie... "Okay... once again... are we certain that this is what we all want to watch?".
Another approach that is being tried as we speak is one where the individual states allocate their electoral votes proportionally based on their own statewide popular votes. In fact, I think a couple of states already do this. This eliminates the need for states to wait for each other. The catch is that they have to propose legislation in each state to get that state to change the way it awards EC votes. The only problem I have with this particular method is that they're trying to roll it out in some of the larger states, first; for example, California. California has been pretty solidly in the Democrat camp for about two decades, now, and it also carries the largest number of EC votes. If California switched to proportional allocation, and the Republicans got 1/3 or so of those EC votes, that's a big swing. A Democratic opponent would have to win a 3 or 4 smaller states just to make up that loss even though California's majority still favored him/her. We're talking just about the loss of EC votes from going from "all or nothing" to proportional. So, I think the way you have to roll this out is by introducing in the states with the fewest EC votes first, where you'd only see a swing of 1 or 2 EC votes, and then gradually introduce it to larger and larger states. Also, I figure that you'd want to introduce it to a Republican state and a Democratic state at the same time... with some clause where they both have to pass for either to go into effect, lest just one pass and that state's party gets shafted.
Although this isn't likely to change the actual outcome of many elections, it is far more likely to change the amount of spending in your state: both campaign spending and in "pork" (the allocation of gov't spending aimed at garnering favour with that area's voters). If you're living in a "battleground" state right now, you get bombed with campaign ads when election time comes around... yet you also see more than your fair share of highway bills, homeland-security funding, free gov't cheese, and whatnot. This would probably subside if your state had proportional EC votes. On the other side of the coin, states that are "locked up" solidly in one party's favor typically receive little campaign spending and pork. Back in 2004, my friend told me about visiting Nevada (a battleground state)... where it was non-stop campaign ads during the commercial breaks on TV. As soon as he drove over the border into California, he could hardly tell there was an election coming up.
Lastly, I remember reading an article a few years ago where a mathematician was able to show that you actually have more voting power with the electoral college than you would without it. Your vote only really matters if your candidate won, yet wouldn't have had you not voted (or voted for the opponent). With a popular election, this would require that the candidate win the national popular election by a single vote. This is, to understate things, "unlikely". To get this same scenario with an electoral college, two things need to happen. First, the candidate has to win by a number of electoral votes that is less than double the number that your state has... and your district's or state's popular vote has to be decided by a single vote.
The odds of the second scenario happening are, also, highly unlikely. However, this mathematician was able to show that the second scenario was marginally more-likely. So, if you like the idea of your vote being the "deciding vote", then the EC would have a benefit... and this benefit would still be there even in a proportional-allocation system.
First of all, regardless, I'd like to see the House of Representatives be doubled. Each district would be a two member district, and STV would determine the two seats.
Second of all, how about this for an idea? Use Instant Runoff Voting to determine the winner in each congressional district, making it harder for politicians to pander to the whole state, since states tend to be mixed. (Like Eastern Washington is red, Western Washington is blue. However, since Western Washington has more population, the state tends to go blue with all 11 votes.) The popular vote of the state would determine the two senatorial electoral votes.
So for example, let us say a state has 5 district that vote Democratic, and 4 that vote Republican. However, the total population votes Democratic. That means 7 votes for the Democrat and 4 votes for the Republican. As it would be now, all 11 would go to the Democrat. This makes it a lot harder for a politician to gobble up votes by just tipping it slightly in their favour in given states.
So you decide to advocate obfuscated-majority rule instead. Great.
As for you, your post title just leads me to think that you're an asshole. No wonder you post AC.
"I am confident that future generations will look back on today's decision as an unfortunate misstep" -- Judith Kaye dissenting in Robles.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0543909/
Greatest episode of Cold Case. Ever.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Proportional Representation
Isreal is one of the few nations that practice this and it tends to help with new political parties come in and not stagnate with with a two party system.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
On the same note:
North Dakota is just as much a state of this union as New York is. Why should New York's votes be worth twice as much as North Dakota's?
The current system is a compromise.
Here in Canada, voting typically goes late into the night, there are shuttle buses that go around picking up shut-ins, and there are several advance voting dates for people who know they wont available on the normal election day. Elections Canada is really a fantastic organization in many ways, and do a great job.
Double majority is currently working in Switzerland. over there, the MOB RULES! (I couldn't resist) PS: If you wanna know about Direct Democracy, read some of Jean Jacque Rousseau writings. ;)
our electoral system is crappy and out-dated, but this pie-in-the-sky plan doesn't address the real issue: we have a political system dominated by money. no matter who is elected, corporations will always dictate what the government does. if outright bribery (aka: campaign finance) doesn't result in favorable legislation, then they will blackmail the government by sabotaging the economy (just as corporations did to France in 1981 after the people elected a "socialist" government that planned all sorts of pro-worker reforms--only after the economy went south Mitterand decided that Thatcherism/Reaganomics didn't look so bad after all).
As I see it, the problem is not the EC, but that the elections are a "popularity contest" bereft of any real content, and designed to attract ignorant voters. The EC might possibly prevent a Hitler, Lyndon LaRouche, or "Mickey Mouse" being elected to the White House.
I have a standard procedure I developed during the Bush/Gore election. When someone starts bitching and moaning about a candidate for presidency, I ask them, "I can see you're concerned. It really bothers me that most people voting in the election are not informed enough to make a good decision. It usually comes down to a popularity contest, or a 'MY TEAM vs. "YOUR TEAM' contest. That's pathetic, isn't it?"
Usually they agree with me that it's terrible that ignorant people are casting un-informed votes.
Then I ask them, "What, specifically, qualifies a person to be President? What are the main duties of the President, and why is one candidate more qualified than the other?"
Needless to say, most people don't have a ready answer. (It really IS pathetic that so many ignorant people are casting votes!) So I ask them, "What does it say in the Constitution?" Unless the person is a lawyer, most people don't know the Constitution. There are exceptions, but it's pathetic that most people don't know the Constitution and still insist on "Constitutional Rights".
I then hand them a small booklet with the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States and tell them, "Don't vote until you've memorized the Constitution." These booklets are available for a dollar or less at any Libertarian bookstore, or they can be ordered here: http://www.ashbrook.org/constitution/ I used to carry a number of them in my car and pocket.
If you don't want to order the booklet, you can read the Constitution many places online. Don't vote until you've memorized the Constitution.
Now, Bush is probably the lesser of two evils, which is STILL evil. The CATO Institute will send you a free booklet called, "Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush". I also recommend reading, "We the People" by Mortimer Adler and "The Law" by Frederick Bastiat: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G1753. You have a little over two years before the next Presidential election to educate yourselves.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a member fo the Libertarian Party, but I do consider myself a "libertarian? (small 'l') in the same sense as Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
How about being honest with the ballots and put the Electors names on them instead of the Presidential candidate. You are electing Electors... not a President. Later in December the Electors actually do what they were elected to do. If the public knew who the electors were then maybe those craven souls would be persuaded to choose the best candidate for the country and not always vote party line.
So you really don't so anything wrong with giving people in underpopulated states 50x more voting power than people who live in populated states? Is a person from Ohio really worth 50x more than a person from New York? This really doesn't bother you at all? Right now, New York and California are completely ignored by the federal government because their votes are nearly worthless. Think about that: the majority of Americans have their votes watered down to the point of not mattering, while a minority have their votes amplified. The majority is grossly disenfranchised while a minority is elevated and given preferential treatment. Welcome to tyranny -- the tyranny of a minority over the majority. Sure, tyranny of the majority over a minority isn't ideal, but it's FAR better than letting a few ignorant bigots rule over the rest of the country.
Oh wait, I'm not an elector...
"Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button..." Of COURSE I'm behind a firewall, do you think I'm stupid? This is a Windows machine for Christ's sake!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
All this blather about the founders ignores that the United States has evolved significantly since the writing of the Constitution. At that time, only property owning white males could vote. 'tyranny of the majority' was another way of saying 'we have to protect our massive land holdings'. And, let's face it, 'states rights' has always been a codeword for what? Name an issue, besides localized institutional racism, that has involved 'states rights'. Ok, gay marrage and some water issues in the west.
Every single argument against the popular vote comes from the right wing. What if the liberals got control of the country? (Well, they might lower the deficit) Entitled white 'Christian' males want to keep their insitutional upper hand.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
First of all, most people for get that the states are separate entities, with rights etc. THe EC is part of the way states keep from getting steam rolled by the feds. Decond, the EC protects small states. Whats screwed is that most states switched to an "all or nothing" distribution of EC votes that prevents 3rd parties from gaining power and participating in debates.
The only fix we need is to have states divide up their EC votes by popular vote, as originally intended. The EC isnt broke, the two party system is.
Ok, perhaps in CA they might be that stupid.... nah. Think it through. CA and NY are ALWAYS (unless it is such a blowout that it no longer matters, like Reagan's second run) going to vote D, everyone accepts that. Now if you are a Democrat voting to split means giving away electoral votes while voting the other way means you get to effectively sieze the votes of the outnumbered Republicans and vote em the 'right' way. Which way to you see some Act Up freak in Frisco voting? Uh huh, exactly.
Democrat delenda est
> No... it would mean that the New York City resident's vote would count EXACTLY the same as the Wyoming rancher's vote. One each.
>
> As it stands now, The average citizen in Wyoming is 1/160,000th of an electoral vote. The average citizen of New York State is about 1/300,000th of an electoral vote.
>
> Why should the Wyoming citizen's vote count for twice as much as the New York citizen's vote?
The individual Wyoming vote might have more clout toward electoral votes, but the New York vote still counts a lot more toward the overall election, because New York's much larger electoral votes all go to one candidate. How many presidental forcasts say New York's electoral votes are a requirement for a particular candidate to win, versus Wyoming's electoral votes?
Imagine if we had national-popular-vote-wins in 2000 and 2004. Now imagine a national "Florida-recount debacle".
I am not a sig.
One thing many people don't realize is that with the loss of the electoral college, comes a huge loss for campaigning in any area which doesn't have a huge population density. This means that candidates will campaign only in NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston and other large population cities meaning that if you do not live in a huge metropolis, or near one, goodluck getting to hear a person speak. And I don't just mean them just physically speaking; you won't see as much information coming from either candidate outside of those areas as well.
First, the so-called "small-state bonus" -- that is, small states somehow benefit from the Electoral College system -- is entirely illusory. In 2004, 12 of the 13 smallest states (those with 3 or 4 electoral votes) were absolutely, entirely ignored by the candidates and their campaigns. Why? Because they are "safe" for one party or the other. Of those, six went for Kerry, six went for Bush, and just New Hampshire was "in play" and got attention. Why? ONLY because it was closely divided.
Second, the populations within each state are diverse: Urban, rural, rich, poor, etc. As noted in several other posts, the interests of everyone in Maine or everyone in Ohio are not the same. If they were, the vote would be 100% for a particular candidate who best protected the interests of their unified state interest. Obviously, that's not how it happens.
Third, the Electoral College was created not based on any political theory, but only because it was a compromise that would help ensure ratification of the Constitution. In fact, it wasn't until 1876 -- nearly 100 years after the Constitution was drafted -- that every state held a popular election for presidential electors and awarded them in the "winner-take-all" method we're familiar with (except for Nebraska and Maine, which award some electors by congressional district results). Initially, electors were appointed by state legislatures, were awarded in special elector districts, or by other means. The Consitution says nothing about popular election for electors and leaves their allocation up to the states. The National Popular Vote plan calls out state legislators to accept the responsibility given to them by the Constitution -- if they're not modifying the system to make sure their constituents (in the three dozen "spectator states" in particular) have a meaningful say in electing the president, they're not doing their job.
Fourth, there's far more likelihood of a recount when a few hundred or few thousand votes in one state can secure a bunch of electoral votes and tip an election (like Florida 2000). that's also a recipe for fraud and electoral shenanigans. With a national popular vote, we have one pool of 120+ million votes, rather than 51 separate pools. The likelihood of an election close enough for a recount is very, very small. Regardless, should we not have a fair, democratic election for president just because it may, from time to time, be close?
The reasons for the EC no longer exist, and the bottom line is this: Every vote should be equal in choosing the president, just as every vote is equal in every other election we have in the United States. It's the democratic norm, and it's long overdue in our presidential elections. Otherwise, with this state-based system, voters in about three dozen states will continue to be entirely ignored -- anyone who thinks the Electoral College forces candidates to campaign everywhere across the country isn't paying attention to the shrinking number of states that matter and where campaigns spend their money and time.
Also, voter turnout suffers under the current system, particularly among young people. In 2004, in the 10 most competitive states, voter turnout among those under 30 was an impressive 64%. In the remaining 40 states and DC, it was just 47%. When they know their vote matters, people pay attention and participate.
With a national popular vote, every vote would matter, and campaigns would change accordingly. A new kind of modern campaign would unfold, where anyone, anywhere could cast a meaningful vote, as well as organize in their town, suburb or city to get out the vote for their candidate of choice. It would reinvigorate our politics at a time when our politics desperately needs reinvigorating. Campaigns and political debate would be where the people are, not where the candidate is or goes.
One final thought: There are 28 countries (with good human-rights records) that elect their president. Twenty-one require the winner to secure a majority of the popular
There is one problem with the government of the United States.
Well, there are many, but they are all peanuts compared to the one large problem.
The US government is constantly and overtly bribed by many lobbies and corporations.
Since direct bribes are illegal, they simply pay both parties a large bribe unless the parties act against their interests.
It is crucial that all financial "donations" to the government, the parties or their people, by anyone or any organization, are banned or severely limited.
Has it ever occurred to you that the founding fathers might be wrong, or might not have had any foresight at all? I'm kind of tired that people worship the "founding fathers" like they were noble heros, when really they just had it in for the British and spent the vast majority of their time drafting the declaration of independence and the constitution while drunk off their asses in a pub across from Independence Hall. The fact that a nation can be founded by a group of beligerant drunkards and last 200+ years is amazing in and of itself, but that doesn't mean that it's going to work as smoothly for another 200 years, or even 20. It's like reading Leviticus out of the Bible and expecting it to be 100% congruent with today's society (Example: Are you wearing any clothes of mixed fibers? That's a sin on the same level as screwing animals according to the Bible). That's not to say that they weren't right about some things, just their message doesn't stand the test of time. What worked back then doesn't necessarily work for us now in the 2000s.
Or perhaps I should say that our Founding Fathers configured it so that each state would have a say, not the individual. The only reason why a person in New York has a vote at all is because the state of New York decides that you have a vote. Comparing your vote to the fellow in Wyoming is ridiculous. He's voting for how his state's electoral votes will be counted, and the New York fellow is voting for how his state's votes will be counted.
English literacy was not America's (or any country's) strongpoint at that time, most people couldn't read. The idea of the electoral college was to make sure someone in the crowd could read when it came time to vote. English literacy being 90+% now obsoletes the EC's original purpose.
Better dissolve the individual governments, and subject them all to total rule from the Federal government.
We tried that once and nearly imploded because of it and had to start over again: Nobody could get the states to agree on anything. Better to go with an EU-style system of state soveriegnty and let the federal government handle only issues that cannot be handled at an individual level. Yes, I am advocating the federal government becomes a mostly hands-off treaty organization holding nearly no power over member states. The worst enemy any individual state has at the moment is it's immediate neighbors.
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Mod me to hell and back for this, but really, 230 years after this whole colonies thing, do we still need "states"?
I can see the value that not every region can agree upon certain laws, but the majority of thoses laws are being superceded by Federal laws at an increasing rate. And the ones that are still left up to the States are more semantic than anything else (employment law, pollution, etc).
California is moving towards a system less controlled by County government, which is increasing the state's efficiency by eliminating redundancy. This is a slow process, but one that I think will yield great returns over time. What would be so wrong with the States doing the same thing?
-David
Has it ever occurred to you that the founding fathers might be wrong
;)
Then we declare the "Great Experiment" a failure, change the name, and start over.
Yes, I am advocating the federal government becomes a mostly hands-off treaty organization holding nearly no power over member states.
Of course, what's funny is that if you read the constitution and try not to believe that every little thing possible is crammed into the interstate commerce clause, then that's pretty much what the founding fathers intended in the first place. Maybe the experiment isn't quite over yet
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Yup, easier to massage votes that way. You work for Diebold, eh?
Even if you fix this, a Montana citizen still has 1/2 the representation that a Wyoming citizen does in the House of Representatives, and a California citizen has a minimal representation in the Senate compared to a Wyoming citizen as well. Why is this okay, but the Electoral College is not? Your argument essentially undermines the entire foundation of the country.
At least with one vote per person, there isn't any illusion of balance that doesn't exist in an unnecessary, outdated administrivia designed to put enough English-literate people in one spot to vote. It was installed as a stopgap measure so there would be enough informed voters during a time that almost nobody could read. The only way to keep the EC and make it work the way you describe is if 1 state gets 1 vote, or abolish it. Anything in between makes every presidential election a dangerous crapshoot.
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and not the United People of America.
The states that banded together to form the country were sovereign nations, so much so that they were having occasional small wars with each other.
That's why it is the states that are voting for President.
That answers your "why" question, though it doesn't answer your implied question of "why don't we change it now?"
Citation needed. All media accounts that I've heard about the election has said observers found voting irregularities nationwide.
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Keep the Electoral College, but do away with the system where the states give all their electoral votes to one candidate, much as it was in the early days of the country. That way, you break up large blue states like California and large red states like the South. Florida would not have been such a big problem since it would be a fight over one electoral vote, rather than 25 (or whatever they have now). Have each representative district count as a vote for whichever candidate won there and give the 2 senate votes to the winner in that state. You get both granularity, which will reduce the Florida problem and you don't have to amend the Constitution. Of course, like the system proposed in TFA, it's up to the states to decide which system they want. The problem I see with the system in TFA is that you could end up with a situation where California becomes a red state, or Texas becomes a blue state. That's just too fucked up to comprehend.....
You know what? Screw all this tweaking of things here, and chaging this little bit there. Lets burn the constitution and be done with it! No one likes it. Everyone hates part of it, or all of it. Even the people who swear to uphold it ignore it. It really IS just a piece of paper.
I'm voting for the Nazis. You know where you stand with them: whites okay, everyone else dead. I can handle that. Sure, the rest of you are fucked, but at least we won't have that awful terrible constitution around anymore, eh? So that'll make all the precious minorities feel better as they're herded off to the grave.
The Electoral College has a function: It is a firewall between states that may have corrupt or defective elections. If you think voting machines can be hacked, or that illegal voting happens in larger numbers than generally reported, you should be against subverting or eliminating the Electoral College.
I wrote parts of this stuff
OK, so the Constitution says that each state is going to have electors that get to decide how to cast their votes. The states can pass whatever laws they want, but I doubt they can constitutionally prevent these electors from voting any way they want. So, there is no way to enforce making a state throw it's votes in favor of the majority decision.
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
Politicians don't need to "appeal" to any group under a mandatory voting system. They just need to make sure their name is more publicized than the other guy's. Think of some of those little positions no one cares about when you're at the polls. Very few people form opinions on who should be the municipal soil and water conservation manager, and so they pick the guy whose name is recognizable or interesting. Under mandatory voting, people would be doing that for more powerful positions, and while a guy named "Brock Bannon" sounds cool, he may not be the best choice for President.
"Just because you're eloquent doesn't mean you aren't a fucking crackpot." -Wavebreak
Yup, easier to massage votes that way. You work for Diebold, eh?
If you think it's easier to massage votes in a republic than in a democracy, you're crazy. In one case, you've got 50 individual elections you need to rig. In another, it's just one.
At least with one vote per person, there isn't any illusion of balance that doesn't exist in an unnecessary, outdated administrivia designed to put enough English-literate people in one spot to vote
With one vote per person, you have an executive which is representative of a different country than the legislature. Explain that one to me. You'll have a situation where the legislature and the executive never agree on some things because they're sponsored by two different populations.
I don't see how you can possibly hate the electoral college and yet support the relative sizes of the House and Senate. It's exactly the same thing. Proportionally, Wyoming will still have 3X the congressmen than California has.
I've always thought that the way to make the electoral college useful is to ditch the idea of "winning" a state, and instead require that a proportion of the state's votes equal to the proportion of voters endorsing a particular candidate go to that candidate. So if Missouri is split 48%/46%/6%, the first party would get 5 votes, the second 5 votes, and the third 1 vote. My reasoning for this is that it takes away the ability for candidates to largely ignore issues in "safe" states, and makes a vote in any state count. It also gives minority parties a better chance of getting some votes, without making it likely that they will win.
It might be beneficial to accompany this measure with a change in the number of college votes per state, possibly simply increasing them all by a factor of 10 to make dealing with rounding easier (there would need to be hard and fast rules on rounding!).
Lead developer, http://wisptools.net
Remember the whole purpose of the electoral college is to make sure every state has a say in how the federal government works. If the electoral college is removed or changed so that the popular vote winner nation wide wins than that would create a huge problem. The problem would be that politians would place all of their money into the following states: New York, California, Texas, and Florida. The other states would get nothing. The reason: if all you have to do is win these four states or just a majority in three of them than you would win the election. I would rather see the electoral college stay the way it is so states like South Dakota and Vermont can get a say in the federal government too. I think it would be better off if each state would create a system where each voting distict's popular vote winner would get their winning electoral college member counted than a winner take all system state wide. I mean that for New York State if 30 voting districts popular votes were republican than all 30 would got to the repulican and the 20 other districs that went to the democrates would go to the democrates. This would make the system work better than a winner take all system.
A site cowboyneal will like http://www.freewebs.com/atpa/
Any proposal that doesn't involve Multivac is a failed one.
I'm not sure anybody that can float to the highest ranks of our system has anything but contempt for the constitution these days. Why have 50 small countries when you can have an empire?
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Who says eliminating the electoral college would take the counting out of the hands of the states? I'm just saying the states report their numbers, and the feds come up with a grand total instead of the EC system. I'm in no way advocating a federal election system, that's obviously stupidly insane for the reason you state.
With one vote per person, you have an executive which is representative of a different country than the legislature. Explain that one to me. You'll have a situation where the legislature and the executive never agree on some things because they're sponsored by two different populations.
This is different from now how? Look at federal dollars going to states President Bush has openly stated he hates (Oregon has been baselessly compared to Lebanon by pretty much every member of the Bush family holding a political office). Compare that to federal dollars going to Texas or his native Massachusetts. Even if you break it down per capita, the states Bush doesn't like still get kicked in the teeth.
I don't see how you can possibly hate the electoral college and yet support the relative sizes of the House and Senate. It's exactly the same thing. Proportionally, Wyoming will still have 3X the congressmen than California has.
Because we're not talking about the one person that sets the federal agenda and holds veto power over everyone else. The executive branch is where our system breaks down.
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They teach State history in elementary school. In high school it is US and World history.
50% of Americans in 2004 believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in planning the 9/11 attacks. 37% of Americans preferred that schools teach creationism instead of evolution. I could keep going. Do you think that the ability to read words has made us more literate?
Anyway, the problem of having voters who could not read the names on the ballots was probably the very last reason to implement the EC.
By the way, the Old Testament actually has very good ideas in it that kept the Jews healthier for thousands of years. For example, when the plague struck, the Jewish rate of survival was actually particularly high.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
The Founding Fathers never intended for the executive to be popular, Machivelli makes it abundantly clear a popular prince (executive) is a serious danger to the populace. A popular vote for president, or what this guy is proposing is a majorly dumb idea.
Over 50% of the U.S. population lives in 6 major urban areas. If the presidency were based on only a popular vote then canidates would only hit those 6 urban centers- people in the middle of Montana would never get a campaign visit from the president, nor would the executive ever find it nessasary to reach out to what they value.
One proposal from Dr. Larry Keller (Cleveland State University) calls for non-partisan elections for electors, with stringent regulations on their political backgrounds, who would create a criteria of what the state is looking for in a president. Canidates could then apply to the various states as they see fit, or not (AKA Bush would not even bother in Minnesota). The canidates would fill out an application and then the state could call the best applicants for publically broadcast interviews. At the conclusion of this process the electors would vote for who they see as the best canidate and award the votes accordingly, in a non-winner-take-all manner.
This of course has the effect of removing the threat of a popular vote and allows for non-major party canidates, or even political ones, from monopolizing the election. I, coming from an academic background in Political Science fully support this proposal. I'll go one step further.... I'll give you Dr. Larry's e-mail address- he loves a good discussion: larry@urban.csuohio.edu
Good thing we don't have a democracy then!
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Getting each state to use their electoral college votes to support the majority decision of all states does seem to undermine the whole system. But what puzzles me is why a state has to vote unanimously for one candidate. Why don't states divide their electoral college votes according to the proportion of their population that voted for a particular candidate?
If Florida has 10 votes (or whatever number) in the electoral college and the population splits down the middle, why don't they just give five votes to each candidate and be done with it? Round up in favour of the absolute winner to settle fractional votes. That way they still reflect the will of the people of the state they represent, but without skewing the results.
Seems pretty simple, and it would have the added bonus of not requiring an all-or-nothing opt-in. If the people of Florida wanted to use this system they wouldn't have to worry about what the other states do. On the other hand, if only Florida decided to use its votes to support the national majority they'd be pissing in the wind if all the other states kept to the status quo.
my two cents.
yp.
Anybody who says the Gore would have won in 2000 with a popular vote system isn't thinking it through.
Remember, Gore won the popular vote by about 500,000 votes. Also remember that the Republicans were targeting small swing states with small populations. It's a well worn fact that giving a group attention will get some of their votes. If the system had been a popular vote system in 2000, Bush would have spent all his time in California and New York. Also think of how many Texans stayed home because Bush already had Texas in the bag. If he had posted gains in those three big states, he would have won the popular vote by a healthy margin. There's 70 million people in those three states to swing and he'd only need a bit less than 1% of them. Gore was already in the big states, so he wouldn't have picked up as much.
The whole idea of a vote "counting" is rediculous. The electoral system was designed to influence the behavior of candidates and force them to make wide-reaching promises. It's hard to get a majority vote in 29 states without appealing to a lot of different types of people. That is the true American way, to try to appeal to as many types of people as possible, not to appeal to as many people as possible. It has been said above, but deserves repeating -- democracy is not two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Kudos to the founding fathers for having the courage to set up a system that ignores 50 million whining "me-too"s while preserving the voice of many smaller groups.
BTW, how many New Yorker Bush supporters do you think stayed home because they though their vote wouldn't count? I'm certain that would have changed the popular vote count, probably enough to give the edge to Bush. Much of New York outside of the New York city votes red, but they concede defeat during presidential elections because they know the city is going to swing the State blue.
Aah, there we go. Thanks very much, that was quite informative.
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As I blogged yesterday, you don't need to get half the electoral votes to make this work. Since
the electoral vote and popular vote are likely to differ only in a very close election in the modern world, all you need is a small set
of "opposite" safe states from the alternate sides to get enough to compensate for any likely difference. That could be just a few states.
Of course if you do get 270 votes in your compact, you can do anything at all, including instituting preferential ballots, forcing the other states to follow along if they want to be counted. In theory a set of states with 270 votes could just say, "Listen, we're going to elect the President amongst ourselves. What the rest of you do is irrelevant" though it would get a challenge.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
And by stagnate you mean "have a government that lasts longer than a week", right?
That's basically saying the electoral college system is out of date, which is wrong. It doesn't need improving.
Who says eliminating the electoral college would take the counting out of the hands of the states?
I didn't say that at all. It's just that if you manipulate, say, California, from a 55%/45% win to 100%/0% win, in a republic election, it doesn't change anything. You still only get California's electoral votes. In a popular election, however, it adds 45% of California's population to the vote total.
Like I said: harder to rig.
This is different from now how? Look at federal dollars going to states President Bush has openly stated he hates (Oregon has been baselessly compared to Lebanon by pretty much every member of the Bush family holding a political office).
I'm not going to agree with you there: plenty of federal dollars go to Johnstown, PA, which is represented by one of Bush's staunchest political rivals in Congress. Any disparity to Bush's political rivals would be occurring because of the incompetence of those representatives, who should be replaced.
Besides, that's not the problem I'm even talking about: what I'm talking about is a stalemate happening in the government where Congress, acting properly on behalf of those who elected them, can't get anything done with the President, even though he's acting properly on behalf of those who elected him. You're setting yourself up for a system that can deadlock even when it's working the way you want it to.
Let me be explicit here: suppose a majority of the districts in the US want to pass a law. Suppose the population of the US, centered in one state, don't want to pass the law. Congress gets elected, and tries to pass the law. The districts are happy. The president vetoes the law - the population is happy. Both Congress and the President get reelected, because their constituency is still happy. And it continues on.
Because we're not talking about the one person that sets the federal agenda and holds veto power over everyone else. The executive branch is where our system breaks down.
The executive isn't nearly as powerful as you think it is. If it is, we've already lost, and we should just up and start over again. The power of the government must lie in the legislature. Otherwise, we've just got an elected dictator - and at that point, who bloody cares how he's elected.
There's a world of difference between political rivalry like you describe, and pathological hatred, which is what's happening.
Let me be explicit here: suppose a majority of the districts in the US want to pass a law. Suppose the population of the US, centered in one state, don't want to pass the law. Congress gets elected, and tries to pass the law. The districts are happy. The president vetoes the law - the population is happy. Both Congress and the President get reelected, because their constituency is still happy. And it continues on.
That happens anyway. Stem-cell research anyone? The only difference now is the electoral college reinforces that we cannot democratically remove the problem.
The executive isn't nearly as powerful as you think it is. If it is, we've already lost, and we should just up and start over again.
Yes, yes we should.
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Isn't this what the Senate is for? Every state gets two Senators so that no one state can obliterate the other? Is there a reason the other house to also have this disproportionality? Surely one should be a check for the other. It's how it works down under where I am.
And don't get me started on why you guys (and us too, for that matter) should have more proportionality.
Well, our constitutionally elected 'leadership' has to take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies domestic and foreign.
Maybe, if we're lucky, someday they'll actuall break down and READ the document they swore to protect...
Naw. We're not THAT lucky...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
There's too much at stake here; there's too much power available. Power attracts bad people, and sooner or later we're going to get a Caesar because the government has gotten too big. We must reduce the size of government if we're to avoid the slide into tyranny.
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So what you're saying is that overrepresenting those who live in rural areas, who contribute the least to the economy and take the most from it (per capita), would make the US successful? Or maybe you're saying that having gun-toting, bible thumping rednecks have more of a vote would make the US successful?
Sorry for the stereotype, but I don't see how misrepresenting the majority will make a country successful. By the same argument, the system most likely to make the US successful would be a dictatorship, but it is certainly NOT what the intention was. As someone else mentioned, "all men are created equal" as stated by the creators of the country.
So everyone thinks they want a direct popular vote for the President. If they can't have it directly, they'll come up with these plans to make an end run around the constitution.
Well, I'm here to tell you what the Electoral College is good for. Containing and mitigating election fraud. And here's why:
With a direct (popular vote) democracy, if the mayor in Chicago or the election board in King county (WA state) decides that they're going to stuff the ballot box for one particular candidate, those fraudulant votes effect EVERYONE in EVERY state. With a strait popular vote, it would on take a few corrupt election boards in large cities to create enough fraudulant votes to affect the entire election. With the electoral college, the fraudulant votes are contained within the state they're generated in and only affect the electors of that state.
So I say we utilize nice side effect of having the Electoral College... let's have each individual elector be decided by the popular vote within its congressional district. The two extra electors given to each state can be given to the state wide winner.
Doing such would break up the electors for a given state to be more closely representative of the popular vote in that state. It would also keep and strengthen the side effect of containing vote fraud and corruption.
The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
I agree!
Prior to 1913 the Senate was mostly made up of experienced professional politicians who had very little political ambition. In other words lots of them were ex-governors, ex-ambassadors, I think there was even an ex-President or two. They were pretty removed from the populace and the political whims of the day. In other words a proxy as compared to the House which was a direct representation of the populace.
Now that the 17th Amendment is in place there is no balance.
Libertas in infinitum
All agreements between the various states require approval of congress. So to form the compact the US Congress would have to authorize them. And the Supremes may say that when a state balks the first time it is within its rights as the Constitution is "The Supreme Law of the Land".
That said, fix it the correct and accepted way. Pass an amendment. If there is not enough agreement to do so then those states forming the compact are doing against the views of the protected remaining states and those states may well take them to court to force disolution of the aforementioned compact.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
There's a world of difference between political rivalry like you describe, and pathological hatred, which is what's happening.
I'll still stick with the belief that it's incompetence (or lack of political power) that's at fault.
That happens anyway. Stem-cell research anyone? The only difference now is the electoral college reinforces that we cannot democratically remove the problem.
You're assuming that we won't elect a new President who will approve funding for stem-cell research in 2008. Given the plethora of public support from both sides (hence the reason it passed Congress!) I think that's extremely pessimistic. What I was talking about was a disagreement that would deadlock the government indefinitely.
It's difficult to use this administration to judge things - especially right now - considering the President's approval rating is in the toilet, indicating the majority of Americans don't agree with what he's doing. I don't think he'd win another election against a decent opponent right now.
Yes, yes we should.
If you believe that, electing a President popularly should be the least of your concerns.
You're assuming that Bush won't seize a third term for himself.
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Have you seen how Californians vote? Wyoming citizens are worth a lot more.
(it's really closer to being 100-to-1, but Wyoming citizens are also generous and kind)
We select the candidates for our juries - who are asked to make life-and-death decisions regarding others' fates every day - by a random selection process, after which we wean them down by a bit of bipartisan examination. Can you imagine what would happen if we selected juries by election, where only those MOTIVATED (i.e. having some emotional vested interest) enough to desire it could become jurors? Can you imagine how that would impact the judicial process, if the parents of raped girls were allowed to "run" for the juries in trials of accused rapists and child molesters?
Now let's look at the state of our governmental electoral process: that happens to be exactly how we currently acquire our leadership. Only those ambitious, alpha-male-ish, charismatic, and egotistical enough are even considered for governmental leadership. By definition, people so ambitious are almost always those who possess the LEAST ethics: they're willing to do ANYTHING to achieve and retain the desired seat of power.
Witness the plight of Dean Cain, a candidate who was supposed to be more ethical than average: at one point he made honest statements about his less-than-typical existential beliefs, which was a good, forthright, and ethical thing, but then - when it became a public relations mess for him as he realized it would hurt his campaign - he soon backpedalled and tried to reinvent what he'd said earlier. What other candidates have done and will do is far worse than that.
I suggest that what we need is in fact NOT a popular-vote "tyranny of the majority" electoral process, but rather a lottery system analogous to the one we use for selecting juries. It would involve ALL the Americal people in the process, as anyone might be selected for consideration. It removes the inherent unethical advantages that career manipulators and the wealthy have enjoyed over the process.
Thomas Jefferson, I recall, was the one who coined the term "tyranny of the majority", and feared the lack of ethics inherent in any unchecked simple-majority rule; it was the reason the founders selected a republican form of democracy. Jefferson and other founders had good reason to fear it: they weren't part of the majority. Jefferson, for instance, was not a typical Christian, though he called himself one publicly for fear of public reaction: he was a Deist at best, who didn't believe Jesus was anything more than a man and great "philosopher", and was so bothered by the "mystical" elements in the New Testament that he wrote his own "Jefferson Bible" with just the history, philosophy, and ethics he so admired.
Though I've been preaching this notion to anyone who'd listen for years, I'm neither the first nor the only person to invent this idea: it was proposed in an article in the national Mensa Bulletin in, IIRC, the summer of 2005.
An electoral lottery would likely prevent charismatic and cunning but otherwise stupid and illogical people from having an unnatural advantage in the process. I for one would much rather take my Presidential chances with some average (and perhaps more ethical) Joes than the likes of George W. Bush and John Kerry. The current process effectively excludes both ethical and intellectual people.
How many times have you seen presidential candidates fighting over, say, North Dakota? How about Massachusetts? California? Texas? Oklahoma? I'm guessing none. North Dakota is too small to be bothered with, while the other four are so locked in to one party or another that the candidates don't have to worry about swaying voters in that state.
Now look at Ohio and Florida. They're swing states, where every vote counts because the race will invariably be close. They're also very populous, so winning or loosing one can easily tip the entire national election. Candidates bend over backwards to appeal to these populous swing states.
Voters in the small states are effectively disenfranchised because winning or loosing a 3 electoral vote state is insignificant. Minority voters in states that are heavily Democrat or Republican are disenfranchised because their votes will not change the outcome of the election. The people whose really have significant power are in the large swing states.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
Lets disband it entirely.
Populare vote, period.
It's not like anybody outside of NY or CA matters, lets just give them the rest of the country's tax dollars, fuck them, they're small, who cares?
How so? Who is twisting the States' arms? What particular right is being abrogated by this? It's only a proposal, and legislatures are free to either adopt it or reject it.
The author of this idea should focus on convincing states to implement a better system for assigning the votes of their electoral college reps.
No. The reason most states have a "winner takes all" rule is that it maximizes the state's influence in the national election. Few legislaturees are going to want to change that, and even if they did, their constituents won't be happy.
The theory here is that there is at least some motivation --not universal, but maybe just widespread enough -- for avoiding outcomes that run counter to the popular vote. This approach guarantees that either (1) a state's choice of electors will be unaffected by the legislation, if not enough states enact the proposal, or (2) the state's choice of electors will only be affected in a way that causes the popular vote winner to be elected. (1) is simply the status quo, and (2) is enough of a desirable end that some legislatures may be swayed.
Therefore, the author is correct in focusing on an approach that actually has a chance of succeeding and that (if successful) will mathematically guarantee that his goal is met, rather than focusing on approaches with less chance of passing and no guarantee of the desired effect.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Require that the president be elected by unanimous vote, and keep redoing the balloting until a candidate achieves unanimity.
This is easily as doable as the scheme the Stanford professor extolls, isn't it?
...picking the president can be like investing in the stock market during the Dot Com bubble.
Now go and pick up a copy of the Federalist Papers and read about tyranny of the many.
The excuses given for it NEVER held water, and "changing" it is just as stupid as keeping it the way it is.
It helps voters living in low-population states.
The correlation between the two (being a farmer or living in a low-population state) is very low. Connecticut or Rhode Island, for instance, are everything but rural states. But they have a low population thus they benefit a lot from the EC. On the other hand, Texas is a very rural state and is penalized heavily by the EC system.
I agree with you on one point : The electoral college is designed to NOT reflect the popular vote.
But the rationale you propose - ie. to protect rural voters from the tyranny of city-dwellers - doesn't hold water. Actually there are many instances where the EC actively discriminates against farmers. Rural people in New York State are effectively discriminated AGAINST twice by the EC system. First they happen to live in a highly populated state so the EC vote / population ratio is low. Second, they are bunched together with lots of city-dwellers and don't stand a chance of ever being heard within the state. Have you ever heard of a candidate visiting rural New York State?
The EC system might make sense for a number of good reasons (state rights, history...) that could, or could not, offset its blatant unfairness. But the protection against mob rule is NOT one of them.
The EC "protects" the minority only according to ONE possible subdivision of the US population : the state borders. People who happen to fall in the minority according to any other criteria are not protected. Gays, blacks, mormons, taxi drivers, holocaust deniers, left handed people, people who liked the da Vinci Code movie, slashdotters, you name it... All of these people belong to a minority that is not protected by the EC.
Mob rule is prevented by the whole constitution. The EC has nothing to do with it. All democratic countries in the world have constitutions that prevent mob rules. Only USA have the EC.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
I take it you never clicked on a goatse link...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Merely an observation - I found the article summary misleading, as it failed to mention the discipline of the professor. No attempt to draw attention away from the merits/flaws of the argument, but simply an assertion that it's an interesting tidbit of information, as if you just say generic "professor" and then start talking about something political, I envision political science. There was no suggestion that a computer scientist is at all unqualified to talk about politics - the comment about polisci having a technical background was mostly intended for the typical /. audience, which is less likely to appreciate modern social science than modern computer science.
In any case, no "straw man" going on here, I really just don't feel like logging in. I've had enough of the karma game.
Wow, someone else "gets it"!
Constitutionally Correct
First off, it would essentially eliminate "flyover country", because getting 51% in a large state (say CA) would no longer mean that you get all the EC votes (in the case of CA, it's 54). instead, you'd get (X/2 + 1) votes (CA would give only 54/2 + 1 or 28 EC votes). In the CA senario, those 28 votes aren't any more valueabe than getting all 32 from TX.
But even within states, the same would hold true. You can't just hit NYC and take all of NY, nor LA and get all of California, or even Chicago and get all of Illinois. In the case of Illinios, the southern part of the state is conservative, but IL is never a "red state" precisely because of the extreme "blue state" nature of Chicago. So if you live in Southern Illinois, for all intents and purposes, your presidential vote doesn't matter. How much time do you think Bush and Kerry spent on the issues important to the voters in Edwardsville? How much ad money was spent trying to convince the people of Edwardsville that they caredH^H^H^H^H^gave two shits about them? But with proportionality, Edwardsville would matter, because Chicago isn't 100% of Illinois. At best, Chicago is 22.7% of Illinois' population, a good chunk yes, but it shouldn't be able to choose the president for all of Illinois.
The problem of "winner take all" is that it concentrates power into the hands of densly populated areas, thus creating an "elite" class -- city-folk who by shear numbers get to set the national agenda. That's why farm issues are never discussed, nor are the farmer's concerns over the effects of environmental laws ever an issue. There aren't enough small-town farmers to outweigh the influence of Californian urban environmentalists.
It's lead to some issues. One of them is the issue of prarrie dogs on farmer's ranch lands. A new law prevents a rancher from shooting a prarrie dog. Not sporting, I suppose. The trouble is that the tunnels made by these prarrie dogs injure the farmer's cattle. That lead to a good number of ranchers poisoning the nests before the law took effect, so as not to lose money when the cattle would step on a PD tunnel and break their legs. Nobody asked the ranchers about the effects of the law -- in essence because their numbers were too small and they lived in areas with low electoral counts.
Now if you are a Democrat voting to split means giving away electoral votes while voting the other way means you get to effectively sieze the votes of the outnumbered Republicans and vote em the 'right' way. Which way to you see some Act Up freak in Frisco voting? Uh huh, exactly.
And this is basically why the smaller states don't want to go by the popular vote. The larger states could afford to split their votes. The smaller states really need to have all our votes go together for our entire state to matter vs a large state.
Eligible voters were whoever each state said they were. Apportionment of representatives (and thus electors) was based not on voters but on the free population plus 3/5 of the slave population. In 1790, the greatest proportion of slaves was 43%, in South Carolina, before the 2/5 discount. In total, slaves accounted for 12% of the population for purposes of apportionment.
Now, let's look at states that really did have small populations. In 1790 there were 15 states. The smallest third (Delaware, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Georgia, and Vermont) accounted for 9% of the population and 21 of 135 electors. Delaware, Kentucky, and Georgia had significant slave populations, but Delaware had the minimum three electors anyway. I think Kentucky's fourth elector was probably deserved on the basis of free population alone, but I'll throw it out along with Georgia's. That leaves 19/135, or 14%--a 48% bonus.
Don't take my word for it; check the census data for yourself.
It's no more a vestige of slavery than the bicameral legislature; the apportionment of electors was based on the apportionment of representatives. If the EC is a vestige of anything, it's federalism... like the bicameral legislature.
Practically meaningless, since most states appointed electors back then.
Plurality voting inherently encourages a two-party system; if anything, the EC should increase support for third parties in 'safe' states.
To quote myself,
I have a little more faith in the oldest federal constitutional government in the world.
Instead of making it so that the most populous states get to decide who gets to be President (thereby effectively disenfranchising everyone in Alaska, Maine, Vermont, etc.), why not use the Electoral College the way it's supposed to be? Each state gets electors based on the number of house reps they have, plus two senators. For Alaska, that's three. For California, that's a lot. Therefore, whoever wins the congressional district, gets that electoral vote. The winner of the state then gets the two "bonus" votes. That way, the emphasis is shifted away from the large states and population centers, and back out to where all the people live, not just New York, Cali, Florida and Ohio.
By comparison, here in Canada we elect members of parliament, and not the prime minister directly (who runs for election in his own riding with the risk of losing to rival local candidates).
The pro of this system is that our local MP's are typically quite accessible. Although many MP's vote almost exclusively along party lines, at least there is the power for his constituents to give him/her hell on particular issues, with the hope that he brings these concerns up in Parliament, or with the PM himself behind closed doors.
Personally, I think the US Electoral College system more or less works, however I believe that 540 odd votes no longer fairly represents the will of the populace. With 300 million people to account for, it seems as though a system using several thousand votes is more appropriate, using somewhat smaller regions as opposed to entire states (eg: "having a California North" voting district.
Something similar might apply to memebers of Congress, who now seem completely inaccessible to the average Joe.
1) That would be true if most presidential ads weren't national. They are.
2) While the grandparent said "campaigning", that's a poor choice of words. It's not quite campaigning - advertising alone won't win you the election if you're advertising "Vote for me, and I'll kill babies", regardless of how much advertising you put out. A popularly-elected president wouldn't care about the smaller states, and so his platform wouldn't contain any of the things they care about. Then, when he got into office, he wouldn't do any of the things they care about, because in the next election, again, he wouldn't need them.
The bigger issue is that a popularly-elected president means the president is representing a different nation than Congress is, which is why this is a brain-dead solution. If you want a real one, increase the size of the House of Representatives.
First off, enough with the "We're not a democracy we're a republic!" bullshit. If you can't grasp the mathematical concept of "republic" being a subset of "democracy," it's time to go back to your high school civics class. Don't worry, we'll still be here (saying the same things, most likely) when you get back.
Secondly, it wasn't the intent of the Framers to use the mechanism of the Electoral College to "give small states a louder voice," "prevent tyranny of the majority" or any other such statement that only describes the effect of the institution rather than any actual desires behind it. In fact, anybody who says they "know" what the Framers were thinking when they created it is lying, because the Framers didn't think much about it at all; anybody who's even glanced at the Federalist Papers knows that. The matter had almost no debate, and for the most part the Federalist takes the attitude of "It wasn't discussed much in the Convention, there's no real complaint about in among the public, so we won't bother mentioning it here."
The only reason the Electoral College gives a disproportionate number of electors to smaller states is because each state gets as many electors as they have members of Congress, and the Senate gives disproportionate representation to the samller states. This is referred to as the "Connecticut Compromise," and it was very hotly debated in the Convention (unlike, again, the Electoral College). It is disingenuous to repeat comments about how the Framers didn't trust the people, believed the states should have disproportionate representation, etc, when even the authors of the Federalst Papers were against the idea (they bit the bullet and argued in favor of the idea only as part of their broader effort to argue in favor of the ratification of the constitution as a whole).
The aspect of the Senate that did not receive any real debate (because everybody was happy with it) was the idea of legislative appointment of Senators, but that's the part of it we threw out the window 80 years ago. However, if you want to complain about disproportionate representation, your argument is primarily with the Senate, not the Electoral College; a "simple" solution for the Electoral College would be to increase the size of the House of Representatives (set by act of Congress, not the Constitution) so that the two free electors each state gets are given less weight.
The important part of the Electoral College isn't the number of the members; nobody cared about that in 1787, whether they were involved in the Convention or not. The two main features that were touted in the Federalist Papers, that were considered important by the "Founding Fathers" that everybody likes to treat like religious figures, are:
These past few elections, and their outcomes, seem to raise the ire of those who lost. I am one of those new age Hip Hop (meaning I vote for the candidate not the party), Gun Totin' (take that literally), Government Health Insurance wanting, Democrats. I have lived in 2000 citizen "Big Towns" in the hills of Kentucky and in the Googolopolis that runs from D.C. up past NYC. My teacher in government class was one of my favorites and showed me that since I would turn 18 before the general election I could vote in a primary at 17. Anybody else vote at 17? She lit a politcal fire in me that burns to this day. Waiting to do anything is a fact of life. Until we can vote online there will be a wait (there probably will be a wait to vote then too and then there won't be a line at the analog voting stations). Desire for instant gratification, lack of work ethic, and refusal to believe that there may be slightly more people who disagree with your political views; even though you don't know anybody who holds contrary opinions, has ruined this country. Dang it I sound like my granddad. I live in a large state now and cannot understand what the issue is with waiting in line to vote. Polling stations are open 7 am to 7 pm (you still get to vote if you're in line before 7 pm, people were voting past midnight in some Ohio small towns). You may miss that night's episode of American Idolatry Survivor, but hey thats the cost of Freedom, the alternative is Free Dumb and we have that in abundance in America. If you are reading slashdot I guarantee you know how long and cold a wait people have outside Best Buy or Circuit City for their after Thanksgiving sale. Is a $20 DVD player more important than participating in deciding who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave or sits on the schoolboard in your town? I voted for Clinton twice (and would again for Bill). He's a good ol' southern boy. Wouldn't vote for Hill Clinton. I would vote for McCain because he talks like he has some sense. I couldn't vote for John Kerry after I heard him pandering and begging for the societaly challenged "I'm your only hope." Remember ancient history in Greece and see if their society didn't go down the tubes because more voters started picking the guy who promised them more stuff as their "only hope." Noone's hope lies in the government that's what sent New Orleans down the pooper into the gulf coast.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you had to "contribute to the economy" to have rights which others MUST respect. I thought all men were created equal.
So how much money DO you have to make before you're allowed free speech? The right not to be a slave? The right against unreasonable seach and seizure?
Sorry, what you want is asinine. What you really want is an oligarchy (ruled by the wealthy).
What I'm saying makes the US sucessful is that EVERYONE gets an EQUAL say regardless of the fact that they may be in a minority.
Unfortunately, getting the states to agree to throw their EC votes behind the candidate with the most number of popular votes requires that all 50 states agree and I'm not sure that's ever happened.
... this change would have to come from the state level for each state as there is no Federal authority to force such a change, and again, getting all 50 states to agree is unlikely.
... what are the options going forward? My suggestion would be to encourage everyone to vote. Not force, not require, just encourage. The more people who vote of their own free will, the less likely it is that a bad choice would be made.
... that assumes there are good candidates to choose from ... and fixing THAT problem is a whole other question that would not be relevent to the current topic.
What would be a much more practical solution to the EC challenge is to remove the "winner take all" option - EC seats and votes should be distributed according to the plurality the party/candidate received in that state. This simple change would preserve representative constitutional election of the President and force candidates to address the issues of all the states, not just the biggest 5 "winner take all" states.
Unfortunately
Changing the constitution to require representational distribution in the EC is also unlikely as it would require a Constitutional Convention, and that would mean the WHOLE constitution would be examined and could be rewritten - a very dangerous idea.
So
But then
As an alternative, how about increasing the number of members of the electorial college to 1 for every 30 or 70 thousand (instead of the 700,000 they represent today)? It doesn't solve the winner takes all strategy in states, but it would more accurately represent the people in it. Then you would be more likely to vote b/c you might even know the person going.
Look at federal dollars going to states President Bush has openly stated he hates (Oregon has been baselessly compared to Lebanon by pretty much every member of the Bush family holding a political office). Compare that to federal dollars going to Texas or his native Massachusetts. Even if you break it down per capita, the states Bush doesn't like still get kicked in the teeth.
I have no idea what you're on about with Oregon and Lebanon. A google search didn't reveal anything obvious.
And Bush is not native to Massachusetts. He was born in Connecticut and moved to Texas.
How much money a state gets mostly depends on how powerful its representatives in Congress are. For example, the Big Dig got its billions of dollars thanks to Ted Kennedy. Trent Lott is quite well known for his ability to bring in pork barrel projects to Mississippi. And so on.
Check it out:
http://www.freedomtofascism.com/
Then revisit this topic.
Both ways are equally bad.
The USA is made up of 50 STATES, not 80 million people. People live in a STATE. What matters is that each STATE has an equal stake in the matter. There should be exactly 50 electoral votes, 1 per state. You should have to get the majority in at least 26 states to win the election. The other 48 states should not have to suffer the consequenses because of the idiocy of a bunch of people in NY and CA, just because all the lunatics tend to gather in those 2 places, to use an over-simplistic example.
This is all part of the age old argument that gave us both population-based representatives and state based senators.
(Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
Nor should there be. States are not merely administrative districts of the FedGov to be readjusted as needed, but sovereign states in their own right. At least, that was the original design and intent. It may benefit the people, because at the federal level they'd have more pull, and the smaller state governments (in theory) would be more responsive. But it would be a reduction of power for the legislature and governor. Since the state has to initiate it, I doubt it would happen.
Concerns like this should have been addressed when the state applied for admission to the Union. But, as was pointed out to me, short-term political/economic interests took precedence.
What really needs to be split, and is within the jurisdiction of the FedGov to do, is the 9th Circuit Court.
Constitutionally Correct
More than once. I've even sent a few. To this date, I am aware of no one actually ending up homeless, in jail, or in a psychiatric facility after seeing even something so vile as goatse.
In 2000, the will of the people... as a whole... was that Al Gore be President. He got 500,000 more votes than any other candidate. That fact is incontrovertible.
You are most certainly mistaken. It is very contravertable that Al Gore got 500,000 more popular votes. You conviently neglect to mention that over 1 million votes weren't even counted in California Alone. Absentee ballots are usually not counted if they cannot affect the outcome of the vote. Al Gore only won the popular vote if you assume the breakdown of the absentee ballots exactly reflected the breakdown of the counted votes. This is usually not the case. The absentee vote us usually more conservative. If anything, he 2000 election highlighted one of the reasons the electoral college is necessary. If we had to rely on the popular vote, rather than counting and recounting Florida (which was a huge ordeal), we instead would have had to count and recount the entire nation. Can you imagine what a nightmare that would have been. As you mentioned, there was only one election in the last 100 years in which the popular vote (maybe) didn't result in the same outcome as the electoral vote. I'd say that means the electoral college has served us well. Think of it this way. The 2000 election was essentially a tie. Some people resolve ties by a coin flip. We use the electoral college. It essentially says that in the case of a tie, the small states break the tie.
It is worth trying! http://broadsunlituplands.wordpress.com/
I think that we're both trying to say the same thing (more or less). I think the way we feel it should be accomplished, we disagree on though.
The fact that those from urban areas contribute more to the economy is a side note and you are going off on a tangent when you say I want an oligarchy (which is not the case). I brought that up because you mentioned that the system was chosen because it would make the US successful which I interpreted economically successful.
Either way, everyone should be equally represented which we both seem to agree on. The way I see that would best be accomplished is to have everyone have an equal say. That means one vote from a new yorker counts as much as someone from wyoming (wyominger?). No more no less. With the current electoral college system this is not what is happening. States which represent more people than others are underrepresented (based on their population and how they assign electoral votes). This is especially evident since many states have a "one side takes all" system in which they throw all their electoral votes to one candidate regardless of how close the election was in that state.
This is exactly how Dubya got elected. Most voting americans didn't want him, but because everyone was NOT represented equally, he got elected. To me, that is an unsuccessful system.
Holy Elitist Classism Batman.
Now you should know why people in Wyoming hate people like you.
Also. Raising cattle and growing corn contributes more to the economy than spending welfare money on FUBU clothes.
3 States could decide the election. People that don't like the Electoral College don't understand why it was created. Also there is a better way. Instead the state going for the candidate that won the state it should go by district. Then your voice would be among a couple hundred thousand people instead of a whole state.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Your comparison doesn't hold water. The electoral college and the legislature operate nothing alike.
You cannot pass any law without passing the House of Representatives. Q.E.D.
My twisted sense of humor tempts me to stop right there with that Q.E.D., but I guess I really should address the Senate issue now and save the inevitable round of question and answer on it.
Yes, there is also the Senate. I will freely admit that I consider the whole Senate structure and operation a far cry from the democratic ideal.
Any legislation fails if it does not also pass the Senate. One could almost envision the Senate in the sole role of reducing the legislation manages to sucessfully escape from the House of Representatives. I have a less than stellar oppinion of the quantity and quality of law produced by the legislature, and thus I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for any mechanism, however screwy, that tends to stem the tide of mostly-sewage spewing from the legislature.
Which explains why I am not particularly motivated to make a Federal Case out of it (pardon the pun) against the Senate.
If someone were to seriously float some proposal in relation to the whole Senate deal, I'd be most curious to look it over. And while my tone here may make it sound like I take such a thing lightly, I assure you I do not. Any attempt to do anything of the sort would be exceedingly complex and quite a drastic step. Short of rebooting a USA 2.0, I do not see any particularly viable and reasonable ways to make any major changes in relation to the Senate, not do I expect to see any reasonable viable proposal from anyone else in the forseeable future.
I think there are ways the American system of government can be better. I want America to be the best it can be. I think one of the things that can be improved is the presidential election system. I think that this is a reasonable change. I think it is a viable change. I think it is a simple change. I think it is a non-drastic change. I believe in the abstract democratic principal that the popular vote candidate should be elected.
However I have an even more important and very concrete reason why the electoral candidate should not be elected. The effectiveness and ability for a president to serve, lead, and protect the nation is largely based in his popular support. People can and do respect a president they dislike, if they know that that president is the legitimate choice of the people. People can and do come together to support a president they dislike, if they know that that president is the legitimate choice of the people. A president that loses the popular vote starts off with less affirmative popular support. A president that is imposed upon people against the popular vote is going to have difficulty getting the respect of half the nation. He is going to have difficulty getting the support of half the nation. A president imposed upon people against the popular vote of the people is a crippled, less effective president. His capacity to serve, lead, and protect the nation is signifigantly impaired. Furthermore imposing and electoial candidate against the popular vote is socially corrosive and divisive.
Any arguments and benefits of electoral voting notwithstanding, electing a candidate contrary to the popular vote is in a very concrete way a worse president for the country. He's damaged goods. His ability to do the job is impaired.
And aside from the Electoral College issue itself - I also think we desperately need to fix the broken "you can only vote for one candidate, candidate with the highest total wins" vote counting mechanism. It only works properly when there are strictly two candidates. It effectively enforces that there can only be two viable parties. The "spoiler effect" actually helps throw the election towards the candidate that is least like your preffered candidate if you try to vote for a third party. There are other vote counting mechanisms that are far better,
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Your argument makes absolutely no sense.
Oh, your perfectly right about avioding tyrannies of the majority. However you have given absolutely NO REASON why we should be allocating more than one vote to some people and taking votes away from other people, and then doing a mock "majority" vote to elect the president. You are in no way avoiding any sort of tyranny of the majority. All you are doing is putting your thumb on the scales and manufacturing an arbitrary skewed balance fictional majority, and running the exact same risk of "tyranny" by that fake majority.
You have not suggested any way that is any better than equally weighted votes.
Hell, if you want to avoid a tyranny of the majority, maybe we should protect most populaous states against the tyranny of medium populaous and least populous majority. Why, New your, Texas, and California only have one quarter of the country's population combined. We need to protect them of the tyranny of the majority from all the less populous states. New Yorkers and Texans and Californians should get one and a half votes each.
I fail to see why it makes any more sense to give one quater of the population extra votes for living in low density areas, than it does to give one quarter of the population extra votes for living in high density areas.
Maybe I missed something, but as far as I can tell you have suggested absolutely no reason for giving any particular selection of people any more or any less votes towards electing the president than any other particular group of people.
And I would really love an explanation of why each person in California should suddenly be granted three times as many votes each, if California were to carve itself up into 33 states of a million people each.
argue for an increase in the size of the House of Representatives
That does nothing to solve the swing state problem.
That does nothing to fix the block voting problem.
And suggesting you can stick your thumb on one side of the scales more or less hard still does not explain why you think you should be sticking your thumb on the scales at all, or why you should be sticking it on one side rather than sticking it on the opposite side.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Better idea:
.2 -- sorry Iowa), and some dingle Candidate "C" with 12% of the vote gets a whole whopping 0 EV (recall, you lose anything that isn't a whole number); and the far lefty Candidate "D" gets what's appriximately 1% of the vote...garnering him 0 EVs as well.
Each state gets a number of Electoral College votes equal to every other state, regardless of population. I suggest 6.
States are required to cast their Electoral votes in proportion to the actual votes tallied in the election.
Any electoral votes "left over" that can't be rectified through simple math are discarded.
Example: Iowa has 6 Electoral College votes.
If in an election, Candidate "A" gets 67% of the vote, he will receive 4 Electoral votes; Candidate "B" with 20% will get 1 vote (the mathematical actual answer is 1.2, but you lose the
Result: your vote actually matters unless the state is fragmented like a bad NTFS volume.
For the whole USA, there would be a total 300 EVs in play, and to "win", you'd need to have received more of them than any other candidates.
And before anyone asks, you have to be a State (as in, you have a star on the flag) to get EVs...that means D.C., and any place else in a similar situation, can suck it...either become a state or die off...
"Yup, and if there ever is a real democracy, it will vote itself out of existence within a few elections."
There are no elections in a democracy. In a democracy Every person (with no exception) has an equal choice of what rules govern their country. No representatives, no "one day only" votes.
I suggest you think about what it is you truly wish to do - or you might end up having a life full of nothing.
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