Talk Elections

It seems that the popular press, and even election discussion forums like this, when discussing changes to the electoral system start with a presumption that popular vote needs to somehow be weighed more.

I think just the opposite.  The nation is a collection of states.  The states chose to join the union, and in an act of compromise, the small states agreed to cede some power to the larger ones in the house of representatives.  But other than that, and the related electoral votes, each state is an equal partner in the Union.   When it comes time to pick the president, each state chooses its electors in the way it sees fit.  Currently, all states use a popular vote method, but there is no reason that will always be the case.

In any event, with the significant influence a few large states have (it now takes just 11 to win the presidency), I believe real consideration should be given to limiting the power of states like California.  One state=one vote (similar to the UN) would make sense for the selection of President, though I'd still keep the house of representatives based on population.

how very generous of you.

Anyway, absolutely crazy...talk about a disproportionate advantage for conservative rural states.

Interestingly enough, the only elections in the last century where this would have made a difference would be 1976 and 1960, buth very close elections (with no clear PV winner in the latter).

Oh my god no.

     I will say one thing about this. It would make big states irrelevant. Given the choice between playing in Florida & playing in New Mexico, where would you spend money? New Mexico obviously.

I wondered how long it would take for this to become the counterargument to the popular vote.  About time.

Why not become like the People's Republic of China and stack the Congress with unelected handpicked cronies instead?

It would save a whole lot of tax money not having to hold an election every four years.

Clearly it should just be based upon land area. We should admit Canada as the 51st state and let them decide all of our elections for us.

As long as Alberta gets left out.

Give Steve his own country.

He could establish his dictatorship there.

If the concern was that the large states had too much power by winner-takes-all and the small states that have disproportionate electoral weight, then you are really arguing for a more balanced population between states. Presumably that would be to help mid-size states. If that was the goal, the Constitution would have provided for representation penalties for states that were too small to encourage merger, and for those states too large to encourage splits.

Generally, since the 23rd Amendment, such a condition would require the Democrat to win around 51.5% of the two-way vote in order to win a majority of the states [ranging from a low of 50.2% in 1976 to a high of 52.1% in 2000, ignoring 1968].  A nice bias to the Republicans, though not massive.  (Though, if it were in place, it would all but guarantee a McCain victory this year).

"Tipping Point" states for a 26-state majority:

2004:
Florida.  Kerry would have needed 51.3% of the two-way vote to win here (he won 48.6%).

2000:
Nevada.  Gore needed 52.1% nationwide (he won 50.3%)

1996:
Ohio.  Clinton needed 51.1% nationwide (he won 54.7%)

1992:
Tennessee.  Clinton needed 50.9% nationwide (he won 53.5%)

1988:
Maine.  Dukakis needed 51.9% (he won 46.1%)

1984:
Connecticut.  Mondale needed 51.8% (he won 40.8%)

1980:
Oregon.  Carter needed 50.2% (he won 44.7%)

1976:
Maine.  Carter needed 51.4% (he won 51.1%)--barely losing the count here, Maine and Oregon making the difference here.

1972:
Vermont.  McGovern needed 51.4% (he won 38.2%).

1968:
Complicated, due to Wallace...
To Prevent a Nixon Majority:
Wisconsin.  Humphrey needed 51.6% of the two-way vote nationwide to win here, but only won 49.6%.

To Win an outright Majority:
Nevada.  Humphrey needed 54.3% (he only won 49.6%).

1964:
Delaware.  Johnson needed 50.2% of the two-way vote nationwide (he won 61.3%).

Interesting analysis.

Compare that to the Electoral College "Tipping Points" (for the past 20 years):

2004:
Ohio: Kerry needed 49.81% of the two-way vote nationwide to win here (he won 48.76%).

2000:
Florida: Gore needed 50.273% nationwide (he won 50.268%).

1996:
Pennsylvania: Clinton needed 49.57% of the two-way vote (he won 54.74%).

1992
Colorado: Clinton needed 50.65% of the two-way vote (he won 53.45%).

1988
Michigan: Dukakis needed 50.08% of the two-way vote (he won 46.10%)

I don't understand this argument.  How does the current system not provide a disproportionate advantage to the large urban states?

large urban states also have more people, in case you haven't noticed.

You missed the constitutional discussion in my op then.  The union is made up of states, not people.  It is the states the choose the president.

You're going around in circles here. Of course the electoral college is what the constitution dictates. The popular vote is irrelevant, constitutionally speaking.

This is a 2-way street. If you'd like to change the constitution to give each state equal power in the electoral college, then surely I can make an argument to completely eliminate the Electoral College entirely.

Not that I'm sure I want to do that, but at the very least, I support fair allocation of the electors based on the population of the states.

I believe that federalism stopped mattering when we started admitting rectangular states. Some of the Western states were designed as additional Republican EVs.

States are completely arbitrary creations.

So are countries.

Some are (Iraq). Most aren't.

Most are, in some part.

Wow, I thought we settled this at the Constitutional Convention. I say population, but I must say it is unfair.

 The Constitution does not start with  "we the states";  it starts "we the people". 

Interestingly Obama WOULD'VE won under this, he took 28 states + DC for 29/51.

I would support this system.

ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!
Basically, this makes people in small states worth more than people in big states, and that's fallacious. It is ridiculous to give so much power to so little of the population. California and Alaska would be equal, even though California has 18 times more power than Alaska. People vote for the President, and they should, which brings me to the statement that the Electoral College should be abolished.

If the president had less power like a head of a council of states rather than holding executive power I think this would work. But then the United States wouldn't be a true country but more of a collective association of countries like the EU.

Why should the tiny populations of Wyoming or Montana have as much of a say as New York and California? A state of about 500,000 should not get to choose the president with equal or anything close to equal power as  state of 19 million or more. In fact, the EV gives added influence to less populated states already. By setting the minimum at 3 per state, certain population ratios are already thrown off. How about more influence for population.

NO! In fact, I am willing to go the opposite way and abolish the electoral college. With one state, one vote policy, a person in Wyoming is worth more than a person in California, and that is just not fair. The electoral college is already skewed because of the minimum of 3 electoral votes, which I believe has already been pointed out.

Excuse me, but it's a totally crazy and anachronistic proposal : In the 21th Century, U.S. would become the only democratic State who totally ignores people's will ???
Founding fathers wanted to give an equal importance to each States, but also consider demographic data. To ignore that would be ridiculous.

Presidential power has far exceeded what the constitution deemed appropriate.  It is time to start giving power back to the states, as well as the congress.

Arguing in favor of a popular vote tally, is purely a big government, less states rights argument.  It is solely a position of the left.

The argument for each state getting one vote is the much stronger one based on constitutional history.   I don't think the founders envisioned a state like California getting 18 times the voting power of smaller states, particularly in choosing a chief executive with the power that it has today.

Sites like the Atlas, that list popular vote totals, but not state totals, perpetuate the myth that somehow state count is irrelevant.  It is not--it is just as important as popular vote in having any discussion of results.

Perhaps though, the compromise is to limit states to no more than 15 EV (10x the smallest state), but even that, in my mind misses the point that the country is a collection of states.   It is, after all the United STATES of America, not the United Peoples Republic of America.

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But then it would be technically possible to win the election by winning every state except Canada.

Of course we can solve that by making Greenland part of Canada.

I don't like the idea that states represent people.  People like to talk about New York and California as a place where there are only democrats and Idaho and Oklahoma as places where there are only republicans, but every 4 years the people who support the opposing party in those states go out to vote.  Their votes never matter because their candidate loses in a landslide, but they vote anyway.  That is serious dedication, and it would be much better if our electoral system didn't implicitly disenfranchise those voters in every election.

That supports the one state = on vote argument.   States are really different entities, each with their own issues and problems. 

What even?

How? How does that support that?

This logic was used at lower levels of government and struck down in Reynolds vs. Sims. There were states that were allocating state senate seats as one per county. In California, Los Angeles County had one state senate seat, which was the same as the rural counties with incredibly small populations. Clearly, that gave sparsely populated areas an advantage just for being incorporated as opposed to being populated.

Under a one state-one vote rule, a partisan Congress could admit Palmyra Atoll, Baker Island and other uninhabited islands to the union, have a few people establish "residency" there and stack elections in their favor.

I love how many people are perfectly content with the idea of rural voters mattering more than urban voters. Why can't a single vote count for the same, regardless of where it comes from?

Should votes on UN Resolutions be determined by worldwide popular vote?

UN Resolutions =/= US presidential elections.

Uh... no, but UN Resolutions are not elections in which millions participate.

No; but if we started electing the Secretary General in a huge global election then that should be decided by a worldwide popular vote

The current system clearly provides a disproportionate advantage to states with low population because of the fixed size of the House and the extra two electoral votes every state gets. Measuring from a one state one vote baseline is insane.

And claiming that your system which you made up out of whole cloth has more constitutional weight is just nuts. The only way you could argue that is by citing the procedure to elect the President in the House if there is no Electoral College winner, but they specifically made that not the preferred procedure.

No

This idea would give the GOP an unfair advantage

If this even came close to happening, I would support the immediate dissolution of the union and I would even be willing to take up arms against the US.

You bumped a thread that was 7 years 9 months old just to write this?

This would be a horrible idea.

I don't support this but if it did there should only be two options for President. It would not be fair for a candidate who got less than 50 percent of the vote in a state to get a state's sole electoral vote.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned that Texas would just split itself into 5 different states (and so on with the larger states) in order to get more votes

26 state majority:

2008 - Ohio - Obama needed 51.3% nationwide in a 2-man race (he got 53.6%)
2012 - Florida - Obama needed 51.5% nationwide (he got 51.9%)
2016 - North Carolina - Clinton needed 52.9% nationwide (she got 51.0%)

Given that the constitution gives DC the same electoral power as the smallest state, wouldn't that mean the Democrat would need only 25 states plus DC to win the election?

This could theoretically actually work if we had a system where all the states had equal populations, like this (http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/).