Electoral College or Popular Vote?
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  Talk Elections
  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  Presidential Election Process (Moderator: muon2)
  Electoral College or Popular Vote?
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Question: Whould you support Popular Vote elections for the US President?
#1
Yes
 
#2
No
 
#3
Undecided
 
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Total Voters: 194

Author Topic: Electoral College or Popular Vote?  (Read 42034 times)
muon2
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« Reply #50 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?
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MagneticFree
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« Reply #51 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.
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koenkai
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« Reply #52 on: September 06, 2012, 01:53:19 AM »

I support the electoral vote until I stop living in a swing state. Tongue

Seriously, I don't really care either way.
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Emperor Dubya
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« Reply #53 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.
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Free Palestine
FallenMorgan
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« Reply #54 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 video.
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defe07
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« Reply #55 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".
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #56 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?
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defe07
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« Reply #57 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.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #58 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.
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Oldiesfreak1854
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« Reply #59 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.
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Franzl
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« Reply #60 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.
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #61 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, 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.
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Sec. of State Superique
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« Reply #62 on: October 18, 2012, 09:34:30 PM »

I'm ok with the wasting teory! That is what I was trying to say....
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Sec. of State Superique
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« Reply #63 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 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! Tongue
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #64 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.
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freefair
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« Reply #65 on: November 12, 2012, 03:23:58 PM »
« Edited: November 12, 2012, 03:29:44 PM by freefair »

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.
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #66 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.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #67 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.
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Icehand Gino
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« Reply #68 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.
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Sec. of State Superique
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« Reply #69 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!
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #70 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.)
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Sec. of State Superique
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« Reply #71 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!
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osideguy92
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« Reply #72 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.
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TNF
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« Reply #73 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.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #74 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"?
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