Let's get rid of the Electoral College

@Baldimo,

thats all well and good but once the votes are tallid by the state system, and a winner is determined, THE WINNER GETS ALL the electoral votes. Except for Nebraska Maine and I think Alaska. This disenfranchises voters just as the denial of representation in the states with the bigger populations like California. Their votes aare basically meaningless and the Constitutional esire of "one person, one vote" is bullshit.
This system of winner take all is a finegling factor of which the Constitution is silent.

3 Replies

@farmerman,

Don't be silly. There is no such disenfranchisement or denial of representation.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

thats all well and good but once the votes are tallid by the state system, and a winner is determined, THE WINNER GETS ALL the electoral votes. Except for Nebraska Maine and I think Alaska. This disenfranchises voters just as the denial of representation in the states with the bigger populations like California. Their votes aare basically meaningless and the Constitutional esire of "one person, one vote" is bullshit.
This system of winner take all is a finegling factor of which the Constitution is silent.

Yup.

Wyoming has a population of less than 600,000 people. They get 3 votes in the Electoral College.

California has 40,000,000 people. They get 55 votes in the Electoral College.

If things were fair (one person/one vote)...California would have over 200 votes in the Electoral College.

Really sucks.

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@Frank Apisa,

There's an easy solution. But progressives don't actually care to solve the problem. They just want to use the issue to find new ways to cheat.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Wyoming has a population of less than 600,000 people. They get 3 votes in the Electoral College.

California has 40,000,000 people. They get 55 votes in the Electoral College.

This is no accident.

Quote:

In 1889, Republicans knew they were in political trouble. Americans had turned against their conviction that the government must protect big business at all costs, and that any kind of regulation or protection for workers amounted to socialism. In 1884, for the first time since the Civil War, voters had elected a Democrat to the White House. Grover Cleveland promised to use the government to protect ordinary Americans, and to stop congressmen from catering to wealthy industrialists.

To regain control of the government, in 1888, Republicans pulled out all the stops. They developed a new system of campaign financing, hitting up rich businessmen for contributions, and got employers to warn workers that if they didn’t vote for the Republican candidate they would be fired. Nonetheless, Republican Benjamin Harrison lost the election by about 100,000 votes.

But he won in the Electoral College.

Republicans immediately set out to make sure no Democrat could ever win the White House again. They rushed South Dakota into the Union in 1889, along with North Dakota, Montana, and Washington—all Republican regions-- to pack the Senate and the Electoral College. The next year, they rushed in Wyoming and Idaho, too, boasting that they would dominate government for the foreseeable future.

hcr

There are some voluntary workarounds that states can do on their own or within an interstate compact but I don't see electoral college reform getting through the Senate or securing ¾ of the states as it would require a constitutional amendment.

Can someone explain the Supreme Court ruling on "faithless electors"? I thought the whole idea of the Electoral College was to insulate the election of the president from a direct vote by the people. I thought the electors were supposed to be citizens of good standing who could be counted on to do the right thing if some demagogue like Trump managed to win a majority of the votes. I know that, in practice, the electors just rubber stamp the decision of the voters but doesn't that differ from the original intent of the founders?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

ID still like to see the EC abandon "winner take all". (Hillary would have won because all the Electoral votes were so close that a proportional EC vote tally wpuld have been about 8 votes ahead of der Fuhrer.

She would have won the POP vote AND the EC.

GOP doesnt want to have anything to do with that. They want tp preserve their own clown circus .

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@farmerman,

Quote:

thats all well and good but once the votes are tallid by the state system, and a winner is determined, THE WINNER GETS ALL the electoral votes.

Not in the system I proposed, there is no winner take all at the state level, it's only at the district level, the votes get handed to candidates as they win each district, so there is no winner take all.

Quote:

Except for Nebraska Maine and I think Alaska. This disenfranchises voters just as the denial of representation in the states with the bigger populations like California.

How does this type of system disenfranchise voters? You increase the number of congressional districts so there are less people per rep, that adds more reps to states like CA and maybe even WY as the threshold for representation would be lowered, giving everyone more representation.

2 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Wyoming has a population of less than 600,000 people. They get 3 votes in the Electoral College.

California has 40,000,000 people. They get 55 votes in the Electoral College.

The voting power of CA still out weighs the voting power of WY by magnitudes. 3 vs 55?

Quote:

If things were fair (one person/one vote)...California would have over 200 votes in the Electoral College.

Really sucks.

You don't want any sort of fairness, you want leftist control of the govt. That sort of overwhelming control is exactly why the EC was put into place and why we don't use the popular vote for the presidential election. Why would people in my state of CO bother to vote if NY, CA will dominate the elections? But that's exactly what you want, not fairness but control.

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@hightor,

Quote:

This is no accident.

Revisionist history much? The EC was created well before those states were added to the country, so there was no "cheating" with the creation of the EC.

Quote:

There are some voluntary workarounds that states can do on their own or within an interstate compact but I don't see electoral college reform getting through the Senate or securing ¾ of the states as it would require a constitutional amendment.

This is why the left is pushing that compact so hard, they know they can't win by proper Constitutional channels, so they want to go around it.

Tel me, how many of those states put the compact up to a popular vote in their state? None, that's how many did it by a state popular vote.

Quote:

Can someone explain the Supreme Court ruling on "faithless electors"?

When you agree to represent a group of people and cast a vote for them, and then change your mind because of your own personal bias against a candidate, you can be forced to vote as you said you would. If you don't want to cast the vote as you said you would, then you should step down and allow someone else the people selected to cast that vote, it's one of the reasons for having alternate electors.

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@Baldimo,

what you propose i not WHAT IS IN FFECT, so why are you puffing?? The system as it ists is what I object t. It is a system put into effect after 1824 and was a cynical way to disenfranchise voters from big states along with dilution of their vote.

You really dont get it?? or are you just so partisan ?

2 Replies

@Baldimo,

Actually, by what weve just seen in 2016 its selected disenfranchisement . Its not even close to "one person one vote".

No, the best way is to just make the EC use proportional EC vote tally. If you win 51 % of the popular vote, you get 51% of the EC vote. Whats so hard about that?
You dontseem to like ordinary fair tallying of EC votes do you?
Ifit aint in the Constitution it shouldnt be>
Its like the 2nd Amendment, If your gonna vote EC changes over what the Constitution provided for, then the 2nd Amendment should be fair game also.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Quote:

The EC was created well before those states were added to the country, so there was no "cheating" with the creation of the EC.

BS, the EC was in the Constitution ."Winner takes ALL" is not. It ws established by CFR , almost 50 yers after the Constitution was ratified

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

How does this type of system disenfranchise voters?

It doesn't. But progressives don't care about facts.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

You really dont get it?? or are you just so partisan?

I think it's the fact that you are posting delusional nonsense.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

what you propose i not WHAT IS IN FFECT, so why are you puffing??

You mean why am I offering changes to how the states work their EC votes?

Quote:

The system as it ists is what I object t.

You object to just about the entire Constitution, big deal.

Quote:

It is a system put into effect after 1824 and was a cynical way to disenfranchise voters from big states along with dilution of their vote.

Bullshit, it was an attempt to keep the southern slaves states weakened and from gaining too much power in Congress. Do you not recall from history the battles to control Congress so that either winner could declare the US either a slave country or a slave free country. Remember the Missouri Compromise?

Quote:

You really dont get it?? or are you just so partisan ?

You seem to be the partisan on this subject, not me. You want to throw the baby out with the bath water. You don't get your way so you cheat the process and cheat the Constitution.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

BS, the EC was in the Constitution ."Winner takes ALL" is not. It ws established by CFR , almost 50 yers after the Constitution was ratified

Winner takes all is not a Federal election standard. Each state chooses how they do their EC vote, not the federal govt.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

You are completely correct.

And if any state feels like changing their system (if for example they feel that winner-take-all is unfair to them), they are free to do so and no one will stop them.

If there were actually some sort of compelling argument against winner-take-all, the obvious solution to the problem would be to lobby state legislators and have them change their state's system.

But... there is no real problem with winner-take-all. So it's pretty unlikely that very many states will choose to change.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Actually, by what weve just seen in 2016 its selected disenfranchisement . Its not even close to "one person one vote".

It's not even close and you can't prove it, you are offering you partisan opinion.

Quote:

If you win 51 % of the popular vote, you get 51% of the EC vote. Whats so hard about that?

There is no provision for the popular vote in the Constitution. In fact the FF spoke directly against any such device to elect the President, hence the invention fo the EC. They spoke out against mob rule as you very well know but deny. If an individual state wants to do this, then so be it, it shouldn't require changing the entire system for states to enact such a change.

Quote:

You dontseem to like ordinary fair tallying of EC votes do you? Ifit aint in the Constitution it shouldnt be

Sure I do, it's why I recommended a change that would account for what you want.

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@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

You don't want any sort of fairness, you want leftist control of the govt. That sort of overwhelming control is exactly why the EC was put into place and why we don't use the popular vote for the presidential election. Why would people in my state of CO bother to vote if NY, CA will dominate the elections? But that's exactly what you want, not fairness but control.

That about sums it up perfectly.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

Quote:
Wyoming has a population of less than 600,000 people. They get 3 votes in the Electoral College.

California has 40,000,000 people. They get 55 votes in the Electoral College.

The voting power of CA still out weighs the voting power of WY by magnitudes. 3 vs 55?

Baldimo...California...is a land mass. It doesn't get to vote. Humans get to vote.

The 40,000,000 voters of California should be counted individually as should the 600,000 voters of Wyoming.

Try to think this through on a more dynamic level. You'll get it.

Quote:

If things were fair (one person/one vote)...California would have over 200 votes in the Electoral College.

(For the record, I think your notion of bringing it to a district level would help make things fairer...but lots of tweaking would still be necessary.)

Quote:

You don't want any sort of fairness, you want leftist control of the govt. That sort of overwhelming control is exactly why the EC was put into place and why we don't use the popular vote for the presidential election. Why would people in my state of CO bother to vote if NY, CA will dominate the elections? But that's exactly what you want, not fairness but control.

No.

I do want fairness.

And in fairness to you, you apparently do not grasp the concept I am attempting to share, because you do not understand fairness.

Okay...somehow I have screwed up the quoting bits here, but I think my point comes through.

2 Replies

Let's get rid of the Electoral College

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