Talk Elections

Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion => Presidential Election Process => Topic started by: Sec. of State Superique on April 20, 2012, 02:46:43 PM



Title: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 20, 2012, 02:46:43 PM
Why do americans prefer the electoral college?

I live in Brazil and, with all do respect, the popular vote it is more fair and democratic.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: minionofmidas on April 20, 2012, 02:54:25 PM
It would require an end to the bizarre hodgepodge of state regulations about ballot access, vote counting, etc - one of the few remaining provinces of meaningful state legislation.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 20, 2012, 03:14:11 PM
It would require an end to the bizarre hodgepodge of state regulations about ballot access, vote counting, etc - one of the few remaining provinces of meaningful state legislation.

Bizarre Regulations. So I think do you agree with the Popular Vote ideia...


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: minionofmidas on April 20, 2012, 03:36:39 PM
Well, for one I'm not an American, and for another if asked my honest-to-God most personal opinion, I wouldn't agree that any position as powerful as the current American presidency ought to exist, and that direct popular vote would be an improvement on the situation but not a great one. :)

But Americans do tend to answer your question with stuff like "imagine the chaos and controversies of a nationwide recount" which, really, presupposes that rules remain odd and at variance even under direct popular vote - most don't tend to imagine that that might be changed. As it would need to be. So it's sort of a major psychological barrier.

And the other one's of course that the US Constitution is just so ridiculously hard to amend and the issue just doesn't seem worth fighting such an epic battle over to most people.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Del Tachi on April 20, 2012, 04:03:06 PM
The United States government is based off of the concept of federalism--that is a sharing of powers between the national and more local forms of government.

The Electoral College is the only effective "check" that the states maintain on the federal executive branch.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 20, 2012, 05:39:51 PM
The United States government is based off of the concept of federalism--that is a sharing of powers between the national and more local forms of government.

The Electoral College is the only effective "check" that the states maintain on the federal executive branch.

I know that but, usually, when a candidate win in the Popular Vote, he wins in the majority of states, or at least in a reasonable amount of states.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Frozen Sky Ever Why on April 20, 2012, 09:07:16 PM
Popular vote rule is unfair to states like Vermont, who will then have virtually no say in the election, leaving places like Texas & California to decide for everyone else.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 20, 2012, 09:38:12 PM
Popular vote rule is unfair to states like Vermont, who will then have virtually no say in the election, leaving places like Texas & California to decide for everyone else.


That is not true. Think like this, if you are a Democrat on Texas, your vote will not make difference because Texas is a Red State, the same thing applies for a Republican on California. And the same thing applies for all the third-party voters in every state.

Instead of thinking about the state as an individual, you should think the state just like the place were people are voting. National Elections are about giving people the power to choose a National Leader, so the state where you live shouldn't really matter at all.

The presidential candidate would have to find support everywhere he could, on the Red States, on the Blue States and on the Swing States. Every voter would matter for the presidential candidate.

With the Popular Vote, every vote counts.

Mc Cain won only 32,15% of the EVs but he won 45.7% of PVs, do you really think that this is a fairer system?

As Americans give so much value to the state level bureaucracy, I have another idea: just allocate the electors of each state proportionally.  It will be PV with a EV face.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 20, 2012, 09:42:14 PM

But Americans do tend to answer your question with stuff like "imagine the chaos and controversies of a nationwide recount" which, really, presupposes that rules remain odd and at variance even under direct popular vote - most don't tend to imagine that that might be changed. As it would need to be. So it's sort of a major psychological barrier.
.

I see what you mean and it will be very difficult to change that philosophy. At least , in the end,  it will be very positive for the American people

Brazil hosts elections every 2 years and it uses a electronic ballot that is organized by an Independent Committee with some help of the Federal Government. We are a big country, we are poorer than the USA and we are counting and recounting our votes perfectly.



Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: minionofmidas on April 21, 2012, 06:49:38 AM
The United States government is based off of the concept of federalism--that is a sharing of powers between the national and more local forms of government.
Is it? Historically and to an extent rhetorically, the US is indeed based on a concept of Federalism, but in practice it only has a sharing of powers between the national and more local forms of government, much like virtually every other major country in the world (the UK being the most important excemption, though a but partial one since Devolution). It's not the same thing at all really.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: greenforest32 on April 21, 2012, 07:51:50 AM
The United States government is based off of the concept of federalism--that is a sharing of powers between the national and more local forms of government.

The Electoral College is the only effective "check" that the states maintain on the federal executive branch.

All this talk of the Electoral College being a check for the states against the federal government really doesn't make sense to me. A check on what? Ensuring that the President must win a majority of the states in order to win the Presidency? What purpose would that serve? That doesn't even exist currently as the electoral vote is based on population (every state gets 2 EC votes for their 2 senators + 1 for each of their house seats (which of course are allocated based on population) and DC gets 3).

Should we give every state one electoral vote and have them award it via winner-take all plurality elections? Wouldn't that be fair to the states? Oh wait, that wouldn't be fair to the people. Nobody cares about giving the states this kind of disproportionate influence in the Presidential election. They already have the senate where they get two senators per state regardless of their population.

A national popular vote is much more fair to the people. The only reason Ohio and Florida get so much attention over other states in the election is because of the Electoral College. EC votes are awarded via winner-take-all so candidates campaign heavily in close states in hopes of getting their EC votes and awarding EC votes by gerrymandered congressional districts is bad as well. Proportional allocation of the EC votes (60% of the state vote = 60% of its EV votes) is better than by congressional district but even that has problems from the aforementioned 2 EC votes to every state regardless of their population.

The Electoral College is an archaic relic that serves no purpose today other than to undermine having the winner of the popular vote be the winner of the election. It should be abolished.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Hatman 🍁 on April 21, 2012, 01:51:21 PM
If EVs were divided proportionally, this is what the results would've been for 2008:

   O   M   N
AL   4   5
AK   1   2
AZ   5   5
AR   2   4
CA   34   20   1
CO   5   4
CT   4   3
DE   2   1
DC   3
FL   14   13   
GA   7   8
HI   3   1
ID   1   3
IL   13   8
IN   6   5
IA   4   3
KS   3   3
KY   3   5
LA   4   5
ME   2   2
MD   6   4
MA   8   4
MI   10   7
MN   6   4
MS   3   3
MO   5   6
MT   1   2
NE   2   3
NV   3   2
NH   2   2
NJ   9   6
NM   3   2
NY   20   11
NC   8   7
ND   1   2
OH   10   10
OK   2   5
OR   4   3
PA   12   9
RI   3   1
SC   4   4
SD   1   2
TN   5   6
TX   15   19
UT   2   3
VT   2   1
VA   7   6
WA   6   5
WV   2   3
WI   6   4
WY   1   2
   289   248   1
   53.7   46.1   0.2


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 21, 2012, 02:20:12 PM
If EVs were divided proportionally, this is what the results would've been for 2008:

   O   M   N
   289   248   1
   53.7   46.1   0.2

Thank you for your contribution!


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Mr. Morden on April 21, 2012, 06:34:49 PM
In a close election, allocating the EVs proportionally by vote within each state actually tends to tilt things slightly towards the Republicans (relative to their showing in the popular vote), since they tend to do a bit better in smaller states, which have a bigger proportional bonus in the EC with the +2 EVs for senators.

For example, I think if you allocated the 2000 EVs by popular vote in each state, then Bush wins the electoral college more decisively (without the need for a recount), despite losing the popular vote nationwide.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: emailking on April 21, 2012, 07:34:51 PM
With the Popular Vote, every vote counts.

Every vote counts as it is. They just count a different way than they would in a popular vote.



Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: tpfkaw on April 21, 2012, 07:38:34 PM
With the Popular Vote, every vote counts.

No, actually, every vote would have no statistical chance of counting whatsoever (even more so than this is already the case).


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 21, 2012, 08:19:00 PM
With the Popular Vote, every vote counts.

Every vote counts as it is. They just count a different way than they would in a popular vote.



So it's not counting...

Imagine this situation

"Hi! I'm Robert, I live in Houston, Texas, and I'm voting for Obama! I like the electoral college because my vote counts!"

"Wait! Haven't you noticed that you are voting for Republicans every presidential year? If you really want to vote and make difference, you should vote on Ohio or Florida, and your vote may not even count."

"But that is not fair, I want to vote for Obama!"

"I know Robert, I know... But this is the Electoral Collegge, this is reality. If Gore accpeted it, you must accept!"

LOL


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Mr. Morden on April 21, 2012, 09:45:39 PM
I think the debate is breaking down over the semantics of what it means for a vote to count.  The way that I would put it is that under the EC, the votes of both Democratic and Republican voters in Texas do in fact count, in that they determine how the electoral votes of Texas go.  However, these voters lack "electoral leverage", which means that their votes are determining an event for which we're already ~95% sure of the outcome, since we're pretty sure that the Republican candidate is going to win Texas.

Interestingly, electoral leverage is based entirely on our ignorance of how the vote is going to turn out.  The states where we pretty much know who's going to win lack leverage, and the candidates ignore them, whereas the states where we're ignorant of who's going to win beforehand are the states that the candidates care about.

One could imagine a thought experiment in which the electoral college is left intact, but the state boundaries are all redrawn at random, all records of past voting records by precinct are destroyed, and statewide polling is banned.  The candidates would be forced to campaign nationwide, and the campaign would play out as if it was determined by the popular vote, because no one would know which voters were living in states that would end up being competitive and which were living in states where it would be a landslide.  The ignorance of whose votes "mattered" in such a system would make it "more democratic".


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Hatman 🍁 on April 21, 2012, 11:19:40 PM
In a close election, allocating the EVs proportionally by vote within each state actually tends to tilt things slightly towards the Republicans (relative to their showing in the popular vote), since they tend to do a bit better in smaller states, which have a bigger proportional bonus in the EC with the +2 EVs for senators.

For example, I think if you allocated the 2000 EVs by popular vote in each state, then Bush wins the electoral college more decisively (without the need for a recount), despite losing the popular vote nationwide.


Wrong. While you're right Bush would get more EVs, he only gets a plurality. By one. And it's thrown to the House:
   G   B   N
AL   4   5
AK   1   2
AZ   4   4
AR   3   3
CA   29   23   2   
CO   3   4   1
CT   5   3
DE   2   1
DC   3
FL   12   12   1   
GA   6   7
HI   2   2
ID   1   3
IL   12   9    1
IN   5   7
IA   4   3
KS   2   4
KY   3   5
LA   4   5
ME   2   2
MD   6   4
MA   7   4   1
MI   9   8   1
MN   5   5
MS   3   4
MO   5   6
MT   1   2
NE   2   3
NV   2   2
NH   2   2
NJ   8   6   1
NM   3   2
NY   20   12   1
NC   6   8
ND   1   2
OH   10   10   1
OK   3   5
OR   3   3   1
PA   12   11
RI   3   1
SC   3   5
SD   1   2
TN   5   6
TX   12   19   1
UT   1   4
VT   2   1
VA   6   7
WA   6   5
WV   2   3
WI   5   5   1
WY   1   2
   262   263   13
   48.7   48.9   2.4


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Mr. Morden on April 21, 2012, 11:28:00 PM
In a close election, allocating the EVs proportionally by vote within each state actually tends to tilt things slightly towards the Republicans (relative to their showing in the popular vote), since they tend to do a bit better in smaller states, which have a bigger proportional bonus in the EC with the +2 EVs for senators.

For example, I think if you allocated the 2000 EVs by popular vote in each state, then Bush wins the electoral college more decisively (without the need for a recount), despite losing the popular vote nationwide.


Wrong. While you're right Bush would get more EVs, he only gets a plurality. By one. And it's thrown to the House:

Ah, you're right on that.  Sorry, I was getting it mixed up with the scenario where the EVs are allocated by CD.  In that case, I think Bush wins.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on April 22, 2012, 12:36:32 AM
When the Constitution was adopted, the standards of who could vote varied widely among the 13 states, even without considering the impact of slavery. Indeed, some states had different requirements to be a voter for different parts of their local government, which is why the Constitution specifies that the electors for the House (and later the Senate as well) are to have the same qualifications as "the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures".

The differences in who qualifies to be a voter are far narrower than they were, but unless eliminated, some form of electoral college seems advisable.  The main tweak I'd make is to delink the size of the college from the size of the Congress.  1 elector per 50,000 with the incorporated territories getting to vote if they can meet that minimum as well seems like a good figure.  That would range from California with 677 electors down to the Virgin Islands with 2.  (American Samoa and the Northern Marianas are not incorporated territories, so with the lack of birthright citizenship, I doubt either has 50K US citizens as they barely have 50K people.)

Requiring proportional election and/or election by district wouldn't be a problem for me.  (For example, California could elect 12 Electors from each CD plus another 41 Statewide.)

Such a system preserves the benefits of the electoral college in balancing out the disparities in voter eligibility and making any needed recounts be over a smaller number of ballots while being less distorted by differences in persons per Elector.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: minionofmidas on April 22, 2012, 04:14:15 AM
I think the debate is breaking down over the semantics of what it means for a vote to count.
It is a fairly meaningless term. If you define it as "make an actual difference", obviously in a single-position election a vote does so only if the election is decided by a single vote, but in that case every vote for that candidate did (or, under the EC, if one state's election is decided by a single vote and that state happened to be decisive as well; and even then it's only the votes from that state that did.)


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 22, 2012, 07:22:50 AM
I think the debate is breaking down over the semantics of what it means for a vote to count.
It is a fairly meaningless term. If you define it as "make an actual difference", obviously in a single-position election a vote does so only if the election is decided by a single vote, but in that case every vote for that candidate did (or, under the EC, if one state's election is decided by a single vote and that state happened to be decisive as well; and even then it's only the votes from that state that did.)



I think all of you misunderstood what I was trying to say. When I said that with PV every vote counts, I meant that your vote will not be filtered by a statewide poll, your vote will count nationally and that is much more fair!

I don't think that getting less vote than your rival could make you president. The Electoral Collegge is old and it was based in a system which is less democratic than the system we have today.


Senators were elected indirectly and they could vote on any Candidate they wanted...


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 22, 2012, 07:29:52 AM
In a close election, allocating the EVs proportionally by vote within each state actually tends to tilt things slightly towards the Republicans (relative to their showing in the popular vote), since they tend to do a bit better in smaller states, which have a bigger proportional bonus in the EC with the +2 EVs for senators.

For example, I think if you allocated the 2000 EVs by popular vote in each state, then Bush wins the electoral college more decisively (without the need for a recount), despite losing the popular vote nationwide.


Wrong. While you're right Bush would get more EVs, he only gets a plurality. By one. And it's thrown to the House:
   G   B   N
AL   4   5
AK   1   2
AZ   4   4
AR   3   3
CA   29   23   2   
CO   3   4   1
CT   5   3
DE   2   1
DC   3
FL   12   12   1   
GA   6   7
HI   2   2
ID   1   3
IL   12   9    1
IN   5   7
IA   4   3
KS   2   4
KY   3   5
LA   4   5
ME   2   2
MD   6   4
MA   7   4   1
MI   9   8   1
MN   5   5
MS   3   4
MO   5   6
MT   1   2
NE   2   3
NV   2   2
NH   2   2
NJ   8   6   1
NM   3   2
NY   20   12   1
NC   6   8
ND   1   2
OH   10   10   1
OK   3   5
OR   3   3   1
PA   12   11
RI   3   1
SC   3   5
SD   1   2
TN   5   6
TX   12   19   1
UT   1   4
VT   2   1
VA   6   7
WA   6   5
WV   2   3
WI   5   5   1
WY   1   2
   262   263   13
   48.7   48.9   2.4


Gore would loose anyway :( Imagine the congress appointing Bush, that would be so unfair! And the Republicans would be crashed in the next mid-term election ;)


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: emailking on April 22, 2012, 09:36:13 AM
I think all of you misunderstood what I was trying to say. When I said that with PV every vote counts, I meant that your vote will not be filtered by a statewide poll, your vote will count nationally and that is much more fair!

Well that confuses me even more. Consider this scenario:

a. The electoral college is decided by the votes of one state.
b. That state (after all recounting was done) was decided by one popular vote
c. You personally cast your vote for the winning candidate

Then by your specification, your vote doesn't count because it was filtered by a statewide poll. But that seems to fly in the face of common sense for what it means for your vote to count. Because if you personally hadn't voted the way you did, the outcome would have been different.

I think what you're really trying to say is that under the electoral college, a lot of votes get 'wasted.' But the same is true for a popular vote. Unless the election is decided by exactly one vote, then there are wasted votes. It's just a different way of wasting them.

Which way of wasting them is "fairer" is a different matter.

The electoral leverage issue is interesting, but it's largely an issue of what the candidates do before the election, rather than the meaning of the votes that are cast. I would agree though that the "counting" issue is semantic.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 22, 2012, 09:40:39 AM
I was trying to say about Wasted Votes....

You should also notice that in the Popular Vote, the candidate who has more support from the electorate always win.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Trueconservative on May 04, 2012, 10:10:28 PM
Why do americans prefer the electoral college?

I live in Brazil and, with all do respect, the popular vote it is more fair and democratic.
Because then the president would already be decided by the time it gets very far west, and also the Candidates would only campaign in the big cities in the east. Also, that would mean that country people and westerners would have no say. Also the Democrats would probably always win.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Franzl on May 05, 2012, 05:02:24 AM
Why do americans prefer the electoral college?

I live in Brazil and, with all do respect, the popular vote it is more fair and democratic.
Because then the president would already be decided by the time it gets very far west, and also the Candidates would only campaign in the big cities in the east. Also, that would mean that country people and westerners would have no say. Also the Democrats would probably always win.

lol


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: They put it to a vote and they just kept lying on May 05, 2012, 01:26:32 PM
Yes. I believe the Electoral College is the greatest stab in the heart to democracy of anything imaginable.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Lemon flavoured on May 05, 2012, 05:25:29 PM
I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Franzl on May 06, 2012, 06:17:13 AM
I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

There have been a couple of "ideas" floating around. I've heard it discussed for North Carolina and California.

Bet you can guess which party thought it would be a good idea in each state.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Insula Dei on May 06, 2012, 12:03:55 PM
Pennsylvania too, no?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Chaddyr23 on May 06, 2012, 02:58:22 PM
Popular vote rule is unfair to states like Vermont, who will then have virtually no say in the election, leaving places like Texas & California to decide for everyone else.

When's the last time VT has had a say in an election?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: tmthforu94 on May 11, 2012, 10:20:59 PM
I'm certainly not a proponent of the Electoral College, but I do prefer it to a popular vote.

My biggest concern with a popular vote is that campaigns would spent their energy predominantly on urban areas. I'm probably one of the few on here who can state that I've lived in rural areas my entire life, and I hate that we would likely be ignored. Even medium-sized cities that might usually see some attention, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, won't have any attention.

My compromise is transferring every state to a Nebraska/Maine-type system.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: muon2 on May 11, 2012, 10:51:49 PM
I'm certainly not a proponent of the Electoral College, but I do prefer it to a popular vote.

My biggest concern with a popular vote is that campaigns would spent their energy predominantly on urban areas. I'm probably one of the few on here who can state that I've lived in rural areas my entire life, and I hate that we would likely be ignored. Even medium-sized cities that might usually see some attention, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, won't have any attention.

My compromise is transferring every state to a Nebraska/Maine-type system.

I think this would only be truly successful with neutrally drawn congressional districts. If one party controls a majority of states during redistricting there will always be accusations of bias in the EC for the decade.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Franzl on May 12, 2012, 04:45:43 AM
I'm certainly not a proponent of the Electoral College, but I do prefer it to a popular vote.

My biggest concern with a popular vote is that campaigns would spent their energy predominantly on urban areas. I'm probably one of the few on here who can state that I've lived in rural areas my entire life, and I hate that we would likely be ignored. Even medium-sized cities that might usually see some attention, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, won't have any attention.

My compromise is transferring every state to a Nebraska/Maine-type system.

Where does this common (idiotic) argument in the U.S. come from? Baffles me.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on May 12, 2012, 01:19:36 PM
In a close election, allocating the EVs proportionally by vote within each state actually tends to tilt things slightly towards the Republicans (relative to their showing in the popular vote), since they tend to do a bit better in smaller states, which have a bigger proportional bonus in the EC with the +2 EVs for senators.

For example, I think if you allocated the 2000 EVs by popular vote in each state, then Bush wins the electoral college more decisively (without the need for a recount), despite losing the popular vote nationwide.


Wrong. While you're right Bush would get more EVs, he only gets a plurality. By one. And it's thrown to the House:
   G   B   N
AL   4   5
AK   1   2
AZ   4   4
AR   3   3
CA   29   23   2   
CO   3   4   1
CT   5   3
DE   2   1
DC   3
FL   12   12   1   
GA   6   7
HI   2   2
ID   1   3
IL   12   9    1
IN   5   7
IA   4   3
KS   2   4
KY   3   5
LA   4   5
ME   2   2
MD   6   4
MA   7   4   1
MI   9   8   1
MN   5   5
MS   3   4
MO   5   6
MT   1   2
NE   2   3
NV   2   2
NH   2   2
NJ   8   6   1
NM   3   2
NY   20   12   1
NC   6   8
ND   1   2
OH   10   10   1
OK   3   5
OR   3   3   1
PA   12   11
RI   3   1
SC   3   5
SD   1   2
TN   5   6
TX   12   19   1
UT   1   4
VT   2   1
VA   6   7
WA   6   5
WV   2   3
WI   5   5   1
WY   1   2
   262   263   13
   48.7   48.9   2.4


Gore would lose anyway :( Imagine the congress appointing Bush, that would be so unfair! And the Republicans would be crashed in the next mid-term election ;)

Assuming party-line votes, this is how the House election would have gone.  (I'm guessing Sanders would have voted for Nader, but who knows?)

Bush: 28
AL AK AZ CO DE FL GA ID IN IA
KS KY LA MO MT NE NH NM NC OH
OK PA SC SD TN UT VA WY
Gore: 18
AR CA HI ME MD MA MI MN MS NJ
NY ND OR RI TX WA WV WI
Nader: 1
VT
Abstain: 3
CT IL NV

With the Senate tied 50-50, it would have been unable to elect a Vice President until Jeffords switched parties, and Lieberman would be elected.

If Jeffords was willing to switch before January 20, Bush likely would have found a place for Cheney in his cabinet, most likely as Secretary of Defense again or perhaps National Security Adviser.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: tmthforu94 on May 12, 2012, 02:53:35 PM
I'm certainly not a proponent of the Electoral College, but I do prefer it to a popular vote.

My biggest concern with a popular vote is that campaigns would spent their energy predominantly on urban areas. I'm probably one of the few on here who can state that I've lived in rural areas my entire life, and I hate that we would likely be ignored. Even medium-sized cities that might usually see some attention, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, won't have any attention.

My compromise is transferring every state to a Nebraska/Maine-type system.

I think this would only be truly successful with neutrally drawn congressional districts. If one party controls a majority of states during redistricting there will always be accusations of bias in the EC for the decade.
A fair point - something I didn't consider.

It actually more comes down to population density. I think it would be foolish for a candidate to spend time in a state with a low density, such as Iowa, when they could spend just as much and reach out to many more voters in a state like New Jersey.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on May 14, 2012, 12:42:58 PM
Popular vote rule is unfair to states like Vermont, who will then have virtually no say in the election, leaving places like Texas & California to decide for everyone else.

When's the last time VT has had a say in an election?

1876.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: golden on May 16, 2012, 07:28:11 AM
I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

Noooooooooo!

If the undemocratic ME/NE method had been adopted in each state Obama might not have won the 2008 presidential election.
Take a look at Indiana and North Carolina, each of which he won:
Indiana would have given him 3 EV and 6 EV to McCain.
In North Carolina Obama would have received 6 EV, compared to McCain's 7 EV.

A proportional allocation of the electoral votes could be a good compromise.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on May 17, 2012, 12:37:15 AM
I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

Noooooooooo!

If the undemocratic ME/NE method had been adopted in each state Obama might not have won the 2008 presidential election.
Take a look at Indiana and North Carolina, each of which he won:
Indiana would have given him 3 EV and 6 EV to McCain.
In North Carolina Obama would have received 6 EV, compared to McCain's 7 EV.

A proportional allocation of the electoral votes could be a good compromise.

The calculation's been done, and while I don't recall the exact results, Obama would have still won under he Maine/Nebraska method.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: golden on May 17, 2012, 10:28:23 AM
I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

Noooooooooo!

If the undemocratic ME/NE method had been adopted in each state Obama might not have won the 2008 presidential election.
Take a look at Indiana and North Carolina, each of which he won:
Indiana would have given him 3 EV and 6 EV to McCain.
In North Carolina Obama would have received 6 EV, compared to McCain's 7 EV.

A proportional allocation of the electoral votes could be a good compromise.

The calculation's been done, and while I don't recall the exact results, Obama would have still won under he Maine/Nebraska method.

Okay, but it'd be possible that close elections like 2000, 1992, 1976 or 1960 could have come to different results with the CD-method.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Lemon flavoured on May 26, 2012, 05:28:30 PM
I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

Noooooooooo!

If the undemocratic ME/NE method had been adopted in each state Obama might not have won the 2008 presidential election.
Take a look at Indiana and North Carolina, each of which he won:
Indiana would have given him 3 EV and 6 EV to McCain.
In North Carolina Obama would have received 6 EV, compared to McCain's 7 EV.

A proportional allocation of the electoral votes could be a good compromise.

The calculation's been done, and while I don't recall the exact results, Obama would have still won under he Maine/Nebraska method.

Okay, but it'd be possible that close elections like 2000, 1992, 1976 or 1960 could have come to different results with the CD-method.

I don't see why the fact that past elections would have had a different result is a reason to not want a system.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on May 26, 2012, 07:43:49 PM
I don't mind the electoral college too much, but I think that all states should use the Maine / Nebraska method. As a matter of interest, has there been any serious attempt to introduce that anywhere else?

Noooooooooo!

If the undemocratic ME/NE method had been adopted in each state Obama might not have won the 2008 presidential election.
Take a look at Indiana and North Carolina, each of which he won:
Indiana would have given him 3 EV and 6 EV to McCain.
In North Carolina Obama would have received 6 EV, compared to McCain's 7 EV.

A proportional allocation of the electoral votes could be a good compromise.

The calculation's been done, and while I don't recall the exact results, Obama would have still won under he Maine/Nebraska method.

Okay, but it'd be possible that close elections like 2000, 1992, 1976 or 1960 could have come to different results with the CD-method.

I don't see why the fact that past elections would have had a different result is a reason to not want a system.

How about the fact that the Maine-Nebraska method allows gerrymandering to influence the results of Presidential elections? Obama narrowly won North Carolina in 2008. But the Republicans just recently gerrymandered that state to hell, and Obama would only have won five out of fifteen electoral votes from that state under the new lines. It's bad enough that gerrymandering affects the results of Congressional races without affecting Presidential races as well.

Even if the US had a neutral redistricting process, I would not approve of the Maine-Nebraska method as it would still allow Presidential elections to be decided based on arbitrary lines on a map even more than the current system does.

I oppose having electoral votes be allocated proportionally as well, though it's better than the current system. If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally at a nationwide level, then it makes no difference from the popular vote in any election where a candidate gets a majority, but it throws the election to the House in all other cases (such as 1992, 1996, and 2000). If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally by state, then small states would still be disproportionate (if a candidate wins by one vote in Vermont, that's a 2-1 margin in the Electoral Vote, but a candidate would need to break 60% in New Hampshire to not tie).

With a popular vote, one vote is one vote, and it carries the same weight no matter which state or district the voter lives in.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on May 26, 2012, 08:09:17 PM
If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally at a nationwide level

What conceivable reason would one have to allocate electoral votes in any manner on a national level? The only way that even begins to make any sort of sense would be if instead of meeting in each State and voting once, the electors met together to choose a President and Vice President by a majority vote, and Congress was cut out of the process entirely.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on May 26, 2012, 08:20:35 PM
If the electoral votes are allocated proportionally at a nationwide level

What conceivable reason would one have to allocate electoral votes in any manner on a national level? The only way that even begins to make any sort of sense would be if instead of meeting in each State and voting once, the electors met together to choose a President and Vice President by a majority vote, and Congress was cut out of the process entirely.

I was just putting that out there as an example, but I suppose you're right. However, seeing as how I oppose it anyway, you're not really changing my mind about anything.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: defe07 on May 28, 2012, 07:15:07 AM
I have an idea! What about the following idea?

Why don't we allocate the electoral votes from each state by county? If you want to have an idea as to what I'm proposing, I'd suggest going to this website:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/ID-R


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on May 28, 2012, 06:26:38 PM
Most states don't have counties of uniform enough population for that to be viable.  The selection of electors would presumably be subject to the same one-man/one-vote limitations as other offices are subject to (assuming that the State legislature chooses to have the electors selected by the people).


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on June 01, 2012, 03:15:25 AM
Most states don't have counties of uniform enough population for that to be viable.  The selection of electors would presumably be subject to the same one-man/one-vote limitations as other offices are subject to (assuming that the State legislature chooses to have the electors selected by the people).

It's simple. Loving County Texas gets 1 Elector, and Los Angeles County California gets 119,739.[/sarcasm]


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: morgieb on July 08, 2012, 02:09:45 AM
Support it, though not as passionately as most.

Doing it by electoral district would be awful, unless non-partisan boundaries were created.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: muon2 on July 08, 2012, 05:19:00 PM
Support it, though not as passionately as most.

Doing it by electoral district would be awful, unless non-partisan boundaries were created.

Would you support direct election of the Australian PM?

If there were non-partisan boundaries of Congress, would you then prefer the EC system?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: 5280 on September 05, 2012, 08:24:15 PM
I would support such a thing, but I would prefer a CD type of voting similar to Nebraska and Maine 2008.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: 後援会 on September 06, 2012, 01:53:19 AM
I support the electoral vote until I stop living in a swing state. :P

Seriously, I don't really care either way.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Emperor Dubya on September 07, 2012, 01:22:43 PM
From a serious perspective, I still think the electoral vote is a better system, as I think it actually makes the party's more moderate, as they have to try and build a viable electoral coalition. P.V. would be all about turnout, and thus the party's would drift even further apart in order to maximize it in their best areas.

From a less-serious perspective, the Electoral College makes for much more exciting elections. And remember, I doubt there would be a USElection Atlas without it.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Free Palestine on September 16, 2012, 10:45:10 PM
The idea that candidates would only campaign in big cities is dumb for two reasons:

1) Even if you took all the U.S. cities with over a million people, you wouldn't get a very high percentage of the U.S. population.

2) Candidates pretty much only campaign in swing states anyways.

Also: big cities tend to vote Democratic, so Republicans wouldn't care all that much about them.

I'd suggest watching this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k) video.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: defe07 on September 17, 2012, 01:16:54 PM
I always thought that a good way to reform the Electoral College would be to give each voter a number of Electoral Votes equal to their state's total number of Presidential Electors.

This would allow for cleaner campaigning on behalf of the Democratic and Republican candidates, who usually go into negative attack ads trying to get all the undecided/swing voters.

So, if you live in Wyoming and get 3 electoral votes, or in California and you get 55 electoral votes, candidates would have to go after your votes.

BTW, what I'm proposing isn't a violation of the "one-man/one-vote rule".


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on September 17, 2012, 03:18:51 PM
I always thought that a good way to reform the Electoral College would be to give each voter a number of Electoral Votes equal to their state's total number of Presidential Electors.

This would allow for cleaner campaigning on behalf of the Democratic and Republican candidates, who usually go into negative attack ads trying to get all the undecided/swing voters.

So, if you live in Wyoming and get 3 electoral votes, or in California and you get 55 electoral votes, candidates would have to go after your votes.

BTW, what I'm proposing isn't a violation of the "one-man/one-vote rule".

If that's the case, then I don't think I'm interpreting your proposal correctly. Could you please explain in a little more detail?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: defe07 on September 18, 2012, 03:36:21 PM
This would be like Illinois' cumulative voting system, where voters get a number of votes equal to the number of seats and they can allocate their votes anyway they want. This is what I'm proposing for the Electoral College, let voters in every state get a number of electoral votes equal to the number of electoral votes to be cast in that state.

If you live in Wyoming, you'll get 3 electoral votes. If you live in California, you get 55 electoral votes.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on September 19, 2012, 02:56:29 PM
In other words, he's proposing something akin to the old system of directly electing the electors, with voters able to choose which electors to support.  I think the last time that affected the outcome of a State was in 1960 where the voters of Alabama chose 5 electors pledged to Kennedy and Johnson and 6 unpledged electors who ended up voting for Harry Byrd Sr. of Virginia and Strom Thurmond.  So in Wyoming you'd have 3 votes to pick 3 electors and in California you'd have 55 votes to pick 55 electors.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on September 25, 2012, 04:28:51 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.  In all but four cases thus far (1824, 1876, 1888, and of course, 2000), the winner of the national popular vote also won the electoral college.  For all its flaws, it has worked relatively well for the past 220+ years, and it's the best system out there.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Franzl on September 25, 2012, 06:05:47 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Incorrect.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on September 25, 2012, 06:26:14 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on October 18, 2012, 09:34:30 PM
I'm ok with the wasting teory! That is what I was trying to say....


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on October 18, 2012, 09:40:24 PM
The idea that candidates would only campaign in big cities is dumb for two reasons:

1) Even if you took all the U.S. cities with over a million people, you wouldn't get a very high percentage of the U.S. population.

2) Candidates pretty much only campaign in swing states anyways.

Also: big cities tend to vote Democratic, so Republicans wouldn't care all that much about them.

I'd suggest watching this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k) video.

That is true! In order to get 50%+1, candidates would have to go to every single place theycould in order to get votes. With a PV, every single state in America will be treated like a swing state. Obama would visit Texas in some regions and Mitt would do more campaigning on New York! :P


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Antonio the Sixth on October 27, 2012, 12:07:52 AM
The idea that under PV candidates would only campaign in big cities is ludicrous. I don't even understand why anyone would come up with this.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: freefair on November 12, 2012, 03:23:58 PM
The D'Hondt/St Laigue formulas should be used to proportionally allocate electors by the vote share the candidate got in each state. Its used In most Western Democracies that have Proportional Representation legislatures.
So In California 2012 Gary Johnson wins 1, Obama wins 33 and Romney 21, In Florida, Romney 14, Obama 15. In Utah, Romney 5, Obama 1, Texas Romney 22 Obama 16 etc.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on November 12, 2012, 07:22:35 PM
The D'Hondt/St Laigue formulas should be used to proportionally allocate electors by the vote share the candidate got in each state. Its used In most Western Democracies that have Proportional Representation legislatures.
So In California 2012 Gary Johnson wins 1, Obama wins 33 and Romney 21, In Florida, Romney 14, Obama 15. In Utah, Romney 5, Obama 1, Texas Romney 22 Obama 16 etc.

And in Mississippi, where Romney won by 12 points, he and Obama get 3 electoral votes each. The problem with allocating electoral votes proportionally is that the results are skewed in the smaller states.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Antonio the Sixth on November 20, 2012, 07:38:34 PM
The D'Hondt/St Laigue formulas should be used to proportionally allocate electors by the vote share the candidate got in each state. Its used In most Western Democracies that have Proportional Representation legislatures.
So In California 2012 Gary Johnson wins 1, Obama wins 33 and Romney 21, In Florida, Romney 14, Obama 15. In Utah, Romney 5, Obama 1, Texas Romney 22 Obama 16 etc.

And in Mississippi, where Romney won by 12 points, he and Obama get 3 electoral votes each. The problem with allocating electoral votes proportionally is that the results are skewed in the smaller states.

Allocating the two "Senatorial" EVs to the Statewide winner and the rest proportionally would solve this issue.

Alternatively, we could just raise the ridiculously low number of Representatives.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Icehand Gino on November 21, 2012, 03:06:41 PM
Allocating the two "Senatorial" EVs to the Statewide winner and the rest proportionally would solve this issue.

Alternatively, we could just raise the ridiculously low number of Representatives.

With this allocation, states with 3 EVs would keep a winner-takes-all system.

It would be better to increase the number of representatives.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on December 18, 2012, 08:05:19 AM
Why bother with this inneficient distribution of delegates state-by-state? Just go with the popular vote with no redistribution, the election goes nationwide!


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on December 18, 2012, 07:27:17 PM
Why bother with this inneficient distribution of delegates state-by-state? Just go with the popular vote with no redistribution, the election goes nationwide!

Because voter registration and thus voter registration requirements, are handled by the States.  That doesn't matter as much as it once did since the only significant differences these days are over the voting rights of felons and ex-felons, but there were considerably more differences back when the constitution was originally adopted.  Still, unless we went to a federal voter registration system, I think we would need to keep some form of the electoral college, tho not necessarily one tied to the number of Representatives and Senators.  (Indeed, as a first baby step of reform, I'd favor dropping the Electors tied to Senators.)


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on December 23, 2012, 05:10:09 PM
Why bother with this inneficient distribution of delegates state-by-state? Just go with the popular vote with no redistribution, the election goes nationwide!

Because voter registration and thus voter registration requirements, are handled by the States.  That doesn't matter as much as it once did since the only significant differences these days are over the voting rights of felons and ex-felons, but there were considerably more differences back when the constitution was originally adopted.  Still, unless we went to a federal voter registration system, I think we would need to keep some form of the electoral college, tho not necessarily one tied to the number of Representatives and Senators.  (Indeed, as a first baby step of reform, I'd favor dropping the Electors tied to Senators.)

Yes, that is true and I agree with every single word of it. But federal registration is the right way, in Brazil we do that and elections laws are nationwide, so you don't have problems like the Florida recount, where the electoral law was a mess!


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: osideguy92 on January 18, 2013, 06:14:09 PM
Popular vote rule is unfair to states like Vermont, who will then have virtually no say in the election, leaving places like Texas & California to decide for everyone else.
No, it wouldn't. If anything, those in urban areas all around the country (North AND South) will receive more attention than the Electoral Vote, in which candidates spend weeks at a time farming in a state like Iowa and Wisconsin instead of going where there are actually, you know, people living.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: TNF on January 23, 2013, 07:52:12 AM
The Electoral College is a relic of the 18th Century.

It should be abolished with all due haste.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on January 23, 2013, 10:02:18 AM
The Electoral College is a relic of the 18th Century.

It should be abolished with all due haste.

Is "all due haste" faster or slower than "all deliberate speed"?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on January 24, 2013, 02:20:32 PM
The Electoral College is a relic of the 18th Century.

It should be abolished with all due haste.

Is "all due haste" faster or slower than "all deliberate speed"?

Faster, definitely.

"Due (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/due?s=t)" means "owed at present," whereas "deliberate (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deliberate?s=t)" means "carefully weighed or considered" or "leisurely or steady in movement or action." "Haste (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/haste?s=t)" can mean "urgent need of quick action" or even "unnecessarily quick action," whereas "speed (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/speed?s=t)" lists "relative rapidity in moving" over "full, maximum, or optimum rate of motion."


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: William Poole on February 01, 2013, 10:05:03 PM
Each state should have electores and they should chose whom they wish to vote for. We should have the system that we had when this great land was formed the electoral voters choosing there candidates.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Skill and Chance on February 05, 2013, 10:28:03 AM
I like the idea of doing it proportionally by state, but requiring say a minimum of 10% of the statewide popular vote to qualify for electors.  If it is purely proportional, a green or libertarian from CA or TX could fairly easily throw a 51-48 national election to the House, and the House process (one state, one vote) is even less democratic than the electoral college. 

I wonder what the dominant strategy would be for the parties in a proportional situation?  3 EV states would be pretty irrelevant unless they are really close.  You get 2 EV with 51% but need to get to 84% to get the 3rd one.  However, in CA every 1.8% of the popular vote gets you another EV.  Large state's like Ohio and Pennsylvania are basically never going to be outside of 55/45 which means they will always split evenly or within one vote of even in an election that is remotely close.  So it looks to me like it would be all about turnout in the large states.  D's would move their swing state turnout machine to CA and NY to try to get >70% and R's would do the same in TX.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Mr. Morden on February 05, 2013, 10:50:42 PM
I wonder what the dominant strategy would be for the parties in a proportional situation?  3 EV states would be pretty irrelevant unless they are really close.  You get 2 EV with 51% but need to get to 84% to get the 3rd one.  However, in CA every 1.8% of the popular vote gets you another EV.  Large state's like Ohio and Pennsylvania are basically never going to be outside of 55/45 which means they will always split evenly or within one vote of even in an election that is remotely close.  So it looks to me like it would be all about turnout in the large states.  D's would move their swing state turnout machine to CA and NY to try to get >70% and R's would do the same in TX.

It would be like Obama's 2008 presidential primary campaign strategy, except that was fought at the CD level.  The Dems use proportional representation by individual CDs for their presidential primaries, so the Obama campaign targeted the individual CDs where they thought the race would be close to a threshold for getting an additional delegate.

In the scenario you're suggesting, with proportional EVs by state, it would be similar.  The campaigns would poll nearly all 50 states (might not be worth it in some of the 3 or 4 EV states), and try to work out which states are going to have popular vote %ages that put them near the dividing line on getting an additional electoral vote.

So, for example, if you have two states with 8 EVs each, and one of them has polls showing an even ~50/50% race, while the other one shows you at about 55% of the vote, then you'd put money into the latter state and ignore the first one, since a ~50/50 state will split its EVs 4-4, whereas getting up to 56.25% of the vote gives you a 5-3 split.

You might say that it would be more cost effective to put your money in the biggest states, because a smaller %age shift in the vote in those states is needed to get another electoral vote.  But bigger states are also more expensive to advertise in, in order to get the same movement in the polls.  You're right, though, that under this system, a larger share of the states that you completely write off would be the small states.  It would generally pay off to spend at least some money in each of the largest states, since most of them would probably be close to the threshold of giving you an extra EV.  And it wouldn't matter if it was one of your base states or not.  Both parties would be spending $ in both CA and TX in order to try to get an extra EV.



Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: pbrower2a on February 06, 2013, 10:49:30 AM
Each state should have electores and they should chose whom they wish to vote for. We should have the system that we had when this great land was formed the electoral voters choosing there candidates.

We may not have that in view of a scheme planned by Republican operatives  who intend to split the electoral vote within some states along Congressional districts that they carved out to ensure maximal representation in Congress (and in practice to satisfy corporate lobbyists).  Thus such states as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio would split electoral votes so that the Republicans would get the majority of Congressional districts even if majorities in those states went for the Democrat. States that have a significant split of the vote but reliably vote for Republican nominees for President would not split their votes, so Texas would not give perhaps 14 electoral votes to the Democrat. The Democrat would have a built-in disadvantage of about 40 electoral votes.

This scheme in which the rules are intended to entrench one Party is the doom for American democracy -- unless one believes in the fascist or feudal principle that government rightly representing wealth and power and $crews everyone else is democracy.  The people behind this scheme want a Corporate State much like Italy under Mussolini...

How did this happen? The Republicans gerrymandered Congressional districts so that some would go 70-30 Democratic and the rest would go about 52-48 Republican in good years for Democrats.

There are other ways to split electoral votes, such as in a rough proportion to the Congressional seats, two electoral votes going to the winner of the plurality which would at least reflect the federal system. A scheme intended to consistently distort the results of elections in favor of some clique most likely violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  

...Besides, think of how much better America would have been if the winner of the popular vote in 2000 had become President instead of the disaster that we got.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: pbrower2a on February 06, 2013, 11:15:32 AM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.

The swing vote is now the suburban vote. Parts of Suburbia are now legitimately urban, and parts still have rural qualities. At the extreme an old core city like St. Louis is now dwarfed by a plethora of suburbs that few know unless they live or lived nearby or are have some compelling reason to know about.

Quote from: Wikipedia
St. Louis  is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 318,069 in July 2011, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The metropolitan St. Louis area, officially classified as the Greater St. Louis, (CSA) population of 2,882,932, is the 15th-largest in the country and is the largest metro area in Missouri.

... it reached its peak population [856,796 -- from a nearby chart] in 1950.... After World War II, St. Louis began losing population to the suburbs, first because of increased demand for new housing, and later, white flight.

In 1950 it was the 8th-largest city in the US. For most people in greater St. Louis, St. Louis is where the local sports teams play, where the museums and concert hall is, and where perhaps a mass employer is located. Of course the Gateway Arch. But living in St. Louis? That's where the slums are. The Metro area has grown while the city itself has been hemorrhaging population. If you have driven through St. Louis you can see that clearly. America has suburbs bigger than St. Louis in population.   



Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on February 08, 2013, 10:18:41 AM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

And pbrower, the suburban vote is not the swing vote.  Suburbanites are mostly Democrat, with exceptions for Minnesota, Orange County, CA, and much of the South.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Franzl on February 08, 2013, 10:40:15 AM
Imagine the horror!

Look how much more powerful Houston is in deciding Texas gubernatorial elections than...say...King County. They deserve to have just as much say! The status quo is an outrage!


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on February 08, 2013, 04:47:36 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on February 08, 2013, 05:25:16 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.
It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Franzl on February 08, 2013, 05:46:19 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.
It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.
It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.
It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.

Do you know what "proportional" means, Oldies?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario) on February 08, 2013, 06:20:35 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.
It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.

Yes, its true that California has more people than Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin combined. What you fail to realize is that those four smaller states are overrepresented in the Electoral College relative to California because of the Electoral Votes they get for their Senators. California only has only two Electoral Votes for Senators, whereas the other states have a combined eight. So, in your example, assuming equal turnout and equal percentage margins in each state, the Candidate who won in California would be ahead. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with this. In this scenario, more people voted in California, so, collectively, they should have more influence than the people who voted in those other states do collectively.

Of course , your premise only falls flatter on its face due to the fact that despite the fact that those states combined have about 3.65 million fewer people than California, in 2012 they cast about 3 million more votes for President than California did. So, in your example, if you assume that the respective candidates won by the same percentage margin in each state, then Candidate Y is leading because California had lower turnout. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with this either. More people voted in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin, so, collectively, they should have more influence than the people who voted in California do collectively.

Of course, both of these examples take certain assumptions into account. The bottom line is, what should matter isn't where the votes are coming from, but for whom the votes are cast. If Candidate X wins more votes than Candidate Y, Candidate X should win.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Antonio the Sixth on February 08, 2013, 09:07:27 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.
It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.

"so many people"... that's not the way math works, Oldies.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: bedstuy on February 11, 2013, 12:02:05 AM
There are any number of ways to apportion power in an election.  For example:  Each state gets one electoral vote. 

Would the electoral college defenders support that apportionment of power?  If not, why not? 

Or, what if a state elected their governor based on a county based electoral college?  Would that be a good idea because it preserved the power of small counties?

Obviously, those ideas are ridiculous for the same reason that the electoral college is ridiculous. 
The President is today truly the leader of the entire country.  There is no principled reason to give Delaware and Wyoming greater power in deciding their President.  The only reason is a desire to protect your narrow political interest or a belief in tradition for tradition's sake. 


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: pbrower2a on February 13, 2013, 03:45:54 PM
There are any number of ways to apportion power in an election.  For example:  Each state gets one electoral vote. 

Would the electoral college defenders support that apportionment of power?  If not, why not? 

Or, what if a state elected their governor based on a county based electoral college?  Would that be a good idea because it preserved the power of small counties?

Obviously, those ideas are ridiculous for the same reason that the electoral college is ridiculous. 
The President is today truly the leader of the entire country.  There is no principled reason to give Delaware and Wyoming greater power in deciding their President.  The only reason is a desire to protect your narrow political interest or a belief in tradition for tradition's sake. 

State lines often have some historical and cultural significance. County lines are much more artificial, usually aligning with parallels of latitude or meridians of longitude. 


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on February 13, 2013, 07:03:32 PM
There are any number of ways to apportion power in an election.  For example:  Each state gets one electoral vote. 

Would the electoral college defenders support that apportionment of power?  If not, why not? 

Or, what if a state elected their governor based on a county based electoral college?  Would that be a good idea because it preserved the power of small counties?

Obviously, those ideas are ridiculous for the same reason that the electoral college is ridiculous. 
The President is today truly the leader of the entire country.  There is no principled reason to give Delaware and Wyoming greater power in deciding their President.  The only reason is a desire to protect your narrow political interest or a belief in tradition for tradition's sake. 

State lines often have some historical and cultural significance. County lines are much more artificial, usually aligning with parallels of latitude or meridians of longitude. 
Maybe out west they do, but while we have some straight lines in the county borders of South Carolina, few if any, of them are lines of latitude or longitude, dude.

(I just like saying "longitude, dude".  I'm not usually quite that informal.)


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: pbrower2a on February 13, 2013, 09:07:13 PM
There are any number of ways to apportion power in an election.  For example:  Each state gets one electoral vote. 

Would the electoral college defenders support that apportionment of power?  If not, why not? 

Or, what if a state elected their governor based on a county based electoral college?  Would that be a good idea because it preserved the power of small counties?

Obviously, those ideas are ridiculous for the same reason that the electoral college is ridiculous. 
The President is today truly the leader of the entire country.  There is no principled reason to give Delaware and Wyoming greater power in deciding their President.  The only reason is a desire to protect your narrow political interest or a belief in tradition for tradition's sake. 

State lines often have some historical and cultural significance. County lines are much more artificial, usually aligning with parallels of latitude or meridians of longitude. 
Maybe out west they do, but while we have some straight lines in the county borders of South Carolina, few if any, of them are lines of latitude or longitude, dude.

(I just like saying "longitude, dude".  I'm not usually quite that informal.)

Do you call Michigan "out west"? Unless they border one of the Great Lakes or the state line (unless the state line is with Indiana or Ohio, in which the norm fits) most counties in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan are rectangular or even squarish in shape. Lower Michigan has no natural boundaries (mountains or large rivers).

County lines in some states are drawn with rivers as baselines or with crests of hills or mountains as county lines. 




Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on February 13, 2013, 09:10:10 PM

Is not Michigan in the Midwest?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: pbrower2a on February 15, 2013, 09:49:31 AM

Culturally, Michigan is closer to upstate New York  than to any other part of America except perhaps Wisconsin


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on February 15, 2013, 03:27:44 PM

Culturally, Michigan is closer to upstate New York  than to any other part of America except perhaps Wisconsin

West is a direction, not a culture.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on February 15, 2013, 05:07:56 PM
On the surface, direct popular vote seems fairer, but if you don't live in a big state like California, Texas, New York, or Florida, then you would have virtually no say in that system.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability.

In a direct popular vote, one vote is one vote, regardless of whether you live in New York City or Hooterville. Let's compare the two systems. Let's say the Republican wins Wyoming by ten thousand votes and the Democrat wins California by ten thousand votes. With a direct popular vote, the election is tied at this point. But in the Electoral College, the Democrat leads 55-3. That means that the ten thousand voters who made the difference in California are over eighteen times as powerful as the ten thousand voters who made the difference in Wyoming. This does not resemble anything even remotely fair. And if you bothered to watch the video that FallenMorgan posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k), you'd know that the 100 most populous cities in America amount to less than 20% of the population, proving the absurdity of the argument that big cities would dominate presidential elections in a popular vote system.
Not true.  Big states would be even more powerful than they are now under popular vote.  For example, a candidate could carry California, lose every other state, and still win the election because California has so many more people.

Where to begin with this? How about by stating the fact that in 2012 California accounted for only about 10% of the nationwide popular vote? That means that even if Obama won 100% of the two-party vote in California, he'd still need to break about 45% in the rest of the country in order to win the nationwide popular vote. So it is excessively unlikely that a candidate would win California, lose every other state, and still win the popular vote.
It's still possible.  Let me give you an example: California currently has 55 electoral votes.  Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin currently have a combined 55 electoral votes.  If California votes for Candidate X and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin all vote for candidate Y, then under the electoral college, they would be tied.  Under a direct popular vote, Candidate X would be far ahead because California has so many people.
The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College for a very specific reason: to serve as a means of checks and balances between states.  I'm not saying it's an entirely fair system, and bigger states do have more power, but under a national popular vote, it would be even more disproportionately favorable to those states.

The founding fathers established the electoral college because they didn't have the internet.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: justfollowingtheelections on February 15, 2013, 05:15:25 PM
There are any number of ways to apportion power in an election.  For example:  Each state gets one electoral vote. 

Would the electoral college defenders support that apportionment of power?  If not, why not? 

Or, what if a state elected their governor based on a county based electoral college?  Would that be a good idea because it preserved the power of small counties?

Obviously, those ideas are ridiculous for the same reason that the electoral college is ridiculous. 
The President is today truly the leader of the entire country.  There is no principled reason to give Delaware and Wyoming greater power in deciding their President.  The only reason is a desire to protect your narrow political interest or a belief in tradition for tradition's sake. 

State lines often have some historical and cultural significance. County lines are much more artificial, usually aligning with parallels of latitude or meridians of longitude. 

Most of the Western states were arbitrary creations designed to give the party that was in power an advantage in the electoral vote.
The electoral college system is so ridiculous that I honestly think anyone who supports it is either an idiot or a hypocrite.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 21, 2013, 09:14:47 AM
PR would give Jon Hustman and other Moderate Republicans a bump on primaries. It would be easier for them winning an election after all.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on April 26, 2013, 07:30:44 PM
Electability would be a stronger issue in primaries because of PR.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: greenforest32 on April 26, 2013, 09:00:02 PM
PR would give Jon Hustman and other Moderate Republicans a bump on primaries. It would be easier for them winning an election after all.

Electability would be a stronger issue in primaries because of PR.

PR = proportional representation (in primaries)?

What does that have to do with electing the President by the national popular vote? :P


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Vlad the Imperial on May 06, 2013, 07:03:43 PM
   the only thing in the way of abolishing electorals is the senate, with senators looking to keep states with more cows than people (Montana) have as much political pull as Texas or New York!
   The other argument for electoral college is With popular vote, election season would focus on the coasts, and would hurt the economy of the middle america since no one is paying to advertise there! (imo however i don't give a crap about middle america in the first place)


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: FEMA Camp Administrator on May 28, 2013, 08:19:36 PM
There are any number of ways to apportion power in an election.  For example:  Each state gets one electoral vote. 

Would the electoral college defenders support that apportionment of power?  If not, why not? 

Or, what if a state elected their governor based on a county based electoral college?  Would that be a good idea because it preserved the power of small counties?

Obviously, those ideas are ridiculous for the same reason that the electoral college is ridiculous. 
The President is today truly the leader of the entire country.  There is no principled reason to give Delaware and Wyoming greater power in deciding their President.  The only reason is a desire to protect your narrow political interest or a belief in tradition for tradition's sake. 

State lines often have some historical and cultural significance. County lines are much more artificial, usually aligning with parallels of latitude or meridians of longitude. 

Most of the Western states were arbitrary creations designed to give the party that was in power an advantage in the electoral vote.
The electoral college system is so ridiculous that I honestly think anyone who supports it is either an idiot or a hypocrite.

The line between Colorado and the pair of Nebraska and Kansas was put there for a pretty good reason involving cultural differences. On one side you had the nice farmers that had gotten there thanks to the Homestead Act and were of a pretty moralistic Protestant background. In what became Colorado, on the other hand, you had society's underbelly in a sense: wild miners that founded the towns you see in cowboy movies, blah blah blah, and that line officially separated the two.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on May 28, 2013, 09:04:33 PM
The line between Colorado and the pair of Nebraska and Kansas was put there for a pretty good reason involving cultural differences. On one side you had the nice farmers that had gotten there thanks to the Homestead Act and were of a pretty moralistic Protestant background. In what became Colorado, on the other hand, you had society's underbelly in a sense: wild miners that founded the towns you see in cowboy movies, blah blah blah, and that line officially separated the two.

Yes and no.  First off that line was established before the Homestead Act.  Second, the line was chosen as a northward extension of the eastern border of New Mexico Territory.  However, it did indeed have the effect of separating the miners of Pike's Peak from the Jayhawkers of Kansas.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: barfbag on June 28, 2013, 12:33:18 AM
Majority rules is true democracy and it's one of Plato's perverted forms of government. When majority rules, it becomes a mob. One day the people can decide to ban drugs and the next day legalize them again. There is no stability in such a see-saw society. Democracy has no stability. If we were to elect a president on the popular vote like Al Gore supporters wanted to, then we would not have stability, kind of like how Al Gore has no stability since losing the election. We are a representative republic and elect representatives to make decisions for us. If you aren't happy with the decisions your representative makes, then you can vote against them, call for someone else to replace them, or run against them yourself. The beauty of an electoral college or representative republic is that everyone has a chance, not just whoever the majority supports.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Sec. of State Superique on August 08, 2013, 12:42:25 PM
PR would give Jon Hustman and other Moderate Republicans a bump on primaries. It would be easier for them winning an election after all.

Electability would be a stronger issue in primaries because of PR.

PR = proportional representation (in primaries)?

What does that have to do with electing the President by the national popular vote? :P

Sorry, change PR to PV. Parties would never pick a candidate too Radical because they would have to win 50%+1 to elect a President. Guys like Huntsman makes this path easier for example.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: ElectionsGuy on August 25, 2013, 05:10:42 PM
Popular Vote would be better. Although the electoral college makes presidential elections fun. Still PV.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: wyspartan4411 on November 29, 2013, 04:27:07 PM
I haven't gotten the chance to read every post, but there seems to be some disagreement about a proportional Electoral College.

First, I would totally and 100% support a direct popular vote for the president. For many, many reasons why, I would fully support this measure. Curious why? There is a video on YouTube by CGP Grey. Check it out, it makes perfect sense.

Second, if the electoral college was going to remain, then I agree making things proportional would be best. It seems with this system, the value of each vote is worth different in different places. I think a proportional system would be most fair.

However, it seems that not all states can be so evenly divided---BUT they are divided by congressional districts, partially the basis for how many electoral votes that state receives.

Perhaps, each state has 2 at-large EVs (for its two senators) and then the other EVs are awarded to the winners of congressional districts. For example. The state of Oregon has 7 electoral votes. Obama wins the popular vote in Oregon therefore he gets 2 votes. But Romney wins district 3,4,5 and Obama takes districts 1 & 2. End result, Obama gets 4 EVs and Romney 3 EVs. This works well considering that one candidate takes the state at just around 51 percent and the other at 47.



Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Earthling on November 30, 2013, 10:10:27 AM
With the gerrymandering of districts it would be very unfair to use that system. Just get rid of the electoral college. That said, it makes elections more interesting.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Clarko95 📚💰📈 on December 01, 2013, 11:57:09 AM
All of the defenders of the EC seem to rely mostly on arguing, "Well if we go PV, we need to standardize voting laws across the nation", which I whole-heartedly support.

"But state check on executive branch!" - I don't understand this argument at all. A state's EVs are allocated by popular vote, not by the original "statehouse chooses electors" method which died in the 1810s or something.


And for the "candidates focus only on big cities" argument, let's look at 2012 exit polling:

Big Cities(500K+): 11% of vote
Mid-sized Cities(50K-500K): 21% of vote
Suburbs: 47% of vote
Towns(10K-50K): 8% of vote
Rural: 14% of vote


I don't see the problem with campaigning and focusing on places where people actually live. Candiate with most votes wins.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Mordecai on December 01, 2013, 07:07:11 PM
I think directly electing the President with a Popular Vote and Instant Run-off Voting system would be better than the Electoral College. The main problem that the Electoral College was meant to address is now less of a problem and small states still have clout with the Senate. A Popular Vote would also mean that red state Democrats and blue state Republicans can have their vote actually count.

Majority rules is true democracy and it's one of Plato's perverted forms of government. When majority rules, it becomes a mob. One day the people can decide to ban drugs and the next day legalize them again. There is no stability in such a see-saw society.
You seem to have forgotten about the Senate.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on December 01, 2013, 10:15:29 PM
I think directly electing the President with a Popular Vote and Instant Run-off Voting system would be better than the Electoral College. The main problem that the Electoral College was meant to address is now less of a problem and small states still have clout with the Senate.

You really think that things would be better if Congress itself elected the President rather than have the shadow Congress known as the Electoral College do it?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: SWE on January 20, 2014, 08:20:48 PM
Get rid of the Electoral College. Under the current system, your vote only counts if you live in a swing state like Ohio or Florida.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: MATTROSE94 on January 21, 2014, 10:54:32 AM
Popular Vote would be better. Although the electoral college makes presidential elections fun. Still PV.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Pessimistic Antineutrino on January 21, 2014, 09:43:00 PM
The only reason why the electoral college even exists is because it is the status quo. If America had gained independence today, or in the last hundred years for that matter, we probably would have gone with the popular vote.

The electoral college does make elections more fun, but it ultimately serves no distinct purpose anymore (if it ever even did)


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Smid on February 04, 2014, 10:07:44 PM
The only reason why the electoral college even exists is because it is the status quo. If America had gained independence today, or in the last hundred years for that matter, we probably would have gone with the popular vote.

More likely, if you gained independence in the last hundred years, you would have ended up like other first-world former British colonies that gained independence since US independence: Canada, Australia, New Zealand. You'd probably use a Westminster system with an executive in the legislature and a weak presidential figurehead (that's assuming you still become a republic - merely obtaining independence, you could still end up like those countries with a Governor General, and the Queen as your Head of State).


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: muon2 on February 05, 2014, 08:06:45 AM
The only reason why the electoral college even exists is because it is the status quo. If America had gained independence today, or in the last hundred years for that matter, we probably would have gone with the popular vote.

The electoral college does make elections more fun, but it ultimately serves no distinct purpose anymore (if it ever even did)

In part the original concerns that created the EC still exist today. It reflects the nature of the country as a union of sovereign states. It provides representation in the vote for the executive in proportion to the representation in Congress. It protects against a hugely popular candidate from a single large state or region winning over a candidate with broad appeal. In both its representation and protections it functions as a parliament would in a Westminster system while creating an executive who is independent from the legislature.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Nichlemn on February 09, 2014, 06:46:31 PM
The only reason why the electoral college even exists is because it is the status quo. If America had gained independence today, or in the last hundred years for that matter, we probably would have gone with the popular vote.

The electoral college does make elections more fun, but it ultimately serves no distinct purpose anymore (if it ever even did)

In part the original concerns that created the EC still exist today. It reflects the nature of the country as a union of sovereign states.

It may symbolically "reflect" it, but how is it actually relevant to federalism? I see no reason why popular vote would be any more or less likely to undermine state authority.

 
Quote
It provides representation in the vote for the executive in proportion to the representation in Congress.

I don't see why this is a plus when the "proportionality" in question is introducing some of the extreme disproportionality of the Senate into the equation.

Quote
It protects against a hugely popular candidate from a single large state or region winning over a candidate with broad appeal.

Has there ever been a Presidential candidate, nominated or not, who was in such a situation? In any case this seems more like a bug than a feature. You could frame the exact same issue differently: "the popular vote prevents someone deeply unpopular in certain regions from winning with narrow support across the rest of the country". That's what Lincoln did, and while we tend to approve of the result in hindsight because we agree with Lincoln's cause, one could easily imagine a candidate winning Lincoln-style on a cause we disapproved of, while still resulting in similar frictions.

In any case it only matters when voters are highly parochial. If people's identities are not overwhelmingly tied to their region, then there is no particular reason we should worry about a candidate winning with a certain geographic coalition than say, a particular economic or particular racial coalition. Is it a problem that Obama won despite losing whites, the majority racial group, by winning minorities by huge margins? I don't see what would make that so much better than Obama losing most states by small margins and winning a few by huge margins.

And in any case, why should this logic be limited solely to the Presidential level? Surely it scales down. Should Illinois have an "Electoral College" that would prevent Cook County from "overwhelming" the rest of the state?
 
Quote
In both its representation and protections it functions as a parliament would in a Westminster system while creating an executive who is independent from the legislature.

The House of Representatives is by far the closest element to a Westminster Parliament.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on February 10, 2014, 12:21:57 AM
The only reason why the electoral college even exists is because it is the status quo. If America had gained independence today, or in the last hundred years for that matter, we probably would have gone with the popular vote.

The electoral college does make elections more fun, but it ultimately serves no distinct purpose anymore (if it ever even did)

In part the original concerns that created the EC still exist today. It reflects the nature of the country as a union of sovereign states. It provides representation in the vote for the executive in proportion to the representation in Congress. It protects against a hugely popular candidate from a single large state or region winning over a candidate with broad appeal.

That's only true if you have a two candidate race.  I dare say that in 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a candidate with only regional appeal, won the Presidency only because of the Electoral College.  Had we had the popular vote with a runoff, Stephen Douglas and not Lincoln would have been our 16th President.  We still would have had a Johnson as our 17th President, but it would have been Herschel instead of Andrew.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: on February 10, 2014, 04:14:28 AM
Perhaps, each state has 2 at-large EVs (for its two senators) and then the other EVs are awarded to the winners of congressional districts. For example. The state of Oregon has 7 electoral votes. Obama wins the popular vote in Oregon therefore he gets 2 votes. But Romney wins district 3,4,5 and Obama takes districts 1 & 2. End result, Obama gets 4 EVs and Romney 3 EVs. This works well considering that one candidate takes the state at just around 51 percent and the other at 47.

Counterexample:
Obama did win Virginia 51:47; thus, he'd receive 2 electors at-large.
However: Obama only won 4 districts while Romney won 7.
Eventually, Romney would have received 7 electors and Obama 6, even though Obama won the popular vote in Virginia.
Would that be fair?


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: SteveRogers on February 11, 2014, 05:50:23 PM
Allocating electoral votes by congressional district would be disastrous.

Truly proportional allocation of electoral votes would I guess arguably be better than the current system.

But really, the idea of keeping the electoral college around is just plain silly at this point.

The idea of the electoral college originally made sense given what the founder's envisioned the role of the president to be. The thing is, we decided pretty early on that the President was going to be something much different. You have to remember that originally it wasn't even expected that the people would indirectly vote for the president by voting for electors. The President was basically a whole extra level removed from "the people." The people voted for state legislators who in turn voted for electors who in turn voted for the President.

But starting circa 1828 presidents began styling themselves as the representative of the people; the only person who can claim a nation-wide popular mandate.

Couple that idea with the modern disdain that we have for the idea of a "faithless elector." The idea of the electoral college functioning as a deliberative body has completely gone out the window.   

So Americans have by and large rejected the idea of using the EC to insulate the presidency from the will of the people, and we certainly don't recognize the importance of the EC as a deliberative body. That means the country has flatly rejected two of the original primary motivations behind the electoral college.

That basically just leaves the protection of the balance of power between states as the only remaining justification for the EC. Except of course that we know that the EC doesn't really perform that function as intended either. Sure, in theory Wyoming gets disproportionate influence on the vote total relative to its population, but does anyone really think that that means Wyoming's concerns or the concerns of any other small states are better served by the current system than they would be under a direct popular vote? Candidates by and large ignore the small states in favor of the big prizes. Which is not to say that the EC benefits large states either. When was the last time a Presidential candidate campaigned in Texas or California? No, the EC benefits swing states, hardly the original intention behind the process.

By the way, the question of electoral college vs. popular vote and the question of what voting system should replace the EC if abolished are two very distinct issues.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: defe07 on March 12, 2014, 02:05:43 PM
Sometimes I wonder, what if each state or region were to choose its own Presidential candidate? :O


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자) on March 12, 2014, 10:28:51 PM
Sometimes I wonder, what if each state or region were to choose its own Presidential candidate? :O

The Whigs tried that in 1836 to disastrous effect.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Bojack Horseman on March 16, 2014, 04:48:10 PM
Electoral College. Much easier and more fun to watch election returns that way.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Randy Bobandy on April 04, 2014, 09:29:37 AM
Electoral College. Much easier and more fun to watch election returns that way.
Also less free.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Potus on October 08, 2014, 08:57:31 PM
I hate to revive this thread, but I hate it much less than starting another "MUH POPULAR VOTE" thread.

My basic issue with a national popular vote to elect the President is that it fundamentally changes the question asked of presidential candidates. Right now, the balance of power is controlled by the center of the electorate in a couple of crucial battleground states such as Ohio or Wisconsin, or by the generally moderate electorate of states like New Hampshire. It forces candidates and campaigns to play to those voters. That's the mandate of the electoral college. Win people outside your base.

A national popular vote, however, changes the mandate. Instead of trying to win the moderate suburban family vote with moderate education and tax relief proposals, Republicans will spend their time throwing as much reasonably red meat as possible to make sure every white in the Deep South votes. Instead of governing to the economic center-right to right, Republicans would govern on base motivators that divide the country. Likewise, Democrats will move to a very turnout-based idea of elections. It'll be about getting as many of your folks to show up as possible. The electoral college forces candidates to moderate.


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: solarstorm on October 11, 2014, 07:25:19 PM
Instead of trying to win the moderate suburban family vote with moderate education and tax relief proposals [...]

That's what's wrong with America...


Title: Re: Electoral College or Popular Vote?
Post by: Nichlemn on January 03, 2015, 03:44:25 PM
I hate to revive this thread, but I hate it much less than starting another "MUH POPULAR VOTE" thread.

My basic issue with a national popular vote to elect the President is that it fundamentally changes the question asked of presidential candidates. Right now, the balance of power is controlled by the center of the electorate in a couple of crucial battleground states such as Ohio or Wisconsin, or by the generally moderate electorate of states like New Hampshire. It forces candidates and campaigns to play to those voters. That's the mandate of the electoral college. Win people outside your base.

A national popular vote, however, changes the mandate. Instead of trying to win the moderate suburban family vote with moderate education and tax relief proposals, Republicans will spend their time throwing as much reasonably red meat as possible to make sure every white in the Deep South votes. Instead of governing to the economic center-right to right, Republicans would govern on base motivators that divide the country. Likewise, Democrats will move to a very turnout-based idea of elections. It'll be about getting as many of your folks to show up as possible. The electoral college forces candidates to moderate.

This is only the case if the swing states are more "moderate" than the country as a whole (having lots of swing voters and relatively few "base" voters). This may be true in New Hampshire, but not so much North Carolina. Overall I think it's about the same. If it's a good electoral strategy to pander to the most conservative 10% of the electorate in the USA, it's probably also a good electoral strategy to pander to the most conservative 10% of the electorate in Ohio (who are probably similarly conservative). Breaking up the electorate into microcosms doesn't fundamentally change anything about electoral strategy.