CDZ I am for the Electoral College

[meaner gene]

Or better yet ,just leave well enough alone. A system that has worked for over 200 years can't be all bad.

As with all things, there is room for improvement.

blart the popular vote of each state is counted and the winner gets the electoral vote of that state.

The system "didn't work" for 4 of 58 elections.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Or better yet ,just leave well enough alone. A system that has worked for over 200 years can't be all bad.

As with all things, there is room for improvement.

blart the popular vote of each state is counted and the winner gets the electoral vote of that state.

The system "didn't work" for 4 of 58 elections.

Prove it didn't work

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

I am for strengthening the electoral college as to where the President-Elect must get both the plurality of the nationwide popular vote as well as the majority of the electoral votes—the famous “270” that we hear about. Save for that one aspect of strengthening, I’m quite happy with the current formation of the electoral college as opposed to the direct election of the president through the national popular vote.

Here is why;

Whatever system we have must be good for every outcome. While not perfect, the current system ensures that at least a majority of the electors select the president. A national popular vote, in the year 2020, would do the same thing. However, ours is not a static electoral landscape. Does anyone remember all of those great democratic presidents from California? Yeah, neither do I. That’s because what is a solid blue state today used to be a pretty dependable red state. Presidents Nixon and Reagan both came from there; both republicans. The brick red-south used to be called the “solid south” for another reason; they supported democrats almost exclusively. So today’s reality must not be taken as being carved in stone.

Further, the two-party system that we currently have has not always been the case. In the future there may be serval parties that emerge dividing the vote into smaller percentages. Whereas the Electoral College has remedies for no one candidate getting 270 electoral votes, the national popular vote has only a provision for the candidate who gets the most votes winning whether it be 80% of the vote, 50% of the vote, or 12% of the vote if every other candidate gets 11.9% and less. As unsettling it is to contemplate the winner having been crowned when 88% chose someone else, it’s even more unsettling to consider that the proposed remedies—a nationwide runoff—would delay a president-elect being named for weeks. There is an intriguing remedy of “rank choice voting” where you have an instant run-off. It is explained here.



I don’t care much for the idea as it would elevate a candidate who didn’t get the most “first choice” votes to office based on being more voter’s second choice. But I could see some value in the concept.

One of the most frequent complaints about the electoral college is that candidates only campaign seriously if a handful of states that are considered to be contested. This is true. Here is a graphic from the National Popular Vote website that shows the campaign stops

View attachment 360418

What isn’t addressed by the graphic is that if an NPV was instituted, the candidates would focus almost solely on high population centers as opposed to toss-up states; thus substituting one criteria-based campaign strategy for another. I’ve heard some proponents of the NPV state that this is how it “should” be—high population centers having more sway than comparatively rural areas like Nevada and Colorado. I reject that because demographics, as I mentioned earlier, do change over time.


Lastly, let me close on what I mentioned earlier. In this day and age, there is no reason to ignore the national popular vote. In a democracy, you vote should matter and it should have some effect on the outcome of the election in which you’re voting. So that is why I’m for strengthening the electoral college by having the president-elect win both the plurality of the popular vote and the electoral vote majority. If they do not win both, the remedies of the 12th Amendment come into play; just as it would if no candidate gets 270 electoral votes four months from now. Given the most recent election saw the Blob win an electoral victory without winning a popular vote victory, I’m sure some will see this as me trying to throw up a hurdle to his oozing into office. I wish it were that easy. But no, I brought up the plan I had long before he won. From 2015:

Electoral College. Just why?

The remedy I proposed, in our history, would only have changed the winner (arguably) 4 times when the President didn’t get both the EC victory and the NPV victory. In the two most recent incarnations; Bush in 2000 and the Blob in 2016; in both cases the House would have almost certainly delivered the presidency to Bush and Trump since the GOP had majorities in both 2000 and 2016. So this is not me trying to re-write history.

There is plenty wrong with our system of electing Presidents. We need to make election day into an election week. We need to expand access to the ballot requiring states to offer no-cause absentee voting. We need to get the parties out of the business of running elections all together and let the county clerks and election officials run elections. We need to have third, fourth, and fifth parties on the debate stage next to the Democrats and Republicans so voters can draw distinctions between the different candidates who are running. But one thing that we have that works in all climates is the electoral college. I think it needs to be strengthened to make sure the President Elect is the voter’s choice. But it’s not bad the way it is.

There’s also another aspect of the EC most Americans are not aware of.

It was not the intent of the Framers that the EC be a ‘standalone’ process; indeed, it was not the intent of the Framers to elect a president by such an anti-democratic process.

To understand the intent of the EC, it must be viewed in its proper context: in conjunction with Article II, Section 4.

In that context, the EC makes perfect sense: the states elect a president, and should the people determine that the states erred, the people would remove that president from office through the impeachment process.

This illustrates the fact that the Founding Generation decided that a president is nothing more than an administrator who could be replaced consistent with the will of the people.

The problem, therefore, is not with the EC per se, the problem (as is always the case) is the ignorance of the American people, and the failure of the people to use the Constitution as intended by the Framers, to use the political tools afforded us by the Framers, and to take ownership of the political process.

 

[Dick Foster]

I am for strengthening the electoral college as to where the President-Elect must get both the plurality of the nationwide popular vote as well as the majority of the electoral votes—the famous “270” that we hear about. Save for that one aspect of strengthening, I’m quite happy with the current formation of the electoral college as opposed to the direct election of the president through the national popular vote.

Here is why;

Whatever system we have must be good for every outcome. While not perfect, the current system ensures that at least a majority of the electors select the president. A national popular vote, in the year 2020, would do the same thing. However, ours is not a static electoral landscape. Does anyone remember all of those great democratic presidents from California? Yeah, neither do I. That’s because what is a solid blue state today used to be a pretty dependable red state. Presidents Nixon and Reagan both came from there; both republicans. The brick red-south used to be called the “solid south” for another reason; they supported democrats almost exclusively. So today’s reality must not be taken as being carved in stone.

Further, the two-party system that we currently have has not always been the case. In the future there may be serval parties that emerge dividing the vote into smaller percentages. Whereas the Electoral College has remedies for no one candidate getting 270 electoral votes, the national popular vote has only a provision for the candidate who gets the most votes winning whether it be 80% of the vote, 50% of the vote, or 12% of the vote if every other candidate gets 11.9% and less. As unsettling it is to contemplate the winner having been crowned when 88% chose someone else, it’s even more unsettling to consider that the proposed remedies—a nationwide runoff—would delay a president-elect being named for weeks. There is an intriguing remedy of “rank choice voting” where you have an instant run-off. It is explained here.



I don’t care much for the idea as it would elevate a candidate who didn’t get the most “first choice” votes to office based on being more voter’s second choice. But I could see some value in the concept.

One of the most frequent complaints about the electoral college is that candidates only campaign seriously if a handful of states that are considered to be contested. This is true. Here is a graphic from the National Popular Vote website that shows the campaign stops

View attachment 360418

What isn’t addressed by the graphic is that if an NPV was instituted, the candidates would focus almost solely on high population centers as opposed to toss-up states; thus substituting one criteria-based campaign strategy for another. I’ve heard some proponents of the NPV state that this is how it “should” be—high population centers having more sway than comparatively rural areas like Nevada and Colorado. I reject that because demographics, as I mentioned earlier, do change over time.


Lastly, let me close on what I mentioned earlier. In this day and age, there is no reason to ignore the national popular vote. In a democracy, you vote should matter and it should have some effect on the outcome of the election in which you’re voting. So that is why I’m for strengthening the electoral college by having the president-elect win both the plurality of the popular vote and the electoral vote majority. If they do not win both, the remedies of the 12th Amendment come into play; just as it would if no candidate gets 270 electoral votes four months from now. Given the most recent election saw the Blob win an electoral victory without winning a popular vote victory, I’m sure some will see this as me trying to throw up a hurdle to his oozing into office. I wish it were that easy. But no, I brought up the plan I had long before he won. From 2015:

Electoral College. Just why?

The remedy I proposed, in our history, would only have changed the winner (arguably) 4 times when the President didn’t get both the EC victory and the NPV victory. In the two most recent incarnations; Bush in 2000 and the Blob in 2016; in both cases the House would have almost certainly delivered the presidency to Bush and Trump since the GOP had majorities in both 2000 and 2016. So this is not me trying to re-write history.

There is plenty wrong with our system of electing Presidents. We need to make election day into an election week. We need to expand access to the ballot requiring states to offer no-cause absentee voting. We need to get the parties out of the business of running elections all together and let the county clerks and election officials run elections. We need to have third, fourth, and fifth parties on the debate stage next to the Democrats and Republicans so voters can draw distinctions between the different candidates who are running. But one thing that we have that works in all climates is the electoral college. I think it needs to be strengthened to make sure the President Elect is the voter’s choice. But it’s not bad the way it is.

The problem with throwing it to the House if the NV and the EV are split is it just gives the loser a new thing to complain about. Then there will be talk of expanding the House so each rep is actually even to avoid the states with 1 rep that are technically "over represented".

And I think election day should only be 1 day, a true 24 hour period from the night before (figure 9 PM ) to the night of (9PM). It should always be a national federal holiday and State holiday, regardless of it being a presidential election or not.

People should have to CARE ENOUGH to go and vote. Absentee ballots should be for true absentees and those physically unable to reach a polling place.

If the standard way of voting was by mail, nobody would be saying that going to the polling place is a better idea. Going, standing in line for hours at times, in late fall...on a work day. Sorry....most voting should be done by mail and on days other than election day.

As for the expansion of the House, that should be happening anyway. One rep has about 500,000-600,000 constituents

Voting by mail eliminates the concept of the private/anonymous ballot. It allows family members to pressure each other, employers/unions to pressure employees/members. It also allows people to harvest unused ballots and commit fraud. We saw a small local example of harvesting just recently in NJ.

You also ignored my point of making it a federal/State holiday, and for 24 hour voting. Sorry, but if you can't figure out how to get to a polling place in that time frame with most people being off from work then you don't deserve to vote.

The issue isn't the inflation of voters per rep, it's the inflation of the things the feds feel the need to get involved with. If the feds concerned themselves with true national issues, and not trying to make the whole US a homogeneous slate of drones the # of persons per rep wouldn't be a big deal.

Yours is a sad world.

I have never considered what he just said. I think there is some merit to his position.

A national holiday for voting is a decent enough idea. As for the intimidation factor....it's completely made up otherwise you could just as easily make the argument that you can be intimidated from voting in person since you have to physically go to the location. The fraud argument is ridiculous.

I don't think we need a holiday just for election day when extending elections to be say a week long event would work better and likely increase participation at the same time. It would surely make the evening news fun to watch for that week.

What may work better is to establish perminante voting machines similar to bank teller machines that take biometrically secured voter ID cards. Any voter could drop by any avaliable voting machine, insert their secure voter card and cast their vote. The system would then prevent any further vote from any one voter thus making voter fraud much more difficult if not impossible to carry out. Fidding with the system in any way to rig or hinder any election in any way would be a capital offence punishable by death.

Voting by mail simply invites fiddling with the vote through illegal means by illegal persons.

 

[meaner gene]

The system "didn't work" for 4 of 58 elections.

Prove it didn't work

Rutherford B. Hayes (1876)
Benjamin Harrison (1888)
George W. Bush (2000)
Donald Trump (2016)

 

[bigrebnc1775]

I am for strengthening the electoral college as to where the President-Elect must get both the plurality of the nationwide popular vote as well as the majority of the electoral votes—the famous “270” that we hear about. Save for that one aspect of strengthening, I’m quite happy with the current formation of the electoral college as opposed to the direct election of the president through the national popular vote.

Here is why;

Whatever system we have must be good for every outcome. While not perfect, the current system ensures that at least a majority of the electors select the president. A national popular vote, in the year 2020, would do the same thing. However, ours is not a static electoral landscape. Does anyone remember all of those great democratic presidents from California? Yeah, neither do I. That’s because what is a solid blue state today used to be a pretty dependable red state. Presidents Nixon and Reagan both came from there; both republicans. The brick red-south used to be called the “solid south” for another reason; they supported democrats almost exclusively. So today’s reality must not be taken as being carved in stone.

Further, the two-party system that we currently have has not always been the case. In the future there may be serval parties that emerge dividing the vote into smaller percentages. Whereas the Electoral College has remedies for no one candidate getting 270 electoral votes, the national popular vote has only a provision for the candidate who gets the most votes winning whether it be 80% of the vote, 50% of the vote, or 12% of the vote if every other candidate gets 11.9% and less. As unsettling it is to contemplate the winner having been crowned when 88% chose someone else, it’s even more unsettling to consider that the proposed remedies—a nationwide runoff—would delay a president-elect being named for weeks. There is an intriguing remedy of “rank choice voting” where you have an instant run-off. It is explained here.



I don’t care much for the idea as it would elevate a candidate who didn’t get the most “first choice” votes to office based on being more voter’s second choice. But I could see some value in the concept.

One of the most frequent complaints about the electoral college is that candidates only campaign seriously if a handful of states that are considered to be contested. This is true. Here is a graphic from the National Popular Vote website that shows the campaign stops

View attachment 360418

What isn’t addressed by the graphic is that if an NPV was instituted, the candidates would focus almost solely on high population centers as opposed to toss-up states; thus substituting one criteria-based campaign strategy for another. I’ve heard some proponents of the NPV state that this is how it “should” be—high population centers having more sway than comparatively rural areas like Nevada and Colorado. I reject that because demographics, as I mentioned earlier, do change over time.


Lastly, let me close on what I mentioned earlier. In this day and age, there is no reason to ignore the national popular vote. In a democracy, you vote should matter and it should have some effect on the outcome of the election in which you’re voting. So that is why I’m for strengthening the electoral college by having the president-elect win both the plurality of the popular vote and the electoral vote majority. If they do not win both, the remedies of the 12th Amendment come into play; just as it would if no candidate gets 270 electoral votes four months from now. Given the most recent election saw the Blob win an electoral victory without winning a popular vote victory, I’m sure some will see this as me trying to throw up a hurdle to his oozing into office. I wish it were that easy. But no, I brought up the plan I had long before he won. From 2015:

Electoral College. Just why?

The remedy I proposed, in our history, would only have changed the winner (arguably) 4 times when the President didn’t get both the EC victory and the NPV victory. In the two most recent incarnations; Bush in 2000 and the Blob in 2016; in both cases the House would have almost certainly delivered the presidency to Bush and Trump since the GOP had majorities in both 2000 and 2016. So this is not me trying to re-write history.

There is plenty wrong with our system of electing Presidents. We need to make election day into an election week. We need to expand access to the ballot requiring states to offer no-cause absentee voting. We need to get the parties out of the business of running elections all together and let the county clerks and election officials run elections. We need to have third, fourth, and fifth parties on the debate stage next to the Democrats and Republicans so voters can draw distinctions between the different candidates who are running. But one thing that we have that works in all climates is the electoral college. I think it needs to be strengthened to make sure the President Elect is the voter’s choice. But it’s not bad the way it is.

There’s also another aspect of the EC most Americans are not aware of.

It was not the intent of the Framers that the EC be a ‘standalone’ process; indeed, it was not the intent of the Framers to elect a president by such an anti-democratic process.

To understand the intent of the EC, it must be viewed in its proper context: in conjunction with Article II, Section 4.

In that context, the EC makes perfect sense: the states elect a president, and should the people determine that the states erred, the people would remove that president from office through the impeachment process.

This illustrates the fact that the Founding Generation decided that a president is nothing more than an administrator who could be replaced consistent with the will of the people.

The problem, therefore, is not with the EC per se, the problem (as is always the case) is the ignorance of the American people, and the failure of the people to use the Constitution as intended by the Framers, to use the political tools afforded us by the Framers, and to take ownership of the political process.

you learned something that is old news
The founders knew that when people could vote for more money and pork they would lose the Rep[public and vote stupidity

 

[meaner gene]

you learned something that is old news
The founders knew that when people could vote for more money and pork they would lose the Rep[public and vote stupidity

Democrats believe in tax and spend
Republicans believe in borrow and spend

Which system is sustainable?

 

[Leo123]

When an American votes for a candidate on the ballot, that candidate represents a number of electors. Those electors represent geographic America not the places with the highest population density.

 

[meaner gene]

When an American votes for a candidate on the ballot, they are actually voting for electors. The popular vote is secondary.

The problem is that some states get 1 elector for every 770,000 people. While other states get 3 electors for every 770,000 people.

 

[Leo123]

When an American votes for a candidate on the ballot, they are actually voting for electors. The popular vote is secondary.

The problem is that some states get 1 elector for every 770,000 people. While other states get 3 electors for every 770,000 people.

Yes, the states with the higher population densities get fewer electors. This is meant to preclude smaller geographic areas with higher population densities from controlling National elections.

 

[meaner gene]

The problem is that some states get 1 elector for every 770,000 people. While other states get 3 electors for every 770,000 people.

Yes, the states with the higher population densities get fewer electors. This is meant to preclude smaller geographic areas with higher population densities from controlling National elections.

Don't you mean it prevents the majority of the voters from controlling national elections?

 

[Leo123]

Don't you mean it prevents the majority of the voters from controlling national elections?

No, it's meant to stop would could amount to tyrannical rule by a MINORITY of small geographic areas.

 

[meaner gene]

Don't you mean it prevents the majority of the voters from controlling national elections?

No, it's meant to stop would could amount to tyrannical rule by a MINORITY of small geographic areas.

Geographical areas? You know we're a nation of men, and not dirt. We don't vote based on acreage.

 

[Leo123]

geographical areas? You know we're a nation of men, and not dirt. We don't vote based on acreage.

The EC does not represent dirt it represents population densities and seeks to even the playing field so that rural areas don't get their vote watered down by smaller, densely populated areas run by one party. Such as NY. The Founders did not want one small geographic area being able to out vote larger geographic areas with less people.

 

[San Souci]

Or better yet ,just leave well enough alone. A system that has worked for over 200 years can't be all bad.

As with all things, there is room for improvement.

blart the popular vote of each state is counted and the winner gets the electoral vote of that state.

The system "didn't work" for 4 of 58 elections.

Yes.It did. It proved the "Popular Vote" is a piece of shit.

 

[San Souci]

Or better yet ,just leave well enough alone. A system that has worked for over 200 years can't be all bad.

As with all things, there is room for improvement.

blart the popular vote of each state is counted and the winner gets the electoral vote of that state.

The system "didn't work" for 4 of 58 elections.

Yes.It did. It proved the "Popular Vote" is a piece of shit.

Ooops! Clean zone. Sorry.

 

[meaner gene]

geographical areas? You know we're a nation of men, and not dirt. We don't vote based on acreage.

The EC does not represent dirt it represents population densities and seeks to even the playing field so that rural areas don't get their vote watered down by smaller, densely populated areas run by one party. Such as NY. The Founders did not want one small geographic area being able to out vote larger geographic areas with less people.

To repeat your own words: The Founders did not want one small geographic area being able to out vote larger geographic areas with less people.

They didn't want majority rule. So they rigged the EC to give up to three times the voting power to smaller states (smaller in population)

They also added a 3/5ths boost for having slaves.

 

[Leo123]

To repeat your own words: The Founders did not want one small geographic area being able to out vote larger geographic areas with less people.

They didn't want majority rule. So they rigged the EC to give up to three times the voting power to smaller states (smaller in population)

They also added a 3/5ths boost for having slaves.

No, they did not want tyrannical rule by a majority of ONE PARTY voters from a very small geographic area which is what we see in NY and LA right now even WITH the EC. Without the EC, political party machines could control the vote, not all of America.

 

[meaner gene]

No, they did not want tyrannical rule by a majority of ONE PARTY voters from a very small geographic area which is what we see in NY and LA right now even WITH the EC. Without the EC, political party machines could control the vote, not all of America.

Small geographic area. There you go thinking we vote by acre.

Why not just say, they invented the EC to give slave states enough extra electoral power to stop an abolitionist from getting elected president.

 

[Leo123]

Small geographic area. There you go thinking we vote by acre.

Why not just say, they invented the EC to give slave states enough extra electoral power to stop an abolitionist from getting elected president.

Your statement is incorrect. The EC does not represent 'vote by acre' never did. This thread is not about slavery, that being said, the 3/4 vote actually gave slaves some recognition where they were given none before and, BTW the abolitionists won.