The attempt to dismantle the electoral college begins. SCOTUS to hear arguments.

[Pogo]

Just to riff on this point a bit:

Unfortunately NOTA is not a choice for EC electors. Maybe it should be.

What if it were required that SOME candidate had to achieve a majority (50% pluis one) of a state's vote in order to win that state's electors? In other words the same way the Electoral College itself requires some candidate to win a majority of ITS vote?

Crunching those numbers from the most recent election:

Red ends up with 196 Electoral votes*, Bluie gets 178*
*not counting so-called "faithless electors"


Specifically no candidate would have got the EVs of:

Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, one district in Maine, one district in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona. Collectively that comprises 108 Rump EVs and 49 Clinton ones where each candidate was only able to achieve a plurality but not a majority --- i.e. could not get the consensus of that state.

However, in the Electoral College voting itself a majority is required (at present 270). Any score under that number sends the election to the House of Representatives. Yet this does not apply at the state level.


It should also be noted that two other states (Oregon and Georgia) came within a fraction of a percentage point of joining the list above (> 50% but <51%).

It says something about our politics that more than a quarter of the states (and where applicable two of five districts), could not agree among themselves on who the POTUS should be, For one thing, the states listed in their respective colors cannot by definition be called "red" or "blue". It's also revealing to consider that, where the Electoral College requires a majority, the individual states, in choosing those Electors, do not.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Supreme Court to Look at Electoral College Rules

Depending on the outcome this could be the beginning of the end of our nations great experiment.

Why? Every other election is decided without this out-dated anacronym. Shouldn't the president be elected the same as anyone else?

Are you brain dead?
There is no other election in America that is national.
The Presidential election is it. Only one.

And how is ever other election decided?

The Presidential election is the only one like it.
And we both know that if large coastal cities were primarily Republican, you all would be screaming support of the electoral system. Only reason you want actual vote count is because it supports Democrats.

Lol, no. Every other election in the US is decided the same way, why should the presidential.election be the only one where a minority can decide for everyone else?

It's ridiculous, and always has been.

It's also the only reason republicans have been able to.get elected for quite a while.

Why are you all pretending to not know why the electorate system was formed?
You can argue the pluses and minuses of that system, but trying to pretend there is no reason to have it is disingenuous. You're not that dumb

 

[Pogo]

There are no such "two Constitutional optiojns". You just optioned to pull that out of your ass. What the ACTUAL Constitution says is that each state chooses its electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" and says *NOTHING* about how they must direct it.

Do you deliberately misconstrue what I write or are you just too stupid to understand it? I did not say that the Constitution specifies two options for each state to choose its electors; I said that there were two options that were Constitutional.

Providing for a direct popular vote but then invalidating the results through Congressional District manipulations violates federal voting rights. In contrast, awarding Electoral votes on a proportional basis does not. We will have to see with which of us the Supreme Court agrees.

Again --- the Constitution says a state's electors are chosen, QUOTE, "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct", END QUOTE. It does not say anything about "but don't do it by district or proportional to the vote". It doesn't say anything about needing to hold a vote at all. Holding a popular vote IS an option; NOT holding a vote is an option; apportioning electors proportional to that vote IS an option; apportioning electors by district IS an option; apportioning EVs as WTA is unfortunately also an option. It's left wide open.

We will have to see with which of us the Supreme Court agrees. In the meantime, the EC's 51 firewalls are our last defense against vote fraud in other states.

"51 firewalls"?

Actually the EC has nothing to do with "voter fraud". It has nothing to do with a popular "vote" at all.

If California manufactures a million extra votes, it doesn't affect other states. Comprende?

Actually if your paranoid fantasies manufacture "three million illegals" it doesn't make them retroactively come to life, capice?

Why do you think we call it 'fake news'?

 

[Circe]

[Besides, isn't going to Congressional districts just a roundabout way of going to a popular vote since these districts are based on roughly equal population?

If so, let's ease into this popular vote thing this way.

 

[jwoodie]

Do you deliberately misconstrue what I write or are you just too stupid to understand it? I did not say that the Constitution specifies two options for each state to choose its electors; I said that there were two options that were Constitutional.

Providing for a direct popular vote but then invalidating the results through Congressional District manipulations violates federal voting rights. In contrast, awarding Electoral votes on a proportional basis does not. We will have to see with which of us the Supreme Court agrees.

Again --- the Constitution says a state's electors are chosen, QUOTE, "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct", END QUOTE. It does not say anything about "but don't do it by district or proportional to the vote". It doesn't say anything about needing to hold a vote at all. Holding a popular vote IS an option; NOT holding a vote is an option; apportioning electors proportional to that vote IS an option; apportioning electors by district IS an option; apportioning EVs as WTA is unfortunately also an option. It's left wide open.

We will have to see with which of us the Supreme Court agrees. In the meantime, the EC's 51 firewalls are our last defense against vote fraud in other states.

"51 firewalls"?

Actually the EC has nothing to do with "voter fraud". It has nothing to do with a popular "vote" at all.

If California manufactures a million extra votes, it doesn't affect other states. Comprende?

Actually if your paranoid fantasies manufacture "three million illegals" it doesn't make them retroactively come to life, capice?

Why do you think we call it 'fake news'?

You asked, I explained. So now you resort, once again, to name calling. Pathetic.

 

[Crepitus]

Why? Every other election is decided without this out-dated anacronym. Shouldn't the president be elected the same as anyone else?

Are you brain dead?
There is no other election in America that is national.
The Presidential election is it. Only one.

And how is ever other election decided?

The Presidential election is the only one like it.
And we both know that if large coastal cities were primarily Republican, you all would be screaming support of the electoral system. Only reason you want actual vote count is because it supports Democrats.

Lol, no. Every other election in the US is decided the same way, why should the presidential.election be the only one where a minority can decide for everyone else?

It's ridiculous, and always has been.

It's also the only reason republicans have been able to.get elected for quite a while.

Why are you all pretending to not know why the electorate system was formed?
You can argue the pluses and minuses of that system, but trying to pretend there is no reason to have it is disingenuous. You're not that dumb

It was created as a compromise to keep less populated states and slaveholders happy and get them to ratify the Constitution.

 

[colfax_m]

[Besides, isn't going to Congressional districts just a roundabout way of going to a popular vote since these districts are based on roughly equal population?

If so, let's ease into this popular vote thing this way.

I'm not totally opposed, but I do worry about introducing manipulation by way of gerrymandering.

 

[Pogo]

Why? Every other election is decided without this out-dated anacronym. Shouldn't the president be elected the same as anyone else?

Are you brain dead?
There is no other election in America that is national.
The Presidential election is it. Only one.

And how is ever other election decided?

The Presidential election is the only one like it.
And we both know that if large coastal cities were primarily Republican, you all would be screaming support of the electoral system. Only reason you want actual vote count is because it supports Democrats.

Lol, no. Every other election in the US is decided the same way, why should the presidential.election be the only one where a minority can decide for everyone else?

It's ridiculous, and always has been.

It's also the only reason republicans have been able to.get elected for quite a while.

Why are you all pretending to not know why the electorate system was formed?
You can argue the pluses and minuses of that system, but trying to pretend there is no reason to have it is disingenuous. You're not that dumb

Three basic reasons:

One, in the technology of the 18th century when the EC was conceived, it would not be reasonable for citizens of, say, New Hampshire to be familiar with a candidate from, say, Georgia, and vice versa and those are the extreme examples with innumerable ones in between. That has long since been addressed by mass media and travel methods that didn't exist then.

Two, to allot extra power to the slave states ("Slave Power") by allowing them to count their slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportionment, while granting those slaves zero-fifths of a vote, and thus award disproportionate power to those states, resulting in Slave Power state POTUSes in the first five of seven representing ten of the first twelve administrations, the first four in a row of those POTUSes coming specifically from Virginia, the state with the most Slave Power.

That basis has been obsolete for more than 150 years.

And Three, to ensure a filter between the electorate and the election process so that some charlatan could not hoodwink the populace, and so that some candidate with only regional support couldn't dominate the election to the exclusion of other candidates. While Abraham Lincoln outwitted the latter point, the former one has already been usurped by the combination of the sicko WTA system and so-called 'faithless elector" laws, which is as far as we know what's on the SCOTUS' table right now.

That's it. Three reasons that are all obsolete.

 

[BlindBoo]

Supreme Court to Look at Electoral College Rules

Depending on the outcome this could be the beginning of the end of our nations great experiment.

Hogwash. We'll still be a Representative Democracy. Furthermore there should be more federal elections that we all participate in. The power of the federal government has grown exponentially while the power of the people to reign them in with our voting power has diminished to a point that it hardly exists on the federal level.

Also imo, the court should have no say in how any state selects it's electors. That authority is delegated entirely to the states in the Constitution. If you want to take that power away from the State you'll need to amend the Constitution.

 

[Circe]

I got about 20 years. It may go down the tube for good in that time if we resort to rule by the coastlines.

Yes, I agree, though I think major trends play out in 10 to 15 years, and I'm counting from 2016.

There would be secession of the Flyover Zone, IMO, with the trigger issues not abolition and Mormonism like last time (people who don't read history have NO IDEA how important the problem of Mormonism, with their scandalous, anti-woman polygamy and determination to set up a Republic of Utah, was in the middle of the 19th century) but the never-ending determination of the gun grabbers and the big cities' communism, which intends to grab everything else anyone has. Who'd'a thunk we'd have seen in our lifetimes a resurrection of socialism/communism and in the U.S.?

So far then, the USA would divide into three pieces, if they try to disenfranchise the country in favor of the evil cities, two coasts and the middle. Most writers think it would make six new states at least, however, as the coasts are long and the Midwest/South is wide. These states would of course spend all their time making war against each other, as in Europe, and thus become impoverished.


Maybe we ought to just keep the Electoral College.

 

[Pogo]

[

Also imo, the court should have no say in how any state selects it's electors. That authority is delegated entirely to the states in the Constitution. If you want to take that power away from the State you'll need to amend the Constitution.

The argument can certainly be made (and presumably is being made) that states dictating "faithless elector" laws are violating the intended design of the Electoral College system in removing the human element. Because if the state is dictating what their vote must be, then they have no vote at all and they cannot be legitimately described as an "Elector". That devolves into a robot. There's no reason for them to exist.

 

[Circe]

That's it. Three reasons that are all obsolete.

I notice you don't cite the reason everyone worries about and believes is the true reason: so the cities can't overwhelm the country voters and do exactly what they are trying to do now: grab guns and institute socialism and truly weird perversions in the place of common culture. I don't think the nation will stay as one unit once the "elites" get away with that, and I would join the secession, as would many here.

It would end peace and prosperity and progress, but I think we'd do it all the same, and that's why -- not the other things you cite -- this is IMO an important issue.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I'm thinking this USSC input is a good thing, not a bad thing: apparently TEN electors voted, or tried to vote, for someone besides who they were supposed to!! That's pretty awful and needs fixing.

I don't think you're following. They are ruling on whether or not to allow such a thing.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Why are you all pretending to not know why the electorate system was formed?

First, to protect slavery, second, to keep people like Trump out of office.

It seems to have outlived it's usefulness, in both regards.

 

[Pogo]

Are you brain dead?
There is no other election in America that is national.
The Presidential election is it. Only one.

And how is ever other election decided?

The Presidential election is the only one like it.
And we both know that if large coastal cities were primarily Republican, you all would be screaming support of the electoral system. Only reason you want actual vote count is because it supports Democrats.

Lol, no. Every other election in the US is decided the same way, why should the presidential.election be the only one where a minority can decide for everyone else?

It's ridiculous, and always has been.

It's also the only reason republicans have been able to.get elected for quite a while.

Why are you all pretending to not know why the electorate system was formed?
You can argue the pluses and minuses of that system, but trying to pretend there is no reason to have it is disingenuous. You're not that dumb

Three basic reasons:

One, in the technology of the 18th century when the EC was conceived, it would not be reasonable for citizens of, say, New Hampshire to be familiar with a candidate from, say, Georgia, and vice versa and those are the extreme examples with innumerable ones in between. That has long since been addressed by mass media and travel methods that didn't exist then.

Two, to allot extra power to the slave states ("Slave Power") by allowing them to count their slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportionment, while granting those slaves zero-fifths of a vote, and thus award disproportionate power to those states, resulting in Slave Power state POTUSes in the first five of seven representing ten of the first twelve administrations, the first four in a row of those POTUSes coming specifically from Virginia, the state with the most Slave Power.

That basis has been obsolete for more than 150 years.

And Three, to ensure a filter between the electorate and the election process so that some charlatan could not hoodwink the populace, and so that some candidate with only regional support couldn't dominate the election to the exclusion of other candidates. While Abraham Lincoln outwitted the latter point, the former one has already been usurped by the combination of the sicko WTA system and so-called 'faithless elector" laws, which is as far as we know what's on the SCOTUS' table right now.

That's it. Three reasons that are all obsolete.

Moreover --- leaving aside the Slave Power reason as not applicable, if such a system had merit, the individual states, for the same reasons as in One and Three, would have been practicing the same kind of system to elect their governor. A citizen of Alfred (New York) would not be expected in the 18th century to know much about a governor candidate from Long Island, and vice versa. Et cetera. Yet no state has ever set up such a system, have they.

 

[Circe]

Yanno what, maybe it should be mandated that candidates must campaign everywhere. Whether we change the system or not.

I don't want 'em. Let them haunt the battleground states and leave the locked states alone. We've got troubles enough.

 

[BlindBoo]

[

Also imo, the court should have no say in how any state selects it's electors. That authority is delegated entirely to the states in the Constitution. If you want to take that power away from the State you'll need to amend the Constitution.

The argument can certainly be made (and presumably is being made) that states dictating "faithless elector" laws are violating the intended design of the Electoral College system in removing the human element. Because if the state is dictating what their vote must be, then they have no vote at all and they cannot be legitimately described as an "Elector". That devolves into a robot. There's no reason for them to exist.

My bad, I just made an ass of me. I assumed the topic was the National Popular Vote.

 

[Circe]

I'm thinking this USSC input is a good thing, not a bad thing: apparently TEN electors voted, or tried to vote, for someone besides who they were supposed to!! That's pretty awful and needs fixing.

I don't think you're following. They are ruling on whether or not to allow such a thing.

Not only that. Also these various pacts and agreements intended to push in popular vote and go around the Electoral College.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I'm thinking this USSC input is a good thing, not a bad thing: apparently TEN electors voted, or tried to vote, for someone besides who they were supposed to!! That's pretty awful and needs fixing.

I don't think you're following. They are ruling on whether or not to allow such a thing.

Not only that. Also these various pacts and agreements intended to push in popular vote and go around the Electoral College.

Yes, true. A predictable response, when the system is so skewed that one party has to get so many more votes to win in federal elections. I would expect the same pushback from the Republicans, if they were in the same situation, wouldn't you?

 

[Circe]

There's no reason for them to exist.

I don't want them to exist. I'd like virtual electors -- how to work THAT into constitutional law I leave to the lawyers. I don't trust these electors or the criminals who try everything to get at them. The human element only adds bad complications in this case, IMO.