US electoral system is broken machine

[Sallow]

The Electoral College is the main problem of our electoral system, I suppose. It is outrageous that a small group of individuals chooses the head of state, and to the detriment and contrary to the opinion of the majority of citizens sometimes. Such a system considered as archaism by many political experts. According to sociological research by Gallup company, 63% of Americans believe that the Electoral College should be abolished. These are very important elections ahead. But with these problems in the current electoral system we can get the result as in the elections in 2000, when a candidate who was not elected by the people won

The Electoral College and Gerrymandering should be deep sixed.

 

[mvymvy]

A recount in a close election of the popular vote would probably lead to a war in some parts of the country.

Yup! Just imagine how much damage ballot stuffers in one county could distort the entire national election. With the current system the damage is limited.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, mischief, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.

National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.

The closest popular-vote election count over the last 130+ years of American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.

For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.

Which system offers vote suppressors or fraudulent voters a better shot at success for a smaller effort?

 

[JakeStarkey]

National Popular Vote is a fraud.

Follow the money and power.

 

[KissMy]

A recount in a close election of the popular vote would probably lead to a war in some parts of the country.

Yup! Just imagine how much damage ballot stuffers in one county could distort the entire national election. With the current system the damage is limited.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, mischief, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. With the current system all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who receives a bare plurality of the votes in each state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.

National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.

The closest popular-vote election count over the last 130+ years of American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.

For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be two hundred times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, forty times closer than 2000 itself.

Which system offers vote suppressors or fraudulent voters a better shot at success for a smaller effort?

I believe there should be a law against the state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes. But the electoral system limits ballot stuffing from a totally corrupt district.

 

[candycorn]

Only the losers complain about the system.

My candidate won in 2012. I think it is long passed time to change.

 

[mvymvy]

. . . But the electoral system limits ballot stuffing from a totally corrupt district.

Under the current system of electing the President, every vote in every precinct matters inside every battleground state. If it were true that an election in which the winner is the candidate who receives the most popular votes is “a guarantee of corruption,” then we should see today a wealth of evidence of rampant fraud in presidential elections inside every battleground state. Similarly, we should see evidence of rampant fraud today in every gubernatorial election in every state.
● Executing electoral fraud without detection requires a situation in which a very small number of people can have a very large impact.
● Under the current state-by-state winner-take-all system, there are huge incentives for fraud and mischief, because a small number of people in a battleground state can affect enough popular votes to swing all of that state’s electoral votes.
● In 2004, President George W. Bush had a nationwide lead of 3,012,171 popular votes. However, if 59,393 Bush voters in Ohio had shifted to Senator John Kerry in 2004, Kerry would have carried Ohio and thus become President. It would be far easier for potential fraudsters to manufacture 59,393 votes in Ohio than to manufacture 3,012,171 million votes (51 times more votes) nationwide. Moreover, it would be far more difficult to conceal fraud involving 3,012,171 votes.
● In 2012, a shift of 214,390 popular votes in four states (Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and New Hampshire) would have elected Governor Romney as President, despite President Obama’s nationwide lead of almost five million votes. It would be far easier for potential fraudsters to manufacture 214,390 votes in four states than to manufacture five million votes nationwide (23 times more votes). Moreover, it would be far more difficult to conceal fraud involving five million votes.

 

[mvymvy]

National Popular Vote is a fraud.

Follow the money and power.

Explain yourself.

 

[mvymvy]

Of course the EC today is what the Founders intended.

However, time and change takes precedent over what the FFs intended.

Of course the EC today is not what the Founders intended.

The Electoral College does not operate as a deliberative body.

The Electoral College currently does not act as a buffer against popular passions—and indeed never has.

Since the emergence of political parties in 1796, members of the Electoral College have almost always voted for the nominees determined by the nominating caucus or convention of the elector’s own political party.

Thus, the Electoral College has never acted as a buffer against popular passions—either before or after 1796.

The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists, who vote as rubberstamps for presidential candidates.

In the current presidential election system, 48 states award all of their electors to the winners of their state. This is not what the Founding Fathers intended.

The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.
Of course the EC SYSTEM today is not what the Founders intended.

The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution, and enacting National Popular Vote would not need an amendment. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.

National Popular Vote is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors. Unable to agree on any particular method for selecting presidential electors, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method exclusively to the states in Article II, Section 1:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors….”
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

The Constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation's first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.

Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.

In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.

The current winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes is not in the U.S. Constitution. It was not debated at the Constitutional Convention. It is not mentioned in the Federalist Papers. It was not the Founders’ choice. It was used by only three states in 1789, and all three of them repealed it by 1800. It is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method. The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes became dominant only in the 1830s, when most of the Founders had been dead for decades, after the states adopted it, one-by-one, in order to maximize the power of the party in power in each state.

The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding a state's electoral votes.

As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years.