FINALLY!!! A NATIONAL PLAN TO REFORM THE ELECTRAL COLLEGE

For example: in a winner-takes-all system, I could concentrate on California (36 mio population), and once I'd be sure I had 18.5 million voters, I could easily ignore Rhode Island (1 mio population). In a proportional system, I'd have to concentrate on Rhode Island JUST AS MUCH as on California, because if all the RI'ers voted for my opponent, I'd still loose, no matter if 18.5 Californians voted for me or not....

Or am I mistaken?

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I understand, and have understood all along what you are saying. What is am pointing out is this--both candidates know that they need a certain plurality within the heavily populated states, and that even a minimal vote for them in sparsely populated states combined with a large turn-out in heavily populated states will assure their election--they're not going to waste campaign resources on the sparsely populated states. Mere economics is going to force their opponent to attempt to match their expenditure in the heavily populated states, and in no time at all, sparsely populated states are ignored.

The current system offers an opportunity to put together a coalition of electors which is not available in a strictly proportional beauty contest. In a strictly proportional election system, there would never again be a minority president. We've had fourteen--this does not require high order mathmatics.

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'k, but you're assuming (as I understand it) that there'd always be a two-party system. Wouldn't that change dramatically with a third party gaining influence? And wouldn't it become much more likely that a third party would gain influence if you had a proportional system in place?

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Btw, I completely understand the problems of a strictly proportional system. Think: Italy, not so long ago..........

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Wow. I had to look it up, but Italy had 59 Prime Ministers elected since 1946.... more than one/year....

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Setanta wrote:

I understand, and have understood all along what you are saying. What is am pointing out is this--both candidates know that they need a certain plurality within the heavily populated states, and that even a minimal vote for them in sparsely populated states combined with a large turn-out in heavily populated states will assure their election--they're not going to waste campaign resources on the sparsely populated states. Mere economics is going to force their opponent to attempt to match their expenditure in the heavily populated states, and in no time at all, sparsely populated states are ignored.

The current system offers an opportunity to put together a coalition of electors which is not available in a strictly proportional beauty contest. In a strictly proportional election system, there would never again be a minority president. We've had fourteen--this does not require high order mathmatics.

I haven't read all the pages yet, but I've read the first, and the last, and you're saying the same thing on both pages.

What I know about the 2004 election is that the only time anyone came to California was to collect money. The most populous state, with the most money, was basically ignored by both parties ... except of course ... to come out and milk the cash cow.

Now there's representation for you!!

Anon

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old europe wrote:

'k, but you're assuming (as I understand it) that there'd always be a two-party system. Wouldn't that change dramatically with a third party gaining influence? And wouldn't it become much more likely that a third party would gain influence if you had a proportional system in place?

That might perhaps be true--but you are assuming that a third party could easily be established if the Electoral College were swept away. The two parties exploit the system, but it is not the instrument which keeps them in control of local politics. No one before Andrew Jackson seems to have understood the necessity to organize from the ground up. Third parties in the twentieth century in the United States have not attempted to organize in the precincts first, then move to the counties before creating a state organization. The Republicans did this, follwing Jackson's example, and put candidates in local offices and challenged in state races before the attempted to put a candidate for President before the public. Ross Perot was using his deep pockets to create a party for which to run. When the people in that party looked like wanting to make decisions on their own, he dumped them, and, absent the financial support, they folded. Both parties field election workers and observers, and both parties have "get out the vote" organizations and voter registration programs. A third party would need many years to work its way into the system. They would not attract much if any campaigning contributions, and so long as it is organized from the top, as was the case with Perot, you just have a cult of personality. Both parties were formed and organized their local apparatus long before money assumed the importance that it has today. A successful third party would liikely need literally generations to overcome the advatages the two major parties currently enjoy--and no such party will ever succeed without organizing from the bottom up, and taking local and then state elections before ever trying to take national office.

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Setanta wrote:

That might perhaps be true--but you are assuming that a third party could easily be established if the Electoral College were swept away. The two parties exploit the system, but it is not the instrument which keeps them in control of local politics. No one before Andrew Jackson seems to have understood the necessity to organize from the ground up.

Well, what I see is the frustration that having a solid base in 50 states and still being in the minority everywhere would result in. In a national election, that would leave you with ZERO votes. Lovely. Now, you'd have the option of carrying on for another decade. Or not.

I mean, politics is about seeing results. It's about thinking in election terms. It's not about waiting for ten, fifteen, twenty years in order to maybe stand a chance in some national election. Therefore I think, yes, the Electoral College is rather apt to protect the current two-party system than to allow a third party gaining significance.

I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, or if one would really want to have a completely proportional system.

I'd just be kind of uncomfortable with the different weight of a vote, depending on the state of the voter.

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What i am saying, though, is that without the Electoral College, a third party would still face the same uphill struggle.

Your discomfort is rather ironic. Have not western German votes been worth a good deal more than eastern German votes for most of the last fifteen years? Is not Miss Merkel considered extraordinary because she is from the east?

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Setanta wrote:

The point i have made since i first posted in this thread, and one which apparently both you and Okie have ignored, is that the purpose of the Electoral College is to protect the people from possible majoritarian tyrrany.

Setanta, I agreed with you, in case you missed it. It is evident you have not read my posts.

I will quote myself:
"The electoral college has only swung the election a very limited number of times versus the popular vote, ..."

What is so difficult to understand about that statement? To repeat myself, the outcome of an election as determined by electoral college is rarely different than by popular vote. I simply made this statement to point out that changing the election from electoral college to popular vote would not change the outcomes often, plus we would lose all of the advantages of what the electoral college offers us. I thought I was reinforcing your argument, at which time you jumped me and asserted I was totally wrong, that many presidents have been elected with less than 50% of the vote. My mistake was that I did not check the history of it, and misinterpreted what you were asserting and took your word to mean I was possibly wrong. As it turns out, you were simply saying that many presidents are elected with less than 50% of the vote because of third parties, etc. That was not what were talking about at the time.

The argument over third parties is largely a separate argument from the argument over the use of the electoral college.

One of my statements that apparently confused you was the simple observation that a slight plurality in popular vote was envisioned as less important to the framers than a plurality in the support of states or the electoral college. An example would be the Gore/Bush race. Gore won the popular vote nationwide, but Bush won by virtue of the electoral college. I simply was making the observation that the popular vote was statisticly not very significant between them because the vote was split so evenly. The framers designed the system so that Bush won by virtue of more states supporting him. A president that wins more states has more of a mandate to govern the states than one that might win by a few thousand votes nationwide in the popular vote, but possibly would not have the support of a clear majority of the states.

I stand by all of my observations here. By the way, Setanta, I don't find your posts to be so easily understandible either, but rather convoluted and going off on tangents.

I have a suggestion that has been proposed that does not relate to the electoral college argument, but which relates to the 3rd party problem. When people vote, simply have them vote for their first priority candidate, and then for a second priority candidate. This would encourage more votes to third parties, because they would not be viewed as totally wasted. Then if the leading candidate does not attain 50%, the second priority votes would be counted to see who wins with more than 50%. I am not sure if I would favor such a system, but it has some intriguing possibilities.

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BBB
The posters to this thread have succeeded in getting it way off topic because they apparently did not read the introduction information. They have been arguing about whether or not the Electoral College should be eliminated via a Constitutional Amendment. Eliminating the Electoral College is not the subject proposal of this thread.

The proposal is to obtain approval of the States to eliminate the Winner-Take-All laws currently in most states (except two) and elect the president by the popular vote in each state, still through the Electoral College. This would achieve a more democratic one-person-one vote ideal.

If everyone will at least read the Introduction, the proposal will provide a more cogent discussion on the merits of the proposal. Chapter 6 provides the details of how it would be achieved.

In any case, it would be nice if everyone ceased arguing against a proposal they have not read and do not understand.

Here is the proposal again:

http://www.every-vote-equal.com/
BBB

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Re: BBB

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

The posters to this thread have succeeded in getting it way off topic because they apparently did not read the introduction information. They have been arguing about whether or not the Electoral College should be eliminated via a Constitutional Amendment. Eliminating the Electoral College is not the subject proposal of this thread.

The proposal is to obtain approval of the States to eliminate the Winner-Take-All laws currently in most states (except two) and elect the president by the popular vote in each state, still through the Electoral College. This would achieve a more democratic one-person-one vote ideal.

If everyone will at least read the Introduction, the proposal will provide a more cogent discussion on the merits of the proposal. Chapter 6 provides the details of how it would be achieved.

In any case, it would be nice if everyone ceased arguing against a proposal they have not read and do not understand.

BBB

I resent the implications of this statement. First, you attempt to impose a control on this thread that you are unable to exercise. You seem to think you are somehow entitled to tell the rest of us what to discuss, and to suggest that we haven't read your opening post or have failed to understand it if we do not discuss what you think we should discuss in the manner which you think it should be discussed.

So while we're being snotty here, allow me to point out that this statement: " This would achieve a more democratic one-person-one vote ideal."--is false. So long as the Electoral College exists, there will be one hundred electors chosen whose votes will not directly reflect, one for one, the votes of the population.

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Setanta
Set, have you read any of the proposal?

BBB

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Re: BBB

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

The posters to this thread have succeeded in getting it way off topic because they apparently did not read the introduction information. They have been arguing about whether or not the Electoral College should be eliminated via a Constitutional Amendment. Eliminating the Electoral College is not the subject proposal of this thread.BBB

The title you placed on the thread is about reforming the electoral college. I can't speak for everybody else, but that is what I was responding to. I like the electoral college the way it is, so that is what I was addressing. Not exactly off topic in my opinion. Whether or not you negate the electoral college by constitutional amendment or by some other means doesn't make alot of difference in my opinion if the effect is the same. I will confess to not dowloading the book. Frankly, I'm not that interested in downloading anything and everything onto my computer, especially for something I'm not interested in.

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BBB

You have to notice that most of the people that are in love with the concept that the loser of an election can win the election are the ones currently benefitting from that phenom. I'm surprised you being from New Mexico are in favor of everyone getting an equally weighted vote. Usually it's the other way around.

I for one, have always had trouble with the electoral college, and our current situation bears out the problem with it.

I feel that if we each are going to pay taxes, we should get the representation for that dollar. I think we had a war about that if I remember right. Now these little states, and the ones with little to no people in them proportionately, think their vote should weigh more because they choose to live there.

The fact is ... WE are paying the nations bills ... not they! WE represent a much larger portion of the nation ... not they! If they want a heavier weight in what goes on, get more people in the state!!

Personally, I'm tired of paying higher taxes for these people to have a more important vote than I have!!

Anon

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old europe wrote:

Okay. So, what about keeping the College and changing the system to a proportional system?

Or, what about keeping part of the College system (each state has a minimum of seats/votes) and having the rest elected proportionally?

(Hey, I'm not getting at something. I'm European. I'm just puzzled.)

OE,

I've felt the Europeans have the superior system for over 10 years now. It lends itself to more parties and cooperation between them to get things done. I think the people are far better represented than here where the two party system seems to be kept alive and prevalent by the "winner-take-all" concept! Although some here are in love with this system, I think it needs some work so that more people get an equal voice, and for sure, that the country isn't run by the loser!

Anon

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BBB
Chapter 6 describes how the proposal would be implimented. You don't need to download the book. You can read it on your screen.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/posting.php?mode=reply&t=69849

BBB

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Re: BBB

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

Chapter 6 describes how the proposal would be implimented. You don't need to download the book. You can read it on your screen.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/posting.php?mode=reply&t=69849

BBB

That link doesn't go to the book, it sets up for a reply.

Anon

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Anon-Voter wrote:

The fact is ... WE are paying the nations bills ... not they! WE represent a much larger portion of the nation ... not they! If they want a heavier weight in what goes on, get more people in the state!!

Personally, I'm tired of paying higher taxes for these people to have a more important vote than I have!!

Anon

Now, that's true, to a point. But let's be very clear here. Those small population states own less than 50% of their own land. The land is owned by YOU. We can't collect taxes, sell, make money etc from most of the land within the borders of our states. If we are to have no compensation for that, then give us our damn land back.

As to BBB, I read the proposal, understand clearly what it says, and continue to disagree with it wholeheartedly. You assertion that just because we disagree and perhaps argue points you are not prepared to contend with is because we don't understand you post is condescending in the extreme. I get it; I just don't like the proposal - for all of the reasons outlined in previous posts.

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Anon-Voter wrote:

I feel that if we each are going to pay taxes, we should get the representation for that dollar. ....
The fact is ... WE are paying the nations bills ... not they! WE represent a much larger portion of the nation ... not they! If they want a heavier weight in what goes on, get more people in the state!!
Anon

You need to back up a bit and realize that all revenue is not because of personal income tax. Areas and states do have interests and assets, not just people. Those interests and assets require representation in terms of people that live there being informed about them and thereby representing the interests of the state in Washington DC. Corporations also pay tax, and often times they are making their profits and producing very crucial products and services for the country because of slimly populated states.

An example is Wyoming, which is quite insignificant population wise, but thanks to the coal mined there, and the people and corporations situated there that mine the coal and ship to virtually over half the country to fuel electrical power plants, I would say the state is much more important per capita than Massachusetts for example. I don't know where you live, but there is a chance that your electricity is produced from coal mined in Wyoming, but you may not even know or care to know. Since the public is so poorly informed on energy, people in New York may wish to simply vote to close all coal mines for all they cared. Fortunately, Wyoming has a voice, albeit not totally because of the electoral college, but at least it helps.

I only use the coal reserves of Wyoming as an example. It is just one of countless examples.

We are seeing a trend now where anyone promising the most dollars to someone will get their vote. What if half the country lived in New Orleans? They could simply vote for rebuilding a city below sea level, and to heck with the logical management of the rest of the country. There are many problems that are not getting fixed now because the politicians are afraid of being voted out by the "majority." Just one example is illegal immigration.

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FINALLY!!! A NATIONAL PLAN TO REFORM THE ELECTRAL COLLEGE

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