Talk Elections

Would it make presidential elections more boring?

Yes, very much so, in my opinion.  It would just be a turnout game between rural and urban places.  You would probably see the GOP campaigning in Laguna Niguel, CA and the Democrats campaigning in New York, New York.

Swing voters would be pretty much worthless.  Yes, I am talking to you worthless parasites.  Go eat your hearts out!

LOL. That would be such a terrible campaign strategy even FDR wouldn't win with it in 1932. Combine the top fifty metropolitan areas in the country and you still don't even have half of the population.

(For the record, MSA #50 is Rochester, NY.)

Depends from what perspective. It'd make election night less interesting for people like us that want to project the states, but it would definitely make for a better and more meaningful election all together.

^^^

Take a look at Gubernatorial and Senatorial elections. Candidates go all over the state - not just the big cities. A nationwide popular vote election would be no different.

Exactly. If you're in a close Gubernatorial race in California, you're going to go to a lot of places other than the bay area and LA county.

It would be boring, but it would also be fair.

No actually you can't. McCain could've spent the entire election campaigning in New York City and nowhere else, and he still wouldn't have broken 30%. It would make way more sense for him to campaign in rural areas than places like NYC and Chicago.

Exactly. Democrats would concentrate on the big inner city areas while republicans would focus on the suburban areas that still vote GOP as well as small towns and cities, which is the real GOP base. So for example in California candidates would obviously visit the LA area as well as the bay area, but also other big centers like San Diego and Sacramento. In addition a republican candidate is likely to swing by a place like Bakersfield or Fresno, while a democrat might go down to the Monterey bay region or out to SLO/SB. But I doubt either candidate would go to a very small place like Redding or Eureka. Also any rural area that does get visited will likely be close to a major city or will be on the path the candidate was already taking in order to transit from one city to another.

The vast majority of votes for both parties come from places that are clearly more urban than they are rural. Even now candidates don't turn up in rural areas to squeeze more votes out of them (not usually, anyway). They turn up in rural areas to project an image of themselves, to connect with an imagined, er, "real America", haha. And they'd continue to do this even if the electoral college was abolished.

For Presidential races, I agree, with the (sole?) exception of the Iowa Caucuses, which are so absurd that they belong in their own category.

It would be more boring, but...
I don't like the current system either. Al Gore should have been elected President in 2000. It really sucks, especially for him and his supporters. More Americans supported him. I wish they could divide it into 3 parts, and you have to get 2 of them to win. Like...
1. Electoral Vote
2. Popular Vote
3. ???

Unfortunately, all systems have glitches when elections get close. Even a pure FPTP election has the problem that a small but certain percentage of the ballots will be ambiguous in some way. The right question to ask is what system would you like to resolve the outcome when votes are close or there is no clear majority?

For instance, if FL had instant runoff voting for the electors when no party got 50% of the vote, there's a good chance that Gore would have won. In that case a change to the EC would not have been necessary, just a change to FL law.

No, absolutely not!  Candidates would actually have to campaign in more than a handful of swing states because every vote would suddenly be important.  Even if they didn't have a shot at winning a state, it would be important to keep their opponent's margin down in the state.  Conversely, even if they knew they were going to win a state, they would still need to campaign there in order to bolster their margin.  Candidates would visit long forgetten places in Presidential elections such as Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, Utah., Los Angeles California, and Birmingham, Alabama.  You better believe that the candidates would also visit rural portions of America in order to get good photo ops so as to persuade rural voters that they are on their side as well, so to me the argument that abandoning the electoral college would result in candidates only visiting large metropolitan areas simply doesn't hold water.

Swing states are swing states because they have a greater proportion of swinging voters. Since swinging voters will always determine the outcome, candidates will continue to campaign in swing states. It would lead to very few differences in campaign strategy. The only real difference is that in a close election, recounts become important all over the country, not just in close states - so it would likely lead to more legal challenges and the Supreme Court making more decisions like in 2000.

This is why I support the electoral college. I believe another person on this board said this, but I will reiterate it. The electoral college and popular vote only differ, for all realistic scenarios, when the nation popular vote is so close that it is almost a tie. In this case, the candidate with more regional appeal wins the election.

Besides, as the resident of a swing state, I can't complain. ;)

Maybe the relevant body should bring  the EC votes within closer touching distance of each other, there'll remain a system where only a few States count.

Here's what an election without the electoral college would look like. A candidate would visit the top 1-5 cities (depending on the state's size) in a state and try to get high turnout among their base. For example, my home state of Colorado. Swing voters in Pueblo or Grand Junction wouldn't matter. No, it would be who could get higher turnout. Democrats in Denver, or Republicans in Colorado Springs. Pennsylvania, high Dem turnout in Philly vs. high Rep turnout in Pittsburgh, while ignoring the central area. Arizona, high Dem in Tuscon vs. high Rep in Phoenix while ignoring the northern areas. You see where I'm going. Even medium sized cities would get no attention, and swing voters wouldn't matter.

Consider this. Without the electoral college, Obama and McCain would've been far less moderate than they were.

Besides, it's a reminder that we are a federalist country.

But their campaign would be focused not on swing voters but on turning out the base.

Not really. A national pool would make recounts far less necessary. Not a single election in the past 100 years would have required one, save, possibly, Kennedy vs. Nixon. Simple statistics dictate that the margins of error decrease substantially the larger the sample size. Overturning a 500,000+ vote lead, even if that's less than a 1% difference, is extremely unlikely.

And in any event, so long as there are national standards and clear guidelines it shouldn't be a problem in the unlikely event that there is a recount. We could even add a provision that if a president isn't certified by inauguration day, then the incumbent president stays on as acting president until a new president is certified.

Do you have any statistics to actually back that up?  Because I doubt that's the case.  In fact if you look at the "swing" that took place in various states in the 2008 election, it turns out that some of the largest swings were in states that are not "swing" states, including Utah.  Swing states are such largely because of their demographics, not because they have more swing voters.

# of states won.

Candidates already spend most of their time in urban areas. They just do it in urban areas in swing states. It'd be nice for a candidate to come to Boston or Salt Lake City for a change. At the same time, with today's relentless media, I don't think physical presence is such a big deal.

Can anybody explain why exactly it would be a bad thing if candidates spend time in urban areas?

Because people in urban areas don't have opinions worth considering.

I remember when Obama completely ignored Pueblo, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and many other cities because of the electoral college.

Why should people in Albuquerque get more attention than those in New York? Does that make any sense?

Sure, because this place worships them:

()

What's your point, Vepres?

State governments are more powerful than the federal government, the federal government is secondary really. The New York state government focuses on NYC and Buffalo and Albany, etc, so who cares if the President doesn't campaign there. Besides, while Presidents campaign in swing states, they still govern with a proportional focus of resources and time on urban areas such as New York.

as evidenced by the amount of federal dollars that large states on average get back?

Rural areas always receive more money in any developed democracy because they have much smaller tax bases to sustain local governments, and are generally poorer, thus they have a hard time just sustaining themselves. The Colorado state government to this day favors rural farmers with water rights over other groups, the state has always had a Governor elected by popular vote and a proportional legislature.

OK, that argument is fair enough....but do you honestly think Colorado should get so much more attention than....say.....Alabama simply because Colorado is close enough that both candidates believe they have a chance of winning?

What's so terrible about having each vote count equally....especially in a single winner election where the winner is supposed to have a mandate from a majority of the country? Why should a person in New York care about voting if he knows he has no way of helping his candidate further?

Colorado has lots of independents, and thus lots of voters that one can convince. Does NYC have that? Not really. It is very polarized between affluent Republicans and poor Democrats. New York, in a typical election, gave it's mandate to the Democrats by default.

To continue on my analogy, Boulder County, in a typical election, gives the Democrats its mandate by default (for all intents and purposes). Why should Hickenlooper give as much attention to Boulder County as the similarly populated, but far less partisan, Lairmer County? Similarly, Colorado and Alabama have similar populations, but Colorado is far less polarized than Alabama, thus there are more votes up for grabs.

In my opinion, the electoral college wouldn't change where candidates visit that much, but it has the benefit of ensuring that our strong federalist structure isn't subverted by the federal executive branch. As I like a weak federal executive branch generally, I don't mind if there is less of a mandate for the President.

As for turnout, New York turnout would be just as low absent a Presidential election because all state-wide offices will likely go Democrat.

Whether or not you like a weak executive branch.....the executive branch isn't getting weaker any time soon....so wouldn't it be preferable that citizens have an equal chance to elect that executive?

Your only arguments are the "federal structure" and keeping the executive branch weak. The reasons that people vote how they do should be completely irrelevant in determining how much weight to give those votes. Who are you to tell New Yorkers that their opinion is worse less because it's a battle between afluent Republicans and poor Whites (which certainly isn't even entirely true anymore)?

It isn't worth less. If they were less polarized, I can guarantee candidates would visit New York far more than Nevada. Black communities get no attention in Presidential elections because they're locks for the Democrats. Changing the EC would not change that.

I'm not saying New Yorkers' votes should be worth less by virtue of them voting one way. I am saying that, given how New Yorkers vote, their votes would carry far less weight as far as the campaigns were concerned.

So they're votes are worth 10% than they would be in a popular vote system. They are still a huge population center. If they voted differently, they'd get more attention. That would be the case in any system.

To avoid boredom and a redux of 2000, you have to pass a law in all 50 states dividing the Electors like Nebraska's and Maine's. Then we would still have suspence on Election Day, and there would be even less of a chance of the E.C.-winning candidate loosing the P.V.

Epic fail. As proved in a thread recently, gerrymandering would give republicans a significant advantage in every election.

Doesn't make sense to me....even though you always claim this. Why don't Republicans have a totally didproportionate share in the House if gerrymandering only benefits them?

Come on, you certainly know what gerrymandering means. The GOP is favored in States like Michigan, Pennsyvania or Texas because the democratic vote is concentrted in overwhelmingly dem districts so that the other ones lean blue. It's very easy to see what would happen in a cse of tie or for a dem+1 margin. In most of these case, republicans would win with NE/ME system. That doesn't mean the GOP will always take the House, just that democrats need a strong advantage in the PV to take the House.

Only problem is that what You're saying isn't confirmed by reality.

For example:

2008: DEMs have 53pc of the vote....and actually 59pc of seats.

2006: DEMs have 52pc of the vote...and 54 pc of seats.

2004: DEMs have 46pc of both seats and votes.



Forgive me, but I don't see how gerrymandering benefits only Republicans.

What led me to my conclusion were those posts (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=118558.msg2538547#msg2538547) in Libertas' threas. As evidenced, Gore would have needed a 3% edge nationwide to win EC using NE/ME, and Kerry a 2% edge. Doesn't it look like there is a republican advantage ?

There might be one for the 2000s, but the Democrats are going to do a lot of gerrymanders in their favor after the 2010 midterms and thus it might benefit Democrats instead in the 2010s.

It's worth noting that there are far more McCain districts represented by a Democrat than Obama districts represented by a Republican. The effect was even more extreme in 2004.

It was shown that with the Maine-Nebraska method, Bush still would have won 2000 (with a larger margin!), even though his popular vote was less:


http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/answers/m21.php

That's in part because we have no agreed criteria for CDs other than racial and language minority protection under the VRA. This allows politically gerrymandered districts that tilt the balance during competitive elections.