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Lawrence Lessig Calls For The Electoral College to Choose Clinton Over Trump (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the elections-vs-electors dept.

Lawrence Lessig's new op-ed in the Washington Post argues against the idea "that the person who lost the popular vote this year must nonetheless become our president." (Paywalled version here, free version here.) Lessig points out that the electoral college results have already been ignored twice in U.S. history -- in 1824 and 1876. The Constitution says nothing about "winner take all." It says nothing to suggest that electors' freedom should be constrained in any way...They were to be citizens exercising judgment, not cogs turning a wheel.
Complaining that the electoral college weights the votes in Wyoming roughly four times as heavily as the votes in Michigan, Lessig argues that the popular vote should be respected, and that the authors of the U.S. Constitution "left the electors free to choose. They should exercise that choice by leaving the election as the people decided it: in Clinton's favor."

Meanwhile, Politico is reporting that six electors, "mostly former Bernie Sanders supporters who hail from Washington state and Colorado," are already urging electors pledged to Clinton and Trump to instead coalesce around "a consensus pick like Mitt Romney or John Kasich." And the ethics lawyers for both President Obama and President Bush both told one liberal site "that if Trump continues to retain ownership over his sprawling business interests by the time the electors meet on December 19, they should reject Trump." Finally, from the original submission:
Even Donald Trump has called the Electoral College a "total sham." Is it time for the Electoral College to reflect the popular vote?

62 of 1,430 comments (clear)

  1. Change the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stop bitching about how unfair the electoral college is. Go through the legal process to change/eliminate it so this it doesn't happen again, if that's what the people want.

    1. Re:Change the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the point this Harvard Law Professor is making is that this is within the bounds of the law, and even has historical precedent. But maybe you know more than he does.

    2. Re:Change the law by Lisandro · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is specially ironic considering how dems went after Trump after he insinuated wouldn't accept the election results.

      Don't take me wrong, I'm terrified about the prospect of the orange sexist taking office as much as anyone else, but he won the elections. These talks about having the EC changing their vote, or recounts are delusional.

    3. Re:Change the law by reboot246 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not questioning his being right. What I'm questioning is his wisdom, or lack thereof. A person can be really, really smart and still not be wise. I suspect he's so focused on his line of work that he can't see the bigger picture.

      What he is advocating will result in nothing less than civil war, and that's just foolishness.

    4. Re:Change the law by Lisandro · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, the rest of the developed world seems to be able to do it just fine.

    5. Re: Change the law by hambone142 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The irony here is Hillary pursued the "superdelegates" so she could have an Electoral College advantage.

      Now we find Trump came out ahead with the E.C. votes and lost the popular vote.

      The poetic justice is that Hillary was beat at the game she originally pursued (attempting to stack the E.C. in her favor).

      Ya just gotta love it.

    6. Re:Change the law by DeVilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Eliminating the electoral college wouldn't not require candidates to run a nation wide election. Quite the opposite. Politicians could focus on California, New York, Chicago and maybe urban areas in Texas. The rest of the nation wouldn't matter.

    7. Re:Change the law by bws111 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It will never happen because the Constitution specifies that the president is to be elected by the states. The only way to change that is to change the Constitution, which would require 38 states to decide they should have no say on who is President, that whatever a handful of northeastern and west coast cities decide is fine with them. Ain't gonna happen.

    8. Re: Change the law by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The biggest irony in all of this is that Lessig argued that money wins elections and even ran a campaign to try to end that.

      And now, here he stands, trying to change the results of an election to be in favor of the person who massively outspent her opponent, even though she already lost.

      Hath hell frozen over?

    9. Re:Change the law by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The intent of the Electoral College at least in part was to act as a final check against an unsuitable candidate becoming President. Now we can certainly debate Trump's suitability for high office, but as to complaining about the rules, well the EC is actually somewhat vague in that regard. The chief issue I see with Electors voting for someone other than who they are pledged for is that it could, in states where being a faithless electoral, end you up in hot water.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    10. Re:Change the law by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People don't realize that this is pretty much the gigantic fuckup we have in parts of Canada now. While we use FPTP, in Ontario for example. The political parties only need to run for the Greater Toronto Area(GTA), and if you win that and say London or Ottawa, you've won the province. Getting rid of the electoral college will basically make sure that things get worse.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    11. Re: Change the law by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Without California Hilliary wouldn't have won the popular vote. She won California by over 2 million votes, a total higher than she got for the US overall. California is so overwhelmingly liberal that I don't think Trump even bothered with it knowing that it was hopeless. This is what the electoral college was designed specifically for, to preserve the power of the smaller states so that they don't become marginalized. Worked exactly as designed.

    12. Re: Change the law by ghoul · · Score: 5, Insightful

      California must be doing something right if the population has grown so much. People actually want to come here. Unlike the Republican South from where people are leaving in droves for Blue states. Election by popular vote would be a good way of giving feedback to idiotic state govts. People could vote with their feet by leaving the idiotically run states . Instead we have an Electoral college. Even if people leave the idiots stay behind and still get a voice in fact the idiots voice gets more valuable

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    13. Re: Change the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      to preserve the power of the smaller states so that they don't become marginalized. Worked exactly as designed.

      Except it doesn't work. The current winner-take-all plus electors system layered with political parties marginalizes all but a few swing states. No one else matters from a campaign standpoint, because virtually every state comes pre-decided.

      If it was Satan (R - tough on criminals) vs. Jesus (D - bleeding-heart liberal) on the ballot, most of the red states would remain red.

      If it was Jesus (R - religious right) vs. Satan (D - anti-Christmas) on the ballot, most of the blue states would remain blue.

      If it was Hitler (R - authoritarian nationalist) vs. Stalin (D - communist), most would still cling to the idea that a third-party candidate was a wasted vote and choose their candidate by party.

    14. Re: Change the law by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let me put it this way. The opposition to Hitler accepted his electoral victory in 1933 even though the Nazi party had used voter intimidation and minority baiting to win. They felt it would help democracy and they could always come back in the next election. Most of them died in gas chambers. There are some elections you should not accept else you are writing your own death warrant. Trump is not a normal politician.

      First of all, while I'm not a Trump supporter by any stretch, that's a pretty low blow.

      Second of all, this isn't Germany, and we don't have a history of supporting military dictators, nor do we have any kind of suppressed desire to do so. (Yes, Germany is both, even to this day.)

      Third of all, if you're worried about democracy going wrong, your sights should be placed firmly on Europe. Why Europe? Well, the EU parliament has fascists -- yes, actual self proclaimed fascist politicians -- holding many political offices. A whopping 25% of the population of France and Denmark, and a slightly lower percentage of the population of about 15 other European countries are voting for their country's fascist party and electing fascist MPs.

      Trump doesn't even begin to fit that description, and any US politician who exhibits even a hint of that these days typically ends up handing in their letter of resignation in very short order, and their career is basically finished at that point. This even happens if one of them makes a joke that is in some way interpreted as racist (For example, George Bush was often compared to a chimp, and yet when some politician back east made a similar comparison about Michelle Obama on facebook a week ago she ended up being forced to resign.)

      Finally, how would you even know what kind of politician Trump is? Hell, he isn't even a politician yet; he is and always has been nothing more than a pundit (granted, that will most likely change as of next year.) So far he's gone back and forth on so much shit, it's anybody's guess (even his, I'll wager) what he'll actually do once in office.

      And no, I'm not defending Trump, rather I'm taking an "I'll believe it when I see it" approach with regard to Trump's "make America great" promises, same as I did with Obama's "change you can believe in" promises. Speak of which, how did that turn out? I honestly don't think Trump will be any better, but I don't have a crystal ball.

    15. Re:Change the law by doom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't like the system, than change it, don't cheat it, change it.

      And if you don't like the system then you could change it, because the system we have at the moment allows the electors to vote their conscience.

      If there's any purpose at all to the electoral college system, it's to cover for weird, exceptional cases like a winning candidate taking office with record disapproval numbers after losing the popular vote by at least 2 million.

    16. Re: Change the law by ghoul · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Handouts to corporates is OK? Most Republican states depend on handouts from the federal govt because they give so much corporate welfare to their golf buddies that they cant pay for their own social services. California contributes more to the federal budget than it gets back as do most Blue states. The Red states are the ones running on handouts.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    17. Re: Change the law by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Governments that spend all their money on handouts tend to be very popular, then they go broke.

      So, crunch the numbers and tell us which states have a better debt ratio or a higher GDP than California, let alone both, and get back to us. The truth is that California spends all its money on handouts for other states (in terms of percentage of total compensation returned per state, we are one of the states that gets boned hardest on tax dollars sent to the feds) which they've managed to get for themselves... through the electoral college.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    18. Re: Change the law by Gavagai80 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      She flat out stated she intended to nominate political activists and get cases heard for the express purpose of over turning past rulings. The court is supposed to be an arbitrator between Congress and the President, not an arm of the President.

      Roe v. Wade is a past ruling affecting the lives of millions of Americans in very dramatic ways, far more so than any other ruling, you know. Clinton wasn't the one promising to overturn it.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    19. Re: Change the law by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Trump doesn't even begin to fit that description,

      Yes he does. Here's what fascism looks like:

      http://www.nybooks.com/article...

      And here's how Trump fits:

      http://www.wehuntedthemammoth....

      I think a couple of those are a bit of a stretch, but 12 out of 14 is pretty close.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    20. Re: Change the law by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The truth is that California spends all its money on handouts for other states ...

      This. California gives on the order of $60 billion more every year to the federal government than they get back, most of which goes to prop up the red states' failing economies that are broken largely because of Republican economic mismanagement. The reason California pays so much more in taxes is that the overwhelming majority of Californians make significantly more money than the national average for their particular field. The economy is in much better shape than most other states, in part because of high tech, in part because of the music and movie industries in L.A., and in part because the varieties of produce that California grows are in high demand relative to production levels.

      But more than that, California has benefitted immensely from Democratic governments throwing huge amounts of money into higher education back in the 1970s, all of which cranked up taxes, but resulted in a more educated population that was better able to weather the economic changes brought by a post-industrial world. What I don't understand is how anybody still believes that Republican economic policies work in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, both at the state level and at the federal level. The notion that high taxes stifle the economy is a fiction. If it were true, California would be bankrupt and Florida would be extremely wealthy. Instead, the tech industry has actively migrated from Florida to California over the past twenty years or so, because the higher standard of living resulting from those higher taxes more than makes up for the cost of the higher taxes.

      If California had that $60 billion per year back, we could give a free UC education to every California high school graduate. If we did that, the rest of the country would never catch up. In fifty years, even the eastern seaboard would be third world by comparison. And for our generosity in giving up that huge advantage to support our red state brethren, we get only a quarter as many electors per capita as Wyoming. The electoral college is thus fundamentally biased in favor of Republicans. The only reason Democrats ever win is because the Republicans are so incredibly bad at governing that Democrats overcome herculean odds stacked against them. Were the electoral college actually fair, no Republican would ever win a presidential election, nor (because representative count is tied to delegate count) would they ever hold the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, or even come close. Let that sink in for a moment.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    21. Re: Change the law by chudnall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The irony here is Hillary pursued the "superdelegates" so she could have an Electoral College advantage.

      What? There are no "superdelegates" in the Electoral College. Hillary pursued superdelegates to win the primary. Two separate things.

      --
      Disclaimer: Evolution comes with NO WARRANTY, except for the IMPLIED WARRANTY of FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
  2. It's past time. by Simulant · · Score: 2, Insightful

    " Is it time for the Electoral College to reflect the popular vote?"

    Way past time.

    1. Re:It's past time. by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, each State can do what it likes with its Electors now. Including reflect the popular vote nationwide (or vote against the popular vote, for that matter).

      Anything else requires a Constitutional Amendment. Good luck with that.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    2. Re:It's past time. by Sartr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sure. Nothing except the large majority of food, farms, guns, and factories. You coastals have a monopoly on Hollywood actors and expensive beachfront property. Not much else.

    3. Re:It's past time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And that attitude is exactly why Hillary lost. The party that preaches inclusiveness and claims to look out for the common folk, dismissed the common folk and took them for granted. The ivory tower progressive elites forgot what the Democratic party was actually built on. The further they go left and progressive, the more votes they'll lose.

    4. Re:It's past time. by Koby77 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Cook up all the justifications you want about why Trump 'won' the election and why he should be president.

      How about -- he won the electoral contest? You know, the one set of rules that actually counts? The one system that was perfectly okay before the election, until now that some of the losers are sore and are concocting all the justifications for a change in the outcome after-the-fact?

      Democracy is a system whereby elected representatives are chosen by winning the popular vote not a gerrymandered system where you elect a group of functionaries who then vote for the runner up.

      Actually, if you live in the United States, then you don't live in a pure democracy. You are in a democratically elected representative republic. This means, by design, that sometimes the majority does not get its way.

  3. So now Clinton supporters can't handle the results by SensitiveMale · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For months before the election, the MSM & Hillary supporters hammered about how Trump & his supporters wouldn't accept the results of the election.

    Now that Hillary has lost, her supports can't accept the results. Death threats to electors. Riots in the street. Offering the pay fines for electors who break the law. MSM story after story about how the circumvent the will of the people. Jill Stein taking donations to force a recount where even she says that there was no fraudulent or illegal activity.

    It seems life is not without a sense of irony.

  4. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is this on slashdot?

    What a bunch of sore losers.

    They should all move to Canada. Quickly, like they promised.

    1. Re: Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because the three regular editors are Hillary shills that won't accept what happened.

  5. Yes, but it doesn't matter by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are a lot of good arguments for the electoral college voting for Hillary. Lessig lays most of them out. There are also good arguments against (among other issues we don't know if Hillary would have won the popular vote if both she and Trump had been competing to optimize turnout). It is also utterly irrelevant: the electoral college members are primarily bog-standard Republicans, and we've seen in the last few months that most establishment Republicans hate Hillary more than they love their basic ideology and beliefs (whatever Trump stands for, it damn well isn't conservativism by any standard definition of the term). So pushing for this at this juncture is a waste of resources.

    1. Re:Yes, but it doesn't matter by thrich81 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We've got eight counties in Texas with less than 1000 residents, I'm sure they all went for Trump. On the other hand, Texas has five counties with over a million residents (Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and Travis). Of those, four of the five went for Clinton. That's in TEXAS. Measuring wins by county is crap unless you are giving the vote to cows and sagebrush. If you do want to rank votes by counties, then measured by economic output, Clinton won the counties nationwide which account for 64% of the USA's economic output (http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/25/presidential-election-economic-split/). So the counties which are actually producing in this country went for Clinton.

  6. Sour grapes by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Clinton and Trump campaigned in the swing states because that is what the Electoral College encourages. The popular vote "imbalance" is a mirage. If they had been campaigning for the popular vote, if there had been no Electoral College, the campaigns and the results would have been different in ways we can't imagine.

    To change the Electoral College process now, after the popular vote is over, is sour grapes.

    --
    Infuriate left and right
    1. Re:Sour grapes by Shane_Optima · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except what is being proposed here isn't a change. The electoral college would be operating exactly as it has in the past, as it was designed to be able to, and indeed as it was intended: giving the electors the ability to prevent a moronic populist from ascending to the presidency is arguably precisely the entire point of the electoral college. The fact that Hillary won the popular vote by millions is just a happy coincidence.

      You hear that, all you people pro-electoral college people? The very core of the electoral college absolutely gives them the electors the right (barring state law requirements) and the duty to jump ship based on the needs of the country. Don't like it? Then you should support electoral college reform.

      I personally think there are some fairly compelling arguments against this actually happening, but this needs to be said loudly and clearly for all of you smug pro-EC nutters who don't understand what it is what you're actually arguing for: You don't get to dismissively wave away appeals to the popular vote as irrelevant whilst simultaneously rejecting any possibility that the electors might execute their own judgment. Either you are for some form of electoral college reform, or you are completely fine with the possibility that they may yet choose to elect someone other than Donald J. Trump for President.

    2. Re:Sour grapes by blindseer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's why we USED TO have a Senate. When the Senate changed to popular vote instead of appointment by the state governments it became just another House of Representatives.

      You are correct on your assessment of the chances of eliminating the electoral college, it's not going to happen any time soon.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    3. Re:Sour grapes by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yea good luck with that creimer. It's near enough impossible to get this voted through, would require 2/3 of the senate to vote it through, 2/3 of the house of representatives and then 75% of the states to ratify it. So when you already have some many states over-represented in our chambers it's near enough guaranteed never to change.

      Working As Intended(TM) - Authors, US Constitution

      They did not want it to be easy or quick. They wanted there to be a requirement for an overwhelming majority to pass constitutional amendments. "Quick and simple majority-vote to elect leaders and amend the nation's founding documents" is how dictatorships and tyrannies arise through populists.

      Straight democracy does not work in more than small and close-knit homogeneous groups of people, just like socialism or communism. It allows 51% of people to exercise tyranny over 49% of people. It would theoretically allow whites in the US to bring back Jim Crow laws if they so wished or elect the leader of the KKK as POTUS (and before you start, comparing Trump to some KKK wack-job is your own projection).

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    4. Re:Sour grapes by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ah, the Democrats, always trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. Didn't work in 2000, won't work now.

      If you really care about the process, not the winner, change the rules at a time when your guy will lose as a result. You'll get far more support then. Or, you know, amend the constitution following the normal process right after an election (like, say, this one), so that it's all settled before the 2020 campaign begins.

      Personally, I think the founders were wise. Balance states' rights against direct democracy, to avoid the historical mistakes going in either extreme have demonstrated (for many centuries in both cases).

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    5. Re:Sour grapes by Tom · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Finally someone says it !

      Both candidates went into the race knowing the rules. Crying baby over the "popular vote" is like saying you should've gotten the 100m dash gold medal because your running style was more beautiful. Might be true, but you knew that it's a race for speed when you started.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  7. Electoral college does reflect the popular vote by SensitiveMale · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The vote of each state.

    There are many reasons why a straight popular vote is bad and the electoral college is better but the best one I can think of is what happened in the recent election. Hillary Clinton won 300 counties while Trump won 5000. If you think that the election of a nation should be swayed by a handful of cities while the rest of the nation is completely ignored, well, you're an idiot.

    1. Re:Electoral college does reflect the popular vote by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are two historical elements for why the electoral college was invented. One, discussed by Hamilton in Federalist 68 was to provide a final stopgap against demagogues like Trump http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp. The second was to give the slave states more power http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/12/13598316/donald-trump-electoral-college-slavery-akhil-reed-amar and it should be clear why that shouldn't be ok. As for the argument involving counties: that's just silly. There's no reason that amount of total area won should mean anything at all. Moreover, there's no reason you can reasonably object to cities dominating simply because they happen to be dense areas. Disagreeing with a group doesn't mean you get to use essentially arbitrary criteria to decide you'd like to ignore their wishes.

      There are good arguments against having the electoral college change in this case (especially given that we don't know if Hillary would have won the popular vote if both her campaign and Trump campaign had optimized voter turnout rather than focused on swing states) but trying to make an argument that relies on county number is just awful.

    2. Re:Electoral college does reflect the popular vote by Cyberax · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And why should Alaska and Wyoming with its over-privileged voters should decide how California runs?

    3. Re:Electoral college does reflect the popular vote by Nikkos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you total all of the other 49 states (including all of those "highly populated areas") leaving out California, the results are thus:

      Trump: 58.4M
      Clinton: 56.9M

      Clinton only wins the popular vote because of a 5 million vote swing in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

      Somehow people are complaining that the electoral vote is unfair, while their own proposed system (straight vote) would have just one populous and ideologically-homogeneous area having the power to over-ride the results of the other 49 states. This is proof the electoral college WORKS, not the other way around.

    4. Re:Electoral college does reflect the popular vote by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is proof the electoral college WORKS, not the other way around.

      Apparently you don't believe in democracy. There is no legitimacy in a count that ignores millions of people just because they happen to live in or near one or two cities.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    5. Re:Electoral college does reflect the popular vote by physicsphairy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's no reason that amount of total area won should mean anything at all. Moreover, there's no reason you can reasonably object to cities dominating simply because they happen to be dense areas. Disagreeing with a group doesn't mean you get to use essentially arbitrary criteria to decide you'd like to ignore their wishes.

      Social and political interests tend to have a heavy coincidence with geography. If you are on the coasts you care way more about the fishing industry than people in the heartland. If you are in a desert you care more about water conservation. If you are near oil and natural gas your livelihood or the livelihood of your neighbors probably depends on the energy industry. By virtue of being in a population dense area, you automatically have a powerful voting block on various area specific issues. What's more, the people in other areas are not your neighbors, you have much less incentive to protect their interests, and are much less likely to hear their anger and complaints when you don't. By and large people from Wisconsin are not going to be able to come and protest march down the streets of LA if California -- 8 x the population of Wisconsin -- decides corn should be taxed to subsidize making action movies.

      The electoral college helps protect various minority populations from being exploited by a tyrannous majority. And that is the main point of our republic, why it is based on constitutional rights, competing branches of government (one of which is not voted on), an electoral college, etc., and super majorities are required to enact any substantial changes. Our government is not a mechanism for enacting the will of the 51% (or even the 60%) on every issue, it is built as a balance of interests which makes the government accountable to the people while also making it fairly difficult for any one group of people to use the government as a cudgel against another group.

      --
      When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
  8. Re:Pass the popcorn... by Sartr · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Sure. Genius Liberal in action here. Sending $400 million in unmarked cash to the World's Leading State Sponsor of terrorism while also trying to import endless more terrorists into the US is more likely to destroy our country than anything Trump is going to do. Having the electorate spontaneously decide to not elect who they're supposed to and instead elect Crooked Hillary, the woman who never met a Middle East dictatorship she didn't accept bribes from is not the genius idea you sore losers think it is.

  9. So by JWW · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So my rural state will get basically no political say in picking a President?

    Yeah, there's a reason things like the electoral college were set up and it was to give states good reasons for being part of the union.

    If we want to keep dividing the country up into two coasts, and "flyover country", then shit, why talk about getting rid of the Electoral College? Maybe its time to get rid of the entire union.....

    Besides if the country is now made up of groups that hate each others with nearly unbounded passions, an amicable breakup is possibly the best bet.

    Oh and don't worry Millenials in "flyover country" the east and west coast have loads of sanctuary cities and open borders, so you're totally free to go there....

    1. Re:So by whoever57 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So my rural state will get basically no political say in picking a President?

      "no political say"? No. Just a fair share.

      At the moment your rural state has more say over the picking of the President than can be justified based on population, economic output, or any measure other than status quo.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  10. It would sure save us some trouble... by HanzoSpam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If we're going to go for the popular vote, we can just wait for California to vote and let them decide who's going to be president. Save the rest of the states the trouble of running elections.

    --

    Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
  11. Re:Pass the popcorn... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You mean will the electors vote as the will of their State and the laws thereof, or will they ignore it and go with the trendy feelings of Hillary voters?

    --
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  12. Re:Working as designed by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's working exactly as designed, striking a balance of power between the states. It's a concept we have in the congress, population based representation in one house and equal state based representation in the other. Without the electoral college the president would effectively be chosen by only a handful of states. The college ensures that all of the states have at least some effective say in the matter.

    Two things...

    Even with the electoral college, the President is being chosen by a "handful of states." Specifically, the three "Swing" states which put Trump over the top. Even worse, the outcome of the entire country's future leadership is based on less than 10,000 people in one state, less that 20,000 in another, and less than 35,000 in a third--a total of far under 100,000 votes in a nation where more than 120 million votes were cast. This is, more or less... a rounding error... A number of votes that could be cast (or not cast) if it rains on election day.

    And second of all, the original "Balance of power" the electoral college was created to preserve was between free and slave states. Specifically, southerners would not have adopted the constitution if they thought that higher population northern states would have been able to control the congress, and the presidency, by virtue of their greater numbers. So they came up with the 3/5 compromise (that allowed slave states to count 60% of their slaves for the purpose of calculating their congressional representation, and by proxy, their electoral college representation,) and kludged it onto the electoral college to "protect" their interests in the Presidency.

    Setting aside whether or not the electoral college is, in and of itself "racist," (I don't think it is anymore, although it was conceived as such) the real issue I have with it is that it's an anachronism that isn't necessary. Because the other justification for it is that rural areas in 1797 didn't have very good communications with the outside world, and might be enticed to accidentally vote for a dangerous tyrant that they were unaware was a dangerous tyrant.

    So bottom line, slavery is defunct, so we no longer need to appease slave states, and today, rural states have access to the Internet and full communications parity with the rest of the world. Which means there's no more justification for the continued existence of the Electoral College.

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  13. What about the primaries? by Zobeid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not a fan of the Electoral College, and I'd be pleased to see it go away. However. . .

    The shortcomings of the Electoral College are *trivial* in comparison with the broken and dysfunctional primary system that gave us Clinton and Trump as our major-party candidates. It's utter madness. That's where we should focus our reform efforts.

  14. Consistency Alert by uncqual · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On the one hand, Lessig relies (correctly) on the fact that the Constitution places no restrictions on how electors vote and that it was expected that they would be citizens exercising judgement.

    On the other hand, he disagrees with a very fundamental feature of the Constitution -- that states, by the fact they are states, have power beyond just the mass of their population. This is directly evidenced in the Constitution as it defines how the Electoral College and Senate work. The Founders felt so strongly that each state have an equal vote in the Senate independent of the population of the state that the ONLY thing that can't be amended in the Constitution with approval of ¾ of the states (NO state can lose equal suffrage in the Senate without approval of that state).

    It seems quite odd to rely on the Constitution for one argument and then completely dismiss one of its most fundamental concepts that protected the less populous states from being run roughshod over at the Federal level by the more populous states. One might go so far as to label such a viewpoint as hypocritical.

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    1. Re:Consistency Alert by reboot246 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Constitution goes even further. The state legislatures could choose the electors and not even let the people vote on them. The Supreme Court has already ruled that no one has a Constitutional right to vote for President.

      Any time you read the word "state" think "country", because that's exactly what the states are, semi-independent countries bound together with a central federal government. The Constitution was written to limit the power of the central government and actually left most power with the states and people. Kinda turned upside down now, isn't it? See our point?

  15. Lessig is such a tool by superwiz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It would be one thing if he genuinely didn't get it. But he knows he is wrong and he makes the argument anyway. State laws is what obligates members of the electoral college to vote proportionately or winner-take-all. If states wanted to, they could change their laws through state legislatures. Lessig's argument is that the members of the electoral college should break the law. And, as a law professor, he knows it. As for whether or not the law should be changed, the electoral college acts as a check on corruption. If a certain locality decides to game the system by having a lot of fake votes, there is very little to stop it after the candidate takes office. Currently such a locality would only effect he votes of one state. Without electoral college, it would effect the vote count nation-wide. And, again as a law professor, Lessig knows this.

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  16. Re:Andrew Jackson is Instructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Jackson didn't do horrible things. He was a real man which in this day and standard is a crime to SJW pussies like yourself.

  17. So let me get this straight by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These people want to scrap the system that has been in place since the whole thing began because things didn't turn out in their favor ?

    It seems that the current generation just can't handle defeat ( they've been insulated against it their entire lives ) so when things don't go
    their way, the best course of action is to loudly demand that the rules be changed ? If that doesn't work, organize protests and maybe
    cry on camera a bit ? Perhaps hire a celebrity to be " The voice for the unheard " or some other silly attention seeking behavior.

    Welcome to reality kids. Where life is cold, uncaring, unfair and, occasionally, absolutely horrific.
    By the time you become an adult, we've flat run out of consolation and / or participation prizes.
    Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

    So strap yourselves in, because it's going to be a rough ride.

    For anyone who argues Trump supporters would be doing the same thing were the situation reversed, I call out your bullshit and will say
    it's pure speculation on your part. Right now the only folks who are actively participating in the riots and general stupidity are those who
    claim to be the " more educated, intelligent and / or informed " than those " Deplorable " Trump Supporters ( Hillary's description of them I believe ).

    I don't recall any of this sort of bullshit when Obama got elected.
    ( Or any President in recent history for that matter. Republican or Democrat )

    So, other than dealing with the most coddled, spoiled, insulated and catered-to generation of all time, what do you believe has changed to
    cause such behavior issues from the very folks who own words claim intellectual superiority over everyone else, while their actions say otherwise ?

  18. Re:So now Clinton supporters can't handle the resu by SensitiveMale · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Nobody expected yet another election where the losing candidate gets the most votes. And to add insult to injury Trump received the third worst vote margin in all of US history, yet he already acts like he has a mandate by making some very extreme announcements and decisions. Such as supporting Ryan's plan to phase out medicare.

    I don't know if I'd ever call a winning margin the "third worst" of anything.

  19. Simple way to test if you truly believe in this by Solandri · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If Clinton had won the Electoral College but Trump had won the popular vote, would you have taken the time to write up an op-ed outlining the flaws of the Electoral College, would you have protested in the streets, would you be demanding Trump be made President? If not, then you are simply being partisan, and your support for this is out of self-interest rather than truly wishing to improve the system.

    Someone truly wishing to reform the Electoral College would be for such reform regardless of who won. If you truly believe a change is for the better, you support it even when it works against your own self interests. I think Merkley made a mistake dismantling one of the checks and balances the Founding Fathers put into the system to prevent a simple majority from having too much power, but I respect him for not changing his position even though he now finds himself on the disadvantaged side of his rule change.

    (And if you're one of the people who believe Merkley's rule change was necessary because the Republicans were stonewalling in the Senate, the Washington Post keeps a database of how often each Senator votes with his/her party. Here are the stats for the 108th, 109th, 110th, 111th, 112th, and 113th Senates, spanning 2002-2015 with Senate control by both parties, covering both a Republican President and Democrat President. Click on the Party column to sort it by Senators most likely to vote for their party. You'll see it's actually the Democrats who most frequently vote as a block, and the Republicans who are more willing to cross the party line. The meme that Republicans refused to compromise was fake news spread by the mainstream media without any statistical evidence to back it up.)

  20. Just one little thing ... by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If your going by number of votes cast the when you look at the total votes, the majority of Americans voted that they did NOT want Hillary.

    I didn't vote for Trump but I sure as Hell's didn't vote for Hillary.

    I honestly feel I'd rather have Trump, better an incompetent idiot who will accomplish nothing because he is hated than a criminal who has already stated on record that she will violate her oath of office as soon as the takes office and will not be effectively opposed because she is popular.

  21. News Flash! by skam240 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Candidates not campaigning in states considered locked down is not unique to Trump, or Clinton, or Democrats, or Republicans. You're not being insightful here, Clinton didn't campaign in California either.

    Furthermore, the only thing the Electoral College accomplishes is that only 7 or 8 states elect the president. Voters in Louisianian and Connecticut, Mississippi and Delaware, Kansas and Oregon, etc; they don't matter in a presidential election. All of these are smaller states and all of these are clearly marginalized. The Bible Belt, New England, the Deep South, all of the small states in these regions are 100% marginalized under the current system. Switch to popular vote, all of a sudden all of the smaller states in these regions matter in a presidential election.

    I'm sorry to be rude but I feel your comment suggest a willful ignorance on how the modern presidential election works.

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    1. Re:News Flash! by skam240 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you're a Republican in California or a Democrat in Mississippi why should you even bother voting for the president? Those state's votes are practically decided before any campaigning takes place. Now repeat that for at least 40 of our 50 states. THAT my friend, is "utter bullshit". No one in any modern presidential election should ever be surprised how 80 percent of the electoral vote goes because it doesn't even matter what candidate is running in those states.

      Please explain to me how a state almost always voting for one party or the other in a presidential election doesn't marginalize voters. Explain to me how a Democrat's vote in Mississippi matters. Explain to me how a Republican's in California matter. You've literally already pointed out the problem in California ("California is so overwhelmingly liberal that I don't think Trump even bothered with it knowing that it was hopeless."), you just refuse to accept it for the rest of the country.

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  22. Not fair to change rules after the game is over by walterbyrd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What the leftists want is a system that is rigged so that they always win.

    Before the election, both dems and repubs wanted the electoral college.

    Why wasn't this professor making an issue of the electoral college *before* the election?