IMO, in the unlikely event the Democratic candidate wins the EC but loses the PV

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

It's absurd that some people's votes count for less because of where they live.

Their votes count just as much as everybody else's in their state. The electoral college protects our geographical diversity. I mean look at 2016, Hillary got trounced anywhere that wasn't part of the new economy. She ignored those regions and was punished for it. You can damn well bet politicians won't ignore that region of the country any longer in 2020.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

Finally, someone who supports the EC besides me.

There should be a club for Dems who support the EC. 2016 pretty much exactly proved the point of why the EC was necessary. Cater to only a select geographic region and you get clobbered. Democrats will now remember to focus on a more geographically appealing message.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

It's absurd that some people's votes count for less because of where they live.

Their votes count just as much as everybody else's in their state. The electoral college protects our geographical diversity. I mean look at 2016, Hillary got trounced anywhere that wasn't part of the new economy. She ignored those regions and was punished for it. You can damn well bet politicians won't ignore that region of the country any longer in 2020.

There is no region of the country that should be privileged over others. There ought be no categories of Americans that are better than others.

It doesn't have to do with "regions" being better than others. It's about preventing regional candidates from dominating our politics. Dems in 2016 have proven themselves to be an extremely regional party. The vast base of their support comes from urban and coastal areas. Regional candidates are a problem because they don't represent the best interests of a country equally. Had Hillary won, even though I wanted her to win, we would have continued to ignore the growing frustration of vast geographic regions. The 2016 election will force Democrats to acknowledge a message that has wider geographical appeal.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

It's absurd that some people's votes count for less because of where they live.

Their votes count just as much as everybody else's in their state. The electoral college protects our geographical diversity. I mean look at 2016, Hillary got trounced anywhere that wasn't part of the new economy. She ignored those regions and was punished for it. You can damn well bet politicians won't ignore that region of the country any longer in 2020.

There is no region of the country that should be privileged over others. There ought be no categories of Americans that are better than others.

It doesn't have to do with "regions" being better than others. It's about preventing regional candidates from dominating our politics. Dems in 2016 have proven themselves to be an extremely regional party. The vast base of their support comes from urban and coastal areas. Regional candidates are a problem because they don't represent the best interests of a country equally. Had Hillary won, even though I wanted her to win, we would have continued to ignore the growing frustration of vast geographic regions. The 2016 election will force Democrats to acknowledge a message that has wider geographical appeal.

Trump is a regional candidate heading an extremely regional party. He doesn't represent the best interests of the country equally, if at all. And he continues to ignore the growing frustration of vast geographic regions. All of these are even more true of Trump than of Hillary. In my own city, which cast some 300,000 votes, Trump got 4% of the vote. Can you name any region of the country with 300,000 people where Hillary got only 4% of the vote? Go ahead, I dare you.

Yeah Trump isn't as much of a regional candidate as Hillary was. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/countymaprb1024.png

From that map, which one would you expect to have more geographically diverse constituents? I'd bet its the one that literally covers the entire country. You can walk coast to coast without stepping foot in a Democratic county.

Your example actually proves my point. Generally if the majority of counties you're winning are by 80+ point margins you're a regional party. Look at the solid south. South Carolina often voted in excess of 96% for the Democratic candidate. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia often went the same way.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

It's absurd that some people's votes count for less because of where they live.

Their votes count just as much as everybody else's in their state. The electoral college protects our geographical diversity. I mean look at 2016, Hillary got trounced anywhere that wasn't part of the new economy. She ignored those regions and was punished for it. You can damn well bet politicians won't ignore that region of the country any longer in 2020.

There is no region of the country that should be privileged over others. There ought be no categories of Americans that are better than others.

It doesn't have to do with "regions" being better than others. It's about preventing regional candidates from dominating our politics. Dems in 2016 have proven themselves to be an extremely regional party. The vast base of their support comes from urban and coastal areas. Regional candidates are a problem because they don't represent the best interests of a country equally. Had Hillary won, even though I wanted her to win, we would have continued to ignore the growing frustration of vast geographic regions. The 2016 election will force Democrats to acknowledge a message that has wider geographical appeal.

Trump is a regional candidate heading an extremely regional party. He doesn't represent the best interests of the country equally, if at all. And he continues to ignore the growing frustration of vast geographic regions. All of these are even more true of Trump than of Hillary. In my own city, which cast some 300,000 votes, Trump got 4% of the vote. Can you name any region of the country with 300,000 people where Hillary got only 4% of the vote? Go ahead, I dare you.

Yeah Trump isn't as much of a regional candidate as Hillary was. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/countymaprb1024.png

From that map, which one would you expect to have more geographically diverse constituents? I'd bet its the one that literally covers the entire country. You can walk coast to coast without stepping foot in a Democratic county.

Your example actually proves my point. Generally if the majority of counties you're winning are by 80+ point margins you're a regional party. Look at the solid south. South Carolina often voted in excess of 96% for the Democratic candidate. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia often went the same way.

By your definition of geographic diversity, being spread out is in itself a virtue. If fifty people who live within one square mile prefer candidate A forty-five to five, and five people who live spread across four other square files prefer candidate B four to one, then candidate B is more geographically diverse, even though candidate A has more supporters by 46 to 9. This is not democracy, this is geocracy, or the rule of Land.

There is no well developed political theory in support of the rule of land. Why should my vote be worth less simply because I choose to live in a more densely populated area? Further, if geographic diversity is what is important, why not practice it in state level elections, as well? I mean, you can get elected Governor of Illinois while completely ignoring downstate, or Governor of New York while completely ignoring upstate. Why not have an electoral college for statewide elections?

Further, even if geographic diversity is right, the Electoral College doesn't protect it. Obama won while winning far fewer counties, and you could walk across the country without entering in Democratic territory then, as well. So even to your stated goal, is not achieved by the Electoral College.

I'm not saying geographical diversity is paramount to none but it certainly matters. Tyranny of the majority can be a thing and we need safeguards against it. I actually think there should be a "popular vote award" given to the popular vote winner in order to avoid another Bush v Gore situation, where the issue was less pronounced. 2016 wasn't comparable to 2000. Bush won by 2 electoral votes while barely losing the popular vote, while Hillary lost by 74 electoral votes. In this case the electoral college did it's job by protecting against a regional candidate. There's a balance between too much and too little Democracy. If we wanted to be truly Democratic we would all vote on our every bill that was written. Hell, throw out the Supreme Courts as well because they protect minority interests.

[McGovernForPrez]

The EC is stupid.

Small states already get overrepresented in the senate, and rural areas are usually over represented in the House. At least give the majority population irregardless of how urban an area they live in or how big their state is their own President.

It isn't about making small states overrepresented, it's about protecting geographical interests. If it were simply about representation levels than it's hard to say since of the 10 smallest states both parties took 5 each. It's not even necessarily about the urban vs rural divide either. If a certain geographical region is continuously ignored then it can lead to all sorts of messy legitimacy problems. I think the Electoral college needs some sort of reform, such as a 3 EV PV award, but I don't think we should so callously jump to national popular vote.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

It's absurd that some people's votes count for less because of where they live.

Their votes count just as much as everybody else's in their state. The electoral college protects our geographical diversity. I mean look at 2016, Hillary got trounced anywhere that wasn't part of the new economy. She ignored those regions and was punished for it. You can damn well bet politicians won't ignore that region of the country any longer in 2020.

There is no region of the country that should be privileged over others. There ought be no categories of Americans that are better than others.

It doesn't have to do with "regions" being better than others. It's about preventing regional candidates from dominating our politics. Dems in 2016 have proven themselves to be an extremely regional party. The vast base of their support comes from urban and coastal areas. Regional candidates are a problem because they don't represent the best interests of a country equally. Had Hillary won, even though I wanted her to win, we would have continued to ignore the growing frustration of vast geographic regions. The 2016 election will force Democrats to acknowledge a message that has wider geographical appeal.

Trump is a regional candidate heading an extremely regional party. He doesn't represent the best interests of the country equally, if at all. And he continues to ignore the growing frustration of vast geographic regions. All of these are even more true of Trump than of Hillary. In my own city, which cast some 300,000 votes, Trump got 4% of the vote. Can you name any region of the country with 300,000 people where Hillary got only 4% of the vote? Go ahead, I dare you.

Yeah Trump isn't as much of a regional candidate as Hillary was. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/countymaprb1024.png

From that map, which one would you expect to have more geographically diverse constituents? I'd bet its the one that literally covers the entire country. You can walk coast to coast without stepping foot in a Democratic county.

Your example actually proves my point. Generally if the majority of counties you're winning are by 80+ point margins you're a regional party. Look at the solid south. South Carolina often voted in excess of 96% for the Democratic candidate. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia often went the same way.

You're missing the point. I'm not saying we should completely ignore popular vote, but there's a balance. The electoral college forces candidates to have a more geographically appealing message and that's valuable.

[McGovernForPrez]

Whaat about the geographical interests of people in Downstate Illinois, or in Austin? The electoral college doesn't give them a voice.

Which is the real reason Trump won by the way. Not because "small states."

First of all they did get a voice in the way the state awarded it's electoral votes. Some states will over represented urban voters and others will over represent rural and suburban voters. I think Donald Trump's win in the electoral college is large enough that it really isn't fair to blame this on the electoral college. I actually do think the popular vote should be accounted for in the electoral college. In narrow elections like '00 there can be a slight mismatch between popular vote and electoral college vote. In a situation that narrow I think a good idea is to award 3 electoral votes to the popular vote winner. This means in the infamous 268-270 electoral college split, or the 269-269 split, we have a way of determining who should truly win. I think the other thing that would help is adding the Wyoming rule to our house seats. I also think adopting the Wyoming rule would be nice.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

Finally, someone who supports the EC besides me.

There should be a club for Dems who support the EC. 2016 pretty much exactly proved the point of why the EC was necessary. Cater to only a select geographic region and you get clobbered. Democrats will now remember to focus on a more geographically appealing message.

Trump catered to a select geographic region and he won.

Yeah, that very uniform and small region known as the Plains, Great Lakes, South, half of the Mountain West, and northern Maine.

This is what I was trying to get at. Clinton was literally only popular in the new economy, and the "black belt" of the south. That is the textbook definition of a regional party. Obama was popular in the "new economy" and the Rust Belt, and the "black belt". Any system that rewards running up the margins in a small area is a poor electoral system.

[McGovernForPrez]

If you support the EC, what's your reaction to the following?

- The main argument I see in favor of keeping the EC system as is, is that it punishes candidates who ignore regions, as it did Hillary Clinton last year.  Yet if the state boundaries in those regions were just slightly different, she would have won the EC even without changing a single vote.  If that happened, could one say that she really ignored the region as a whole?

- Maybe this gets more to the winner-take-all way of allocating electoral votes, but an 80,000 vote difference out of 14,000,000 votes cast (~0.5%) across the 3 decisive states wound up mattering more than a nearly 3,000,000 vote, 2% difference overall.    I just don't see a good argument as to why that should be.

- Small states, rural regions, etc. get outsized power in both Houses of Congress, where, at least in theory, the concerns of all citizens are to be debated, deliberated on, compromises reached, etc.  But there can only be one winner of the Presidential election.  It's all or nothing.  The way things are now, roughly half the voters will get no representation within the executive branch.  Why shouldn't that "out of executive branch" group be the group that couldn't even muster a plurality?  (Questionable point, but the reason why 2016 happened is basically the inefficient concentration of Democratic voters -- that are mostly in cities -- that perhaps are more likely to need protection from national security threats, that the executive is more likely to handle than the other branches.)


I realize that my concerns are specific to modern times, where the electorate is highly polarized and there are generally just two major candidates, so maybe there are other scenarios where the EC is best to keep over the long run.  I also realize that there are other hypos that I haven't fully thought through (e.g., a virtual tie in the national popular vote with bizarre vote distributions across states).

Thanks.

I think the problem with saying "slightly different boundaries will change the outcome" ignores the fact that the way your state governs directly affects the political culture of it's citizens. Look how vastly different Vermont and New Hampshire are. One is a swing state, and the other is one of the safest Democratic states in the country. That type of massive difference between political cultures can only possibly happen due to the way each state's own political culture developed. Minnesota vs Wisconsin is another solid example. Both are economically and demographically very similar, yet one is much much more liberal than the other. Only giving it's electoral votes to a Republican once in the last 50 years.

This leads into your next point about having 80,000 votes outweigh the 3 million votes. The vast majority of the 3 million votes came from one state, California. Californians decided how they wanted their electoral votes to be spent. Similarly the people of PA, Wisconsin, and MI also decided how they wanted their electoral votes spent.  Everybody's vote counts within a given state.

The president was never and has never been elected by the people. He's been elected by the 538 electors, who in turn are beholden to the people of each given state. It's two tiered and always has been. The presidential election isn't one election, it's 50. This is better because as I said it allows the unique socioeconomic and political cultures of each state to have better representation.

Without the electoral college the Democrats would constantly be sitting and preaching to Californians and New Yorkers, and the Republicans would only be preaching to Texans and southerners. The electoral college forces candidates to focus primarily on swing states. Despite what some people claim that's actually a good thing. It forces candidates to reach out beyond "rallying the base". Rallying the base is one of the absolute worst parts of our modern political system, and Democrats are currently far more guilty of sinking into this mindset. By being forced to focus on swing states the electoral college punishes this base rallying mindset, and it's what cost Clinton the election. Swing states are fascinating because you have to reach out beyond you're comfort zone in order to win them. Republicans in 2016 were forced to step outside their free trade comfort zone, and they were rewarded by winning a number of swing states. It forces the parties to constantly evolve on issues that are relevant to our time and that's ultimately a good thing.

[McGovernForPrez]

EC is fine IMO. Our country is too geographically and economically diverse to have a simple popular vote.

Finally, someone who supports the EC besides me.

There should be a club for Dems who support the EC. 2016 pretty much exactly proved the point of why the EC was necessary. Cater to only a select geographic region and you get clobbered. Democrats will now remember to focus on a more geographically appealing message.

Trump catered to a select geographic region and he won.

Yeah, that very uniform and small region known as the Plains, Great Lakes, South, half of the Mountain West, and northern Maine.

This is what I was trying to get at. Clinton was literally only popular in the new economy, and the "black belt" of the south. That is the textbook definition of a regional party. Obama was popular in the "new economy" and the Rust Belt, and the "black belt". Any system that rewards running up the margins in a small area is a poor electoral system.

Presidents have been elected with less geography than the loser (Obama '08 & '12). EC doesn't protect geographic diversity, nor the diversity of states (Carter '76, Kennedy '60). Also, saying that how much land you win matters more than how many voters you win is undemocratic. Land doesn't have person hood, nor voting rights. We are a nation "for the people, by the people," not "for the farms, by the farms."

Furthermore, I think your pre-occupation with belittling people who live in Clinton states is unfair and irrelevant. What is unfair about the idea of "one person, one vote, and those with the most votes wins?" If regions mattered, then does that mean that a Governor or Senator who won their election with a minority of counties in their state should lose? Should each state have an electoral college to prevent the dominance of NYC or Chicago?

I don't know how many times I need to explain it, this isn't about "land mass". It's about economic and political identity. The state you were born in directly affects your own political culture. Each state has a unique political culture and that needs to be protected. Obama won states within a fairly diverse region to be quite honest. He won the Pacific coast, New England, Rust Belt, Mid-Atlantic, and even some more of the upper southern states, like Virginia and North Carolina. I don't value land mass over all else. The electoral college obviously takes into account the number of people living in a state. That's why California gets more EV's than Vermont.

90% of the time the EV winner is the PV winner, however when this isn't the case we need to take a closer examination. In the case of Bush vs Gore, I think The electoral college might've goofed. Gore won the popular vote and just narrowly lost the electoral vote. In these cases I would enjoy to see PV award to rectify such a small EV loss. However in the case of Clinton and Trump the EV vote compared to the PV vote was so large that I think it says something about the base of Clinton's support. Without the electoral college the United States would be dominated by regional parties. PV vote is important but it's not tantamount.

To your last point about regionality, I think size is a huge part of this. The United States is very diverse culturally. When you zoom down to the state level that becomes less of a case. States share a common political culture and at such a small scale regional differences are negligable.