Electoral College or Popular Vote?
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  Electoral College or Popular Vote?
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Question: Whould you support Popular Vote elections for the US President?
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Author Topic: Electoral College or Popular Vote?  (Read 42014 times)
Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #75 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" means "owed at present," whereas "deliberate" means "carefully weighed or considered" or "leisurely or steady in movement or action." "Haste" can mean "urgent need of quick action" or even "unnecessarily quick action," whereas "speed" lists "relative rapidity in moving" over "full, maximum, or optimum rate of motion."
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William Poole
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« Reply #76 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.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #77 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.
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #78 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.

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pbrower2a
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« Reply #79 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.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #80 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, 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.

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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.   

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Oldiesfreak1854
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« Reply #81 on: February 08, 2013, 10:18:41 AM »
« Edited: February 08, 2013, 10:20:50 AM by Oldiesfreak1854 »

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.
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.
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Franzl
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« Reply #82 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!
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #83 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, 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.
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Oldiesfreak1854
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« Reply #84 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, 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.
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Franzl
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« Reply #85 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, 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, 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, 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?
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #86 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, 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.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #87 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, 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.
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« Reply #88 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. 
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #89 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. 
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #90 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.)
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #91 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. 


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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #92 on: February 13, 2013, 09:10:10 PM »


Is not Michigan in the Midwest?
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #93 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
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #94 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.
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justfollowingtheelections
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« Reply #95 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, 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.
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justfollowingtheelections
unempprof
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« Reply #96 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.
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Sec. of State Superique
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« Reply #97 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.
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Sec. of State Superique
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« Reply #98 on: April 26, 2013, 07:30:44 PM »

Electability would be a stronger issue in primaries because of PR.
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greenforest32
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« Reply #99 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? Tongue
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