Let's get rid of the Electoral College

@farmerman,

Quote:

The only reason Trump won was because California voters were disenfranchised

Does not matter that those votes were probably illegal. I have posted links that say 13% of illegals vote in California. That is why the citizenship question on the Census scares the Hell out of them and states like NY and Illinois.

When you can't win within the system, cheat or change the system. You have got the cheating down but the EC nullifies it. Try policies that are actually good for this country for a change, and you could actually win legally.

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

Quote:

Try policies that are actually good for this country for a change, and you could actually win legally

BTW, I love how you and Oral try to change the focus of others posts.
So I simply reiterate, WHATS WRONG WITH DOING AWAY WITH THE "WINNER TAKE ALL" system in play for 48 of the 50 states in the presidential election??

Winner take all is a post Constitutional action by individual states, Its not mentioned in the Constitution at all (probably because open elections for capital office was never figured out very carefully)

2 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

Constitutional action by individual states, Its not mentioned in the Constitution

See what you said there? Not in the Constitution. You just defeated your own argument. Looks like you are done here.

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

see how, by cutting and cherry picking phrases, you are able to make it sound like I wrote something entirely different. NO, YOUR Failure to respect truth means YOUR'E done here.

Heres what "electoral Vote Map" says

Quote:

The Winner-Take-All Electoral College Isn’t In the Constitution

Many who dislike the winner-take-all Electoral College argue that its bias toward small states is unfair.

That’s because each state is awarded electoral votes based on the number of representatives it has in the House, which is roughly proportionate to its population, plus the number of U.S. Senators, which is the same for all states. That means of the 538 total electoral votes, 81% are awarded by population while 19% are awarded equally.

Nate Cohn explains the circumstances where this modest bias can prove decisive:

A near Electoral College tie, as in 2000. After falling short in Florida, Al Gore lost to George W. Bush by five electoral votes, less than the net 18 votes Mr. Bush gained from small-state bias. But for perspective, that’s the only Electoral College outcome since 1876 that was within the 20 or so electoral-vote margin for the small-state bias to matter.

But this small-state bias actually had little to do with Donald Trump’s win in the 2016 election. Trump actually won seven of the 10 largest states, and Hillary Clinton won seven of the 12 smallest states. Overall, the bias towards smaller states only cost Clinton about four votes, which was not enough to change the outcome of the election.

Instead, a more important bias comes from the (mostly) winner-take-all Electoral College and how states award their votes to each candidate.

We Evolved to a Winner-Take-All Electoral College
What most interesting about our current system for selecting a president is that it’s an unintended quirk that isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. States determine how they select their electors. In fact, for the first 13 presidential elections, states experimented with many different electoral systems.

By 1832, every state except South Carolina awarded its electors by the popular vote, although not all states followed the winner-take-all custom that emerged later. Since 1868, every state has awarded its electors in a way related to that state’s popular vote tally.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:
Try policies that are actually good for this country for a change, and you could actually win legally
BTW, I love how you and Oral try to change the focus of others posts.
So I simply reiterate, WHATS WRONG WITH DOING AWAY WITH THE "WINNER TAKE ALL" system in play for 48 of the 50 states in the presidential election??

Winner take all is a post Constitutional action by individual states, Its not mentioned in the Constitution at all (probably because open elections for capital office was never figured out very carefully)

Quote:

THE CONSTITUTION
Article II

Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

Twelfth Amendment

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.... The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President to the United States.

Fourteenth Amendment

Section 3. No person shall be... elector of President and Vice President ... who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Fifteenth Amendment

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Nineteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Twentieth Amendment

Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Twenty-Second Amendment

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Twenty-Third Amendment

Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Twenty-Fifth Amendment

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. There upon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Twenty-Sixth Amendment

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

The system is quite well thought out as it is.

3 Replies

@McGentrix,

The system is quite well thought out as it is, save the post Constitutional custom of using the winner-take-all electoral voting method employed by most of the states.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

Let's start with NY and CA, they can start by handing their votes off to the people who won the popular vote for each EC district.

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

and your point issss?

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@McGentrix,

Do you know how this discussion began. It was never to drop the EC, but to improve it so that the real goal of "One person, one vote" i truly realized.

Doing the math, in the 2016 election, Trump would have won if a proposed (but buried) Congressional plan, wherein the winner of each state is awarded two "at large electors", If NO such "bonus" EC votes are awarded, Hillary would have won by about 4 EC's (I am not certain of the plurality).

Oral was talking about an impossible condition in which electors qwere assigned by the population, so that there would be about 5000 electors (according to him). I stated that the EC could be "fixed" by merely doing away with the "Winner take all" option and apportioning the Electoral votes where the Runner -up in each state (or even the third and fourth place) are assigned their winning votes based on their position and tally in the election.

The discussion is briefly touched upon in the Federalist Papers . But, like the 2nd Amenment, it would take a lot of "definition wangling" to explain how the winner take all system was set up through political evolution. I think disenfranchisement of voters MUST be done away with(I know how Trumps base is loving to scream about how Trump won , but I think the way the EC is now set up is a travesty.

This will go nohere because I can draw down all kinds of ex-jura legal opinions about people who also think its a travesty.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

Let's start with NY and CA, they can start by handing their votes off to the people who won the popular vote for each EC district.

What's your point?

What are EC districts?

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@farmerman,

"One person, one vote" is not how the President is supposed to be elected. That's the point. It is not a popular vote office as the President heads the federal government.

Even back in the 1700's our founding fathers saw that the states were not equal in population and therefore something had to be done to keep the smaller states from being disenfranchised and deciding to no longer be part of the union. So, the Electoral College is representative of the states by representatives and members of the Senate plus D.C..

You don't want winner take all, but you do want popular vote. Isn't that really the same thing?

2 Replies

@McGentrix,

"One person one vote" was an ideal to be striven for and was so illuminatd in the Federalist. What weve got now is a Stalinist vote tally where "Winner take all " suborns for a more Victorian style of elitism. So many votes may be lost throughout the election.

Electors wre chosn for a reson. We are a country roughly 100 times bigger in population than the preConstitution days. and , roughly 75 times bigger than the population during the ratification timeperiod.

"Youve got a Democracy, if you can keep it" I think what Ben wanted us to realize is that the Constutution IS NOT set in concrete. It must remain malleable and time appropriate changes must be made. We are in a time when many such areas of law need to be considered. Im afraid for the tenure of the1st Amendment, Im afraid the 2nd Amendment has been sold down the River, Im certain the 4th and 5th Amendments will be changed due to advances in technology etc etc.

meaning no insult. I like your arguments because they are more often than not, well thought out and Ive learned some errors Ive made in my thinking from your posts. Im fairly fixed on the anti-"Winner take all" system and I think, most everyone can see the errors of its way.

There WAS an amendment that was proposed to be drafted in the 1960's after Kennedy was elected , it did away with the "WTA" method and substituted a system where:
1. the winner of a particular state was to receive a single "attaboy" vote just for winning and

2. the remaining electoral votes were distributed in accordance with how the voters selected the electors (proportional apportioning).
It died somewhere in the late "60's " (?)

Had the "attaboy" method been adopted, Trump ould have won by 2 electoral votes. If no attaboy was given and it was all based on proportionality (The election seleced the electors and the electors represented that state with the actual numbers from the winner and the runner-up, (as well as any third party candidates like Johnson in 2016). In that case Hillry would have won by 5 electoral votes.

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

Quote:

back in the 1700's our founding fathers saw that the states were not equal in population and therefore something had to be done to keep the smaller states from being disenfranchised and deciding to no longer be part of the union. So, the Electoral College is representative of the states by representatives and members of the Senate plus D.C.

That was my whole point that people here seem to miss. Weve gone from small state disenfranchisement (due to populations of the Delawares, Rhode Islands, and Maines, and the frontier states as the Ohio treaties were foreseen, to disenfranchisement of the larger states (both red (texas) and Blue (Calif)
NOW, today, where the states populations have bloomed to almost 100 times bigger populations with huge population clusters in the several states and EASY MOBILITY among them, the largest states are disenfranchised. The only reason the GOP has remained fixed in its support of WTA is that we had pretty stable states in population counts. NOW weve got hugely changing demographics, such as suburban growth, returns to the cities as "Vital centers of culture", and influx of new citizens whove been "un-embraced" by our present administration.

I say that the founding fathers we pretty good, but they were NOT mind readers. Jefferson saw a country from cost to coast with upwards of 20 MILLION people (boy did he not understand logarithmic growth). Franklin was certain we would return to a monarchy because wed futz ourselves back into it. (A Monarchy is basically a plutocracy or national socialist state, like China).
Founding fathers didnt have the ability to foresee many things that we have now and how our Constitution should reflect these changes and just "Keep up with whats fair"

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Quote:

Founding fathers didnt have the ability to foresee many things that we have now

They saw what we had and intended to keep it that way. That is why the Constitution says what it does. What do we really have if we do not have our individual rights? We get no more of those, they are ours, and time does not change them or that.

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

What did they say about the Amendment process?? it apparently isnt even even needed according to you.

2 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

"Youve got a Democracy, if you can keep it"

He never said that. Why are you changing to words to try and prove your propaganda?

What he actually said:
Someone asked him, ‘What do we have, a republic or a monarchy?’ Franklin replied, ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’

Now why would you change the word Republic to democracy?

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

The probability was that Franklin may hav been an "attributee", according to newspapers of the time,

Made by History
Perspective
What we get wrong about Ben Franklin’s ‘a republic, if you can keep it’
Erasing the women of the founding era makes it harder to see women as leaders today
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) invoked the Founding Father’s maxim last month.

By Zara Anishanslin
Zara Anishanslin is an associate professor of history and art history at the University of Delaware, a postdoctoral fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World."
Oct. 29, 2019 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Last month, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump, she used a familiar anecdote to back her arguments. As Pelosi told it, “On the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when our Constitution was adopted, Americans gathered on the steps of Independence Hall to await the news of the government our founders had crafted. They asked Benjamin Franklin, ‘What do we have, a republic or a monarchy?’ Franklin replied, ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’ Our responsibility is to keep it.”

Franklin’s “a republic, if you can keep it” line is as memorable as it is catchy. It is a story that appeals across partisan lines. The same month Pelosi referenced it, Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch released a book titled “A Republic, If You Can Keep It.” It’s a recognizable national origin story with broad appeal; Pelosi was savvy to use it.

But she got the story wrong. So did Gorsuch.

They’ve missed the most important element of the story: Who asked Franklin the question that sparked his witty response? It was Elizabeth Willing Powel, a pivotal woman of the founding era who has been erased from this story. Her erasure not only creates a founding-era political history artificially devoid of women, but it also makes it harder to imagine contemporary women such as Pelosi — or Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — as political leaders.

The first record of the anecdote appears in a 1787 journal kept by one of the delegates to the convention, James McHenry of Maryland. He wrote: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.” McHenry added a footnote to the text: “The lady here alluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philad[elphi]a.”

“Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia” was well-known. During the Constitutional Convention, Powel used her elegant townhouse as a political salon, hosting dinner parties and gatherings that provided a sociable space for political movers and shakers — and their wives — to meet and discuss politics. Powel was born into two of Philadelphia’s wealthiest and most politically connected families; her father, her mother’s grandfather, her uncle, her brother and her husband, Samuel Powel, all served as mayors of Philadelphia. Her husband served as both the last Colonial and the first post-revolutionary Philadelphia mayor.

But she, rather than her husband, was the acknowledged political thinker in the marriage. As a French nobleman observed, “contrary to American custom, [Mrs. Powel] plays the leading role in the family,” and “what chiefly distinguishes her is her taste for conversation” and “her wit and knowledge.” The Powels were close friends with George and Martha Washington. When George Washington expressed doubts about a second term in office, she wrote advising him — successfully — to stand for a second term. Washington kept that letter until he died.

In 1803, McHenry first published the “a republic, if you can keep it” anecdote in an anonymous newspaper submission, followed by a series of writings and a pamphlet over the next decade. And while his story evolved to reflect his own anti-Jeffersonian politics, Powel remained at its center as “a lady remarkable for her understanding and wit.” In later renditions, McHenry set the scene with Franklin “entering the room” to talk to her.

As the story became better known, Powel tried to recollect the exchange. Writing to a female relative in 1814, she confessed that she could not recall “a conversation supposed to have passed between Dr. Franklin and myself respecting the goodness, and probable permanence of the constitution [sic] of these United States.” But that, she wrote, was probably because she “associated with the most respectable, influential Members of the Convention that framed the Constitution, and that the all important Subject was frequently discussed at our House.” Because anyone who was anyone attended her gatherings, it was difficult to keep track of the many political conversations that took place in her salon.

The “a republic, if you can keep it” story did not get much popular play for the rest of the 19th century — even during the tumult of the Civil War. In 1906, it achieved new fame with the inaugural publication of McHenry’s journal. Since then, it has been told and retold innumerable times — but in different versions that change with the times.

For example, a publication cautioning against electing Franklin D. Roosevelt to an unprecedented third term in 1940 was titled “A Republic if You can Keep It.”

Most critically, the central role of Powel was erased in the 20th century. The setting of the story moved from Powel’s townhouse to the streets outside Independence Hall, privileging an idea of the public square where only men’s ideas were heard. But private quarters played a prominent role in political debates. For women like Powel, shut out as they were from institutional politics, domestic spaces were among the few places they could engage in political discussion — and lead the conversation while hosting politicians.
As far as veracity, I concede I added the "democracy" mostly cause theres really no proof he said anything AND there is no real dichotomy twixt the two.

as D Gill said in Quora,

Quote:

words change in meaning over time and the meaning of “democracy” has changed significantly from the late 18th-century meaning known to Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, Hamilton, Madison and other’s then engaged in writing the Constitution understood democracy to be what we might call direct democracy or Athenian democracy. For the founders, the word democracy implied majority rule and the tyranny of mob rule.

The danger of the pervasive, but false, claim that America is not a democracy is that it invites passive acceptance of the shortcomings of American democracy and of growing abuses of democracy that have become part of the GOP's tactics for political domination. We are seeing the Republican betrayal of democracy on display in Wisconsin and North Carolina right now. The idea that American was not intended to be a democracy is used regularly to excuse the egregious misrepresentation of the will of the people that is the Electoral College.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

What did they say about the Amendment process??

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@farmerman,

Quote:

What did they say about the Amendment process??

What did they need to say, any legal document can be amended.

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

so they admit to shortcomings in the law of the land??
Hence the Constitution is a living document and "originalists" are a useless bunch whose problem solving skills and overall knowledge is limited.

1 Reply

Let's get rid of the Electoral College

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