Those who think National Popular Vote is what really matters...

[vote for pedro]

Please convince me.  Provide a convincing argument for why Richard Nixon should have been inaugurated in January 1961.  Convince me that John Kennedy's victory is illegitimate and he really didn't win the election.  Here are the results as reported in January 1961:

Candidate	Party	PV		EV
John Kennedy	Democrat	33,906,000	49.26%	303	56.40%
Richard Nixon	Republican	34,108,000	49.55%	219	40.80%
Unpledged/Other	Democrat	820,000	1.19%	15	2.80%

http://geoelections.free.fr/USA/elec_comtes/1960.htm

I don't want to hear about alleged irregularities in Texas or Illinois.  I'm talking about the votes that were counted.  34.1 million for Nixon, 33.9 million for Kennedy.

(I'm also aware that following the JFK assassination, there was a posthumous movement to revise/report the his popular vote total as 34.2 million votes by reassigning popular votes in Alabama from unpledged to Kennedy, for whatever reason.)  That would not have helped him in January 1961.  The truth is, a deeply divided Democrat party in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama prevented Kennedy from winning the "popular vote" over Nixon.

I am skeptical that you will be able to convince me that Nixon actually won this election, but I am listening.

[LLR]

It doesn't, but it should

[SteveRogers]

Um, the issue isn't who won the election. We know that under the rules as currently laid out by the Consitution, Kennedy won the 1960 election. Nobody disputes that. The debate is over what metric should matter in a healthy, functioning democracy. Those (like me) who support abolishing the electoral college believe that when it comes to choosing the one elected official who gets to claim to have a mandate from the people of the nation at large, the actual will of the voters should take precedence over a deeply flawed measure of how "widespread" each candidate's vote is.

1960 was one of our nation's closest elections, and no one among us can claim to know who would have won that race if the election had been based on a nationwide popular vote since the campaigns would have been conducted differently and there would not have been any unpledged elector shenanigans. 

[vote for pedro]

I'm just concerned that people are letting their hatred for GW Bush and Donald Trump cloud their judgement on this issue. 

If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.  Aren't Democrats concerned that a Liberal alternative could conceivably steal 5% of the D vote and turn a future comfortable EV win into a 46.5-47-5 PV "loss"?  Or are they blinded by the potential of insurmountable 5 million vote surpluses in Titanium D California, banking they will always be there for them?

[SteveRogers]

I'm just concerned that people are letting their hatred for GW Bush and Donald Trump cloud their judgement on this issue. 

If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.  Aren't Democrats concerned that a Liberal alternative could conceivably steal 5% of the D vote and turn a future comfortable EV win into a 46.5-47-5 PV "loss"?  Or are they blinded by the potential of insurmountable 5 million vote surpluses in Titanium D California, banking they will always be there for them?

That already happened in 2000 thanks to the electoral college lol. If the electoral college were to be abolished, you's obviously want a runoff in the event no candidate won a majority of the popular vote.

Why is the idea that Nixon might have won 1960 under a popular vote system supposed to convince me of the great wisdom of the electoral college? I'd obviously have voted Kennedy in that election, but that doesn't mean Kennedy was magically entitled to the presidency. By your logic, Nixon's eventual election in 1968 would be an argument against keeping the electoral college if the goal is to come up with a system that never elects Richard Nixons. There's no voting system that will ensure that America never elects an idiot or a crook president.

I prefer policies that further democratic principles regardless of what party they benefit now or in the future. The idea that the electoral college favors one party or the other in the long run is silly. If you asked political scientists and pundits who benefited from the electoral college in 2012, the conventional wisdom was that it protected democrats. I support abolishing the electoral college because it was already an anachronism by around 1828 when the country collectively decided to start treating the president as the representative of the people at large.

[justfollowingtheelections]

My honest opinion is that no one with less than 50% of the vote should become president.  If none of the candidates receive 50% there should be a run-off election.  Either that or we adopt a parliamentary system where parties form coalitions (the Democrats for example being the party with the most votes would have to form a coalition with either the Libertarians or the Greens in order to govern).

[Beet]

My view on the popular vote is based on principle, not election results. If it results in an outcome I don't want, so be it. The ideal would be national IRV.

[vote for pedro]

I'm just concerned that people are letting their hatred for GW Bush and Donald Trump cloud their judgement on this issue. 

If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.  Aren't Democrats concerned that a Liberal alternative could conceivably steal 5% of the D vote and turn a future comfortable EV win into a 46.5-47-5 PV "loss"?  Or are they blinded by the potential of insurmountable 5 million vote surpluses in Titanium D California, banking they will always be there for them?

That already happened in 2000 thanks to the electoral college lol. If the electoral college were to be abolished, you's obviously want a runoff in the event no candidate won a majority of the popular vote.

Yes, minor point is that Nader flipped the EC without flipping the PV (as I'm sure you know.)  I was envisioning something more like the 1960 map, where over 50% of the votes were for Democrats, but the leading Republican candidate had more support than the leading Democrat in terms of raw numbers.

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Well, in fairness, I only asked someone to convince me that Nixon should have been inaugurated in 1961.   It sounds like we agree at least that Nixon did not win the 1960 Presidential election.  I also agree that nobody can say for sure who would have won under a different system, or with a runoff. 

But I think that the EC got it right in 1960, and continues to serve our Republic of States as it was intended.  That is my opinion.

[MisterElection2001]

Different sources list Kennedy or Nixon winning the popular vote. This really isn't a good comparison.

[MarkD]

Um, the issue isn't who won the election. We know that under the rules as currently laid out by the Consitution, Kennedy won the 1960 election. Nobody disputes that. The debate is over what metric should matter in a healthy, functioning democracy. Those (like me) who support abolishing the electoral college believe that when it comes to choosing the one elected official who gets to claim to have a mandate from the people of the nation at large, the actual will of the voters should take precedence over a deeply flawed measure of how "widespread" each candidate's vote is.

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I was agreeing with you until that last sentence. I still do not "treat" or perceive the President of the United States as "the representative of the people at large." That is not the constitutional or accurate way to look at what the President does. He's the Chief Executive. The President is to the national government what the Governor is to a state government. In almost every state, whoever gets the most votes -- first past the post -- wins the office of the Chief Executive. The same ought to go for the presidency -- not because the presidency is a representative of the people, but because he is the Chief Executive.

[SteveRogers]

Um, the issue isn't who won the election. We know that under the rules as currently laid out by the Consitution, Kennedy won the 1960 election. Nobody disputes that. The debate is over what metric should matter in a healthy, functioning democracy. Those (like me) who support abolishing the electoral college believe that when it comes to choosing the one elected official who gets to claim to have a mandate from the people of the nation at large, the actual will of the voters should take precedence over a deeply flawed measure of how "widespread" each candidate's vote is.

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I was agreeing with you until that last sentence. I still do not "treat" or perceive the President of the United States as "the representative of the people at large." That is not the constitutional or accurate way to look at what the President does. He's the Chief Executive. The President is to the national government what the Governor is to a state government. In almost every state, whoever gets the most votes -- first past the post -- wins the office of the Chief Executive. The same ought to go for the presidency -- not because the presidency is a representative of the people, but because he is the Chief Executive.

I agree 100% that that isn't what the founders intended the presidency to be when they wrote the Constitution. My point was that by the time of Andrew Jackson's election, a dramatic paradigm shift had occurred with regard to how the public viewed the presidency (and how presidents began viewing themselves and the office). Jackson was the first president to really talk about having a "popular mandate" from the people of the nation and was the first president to argue that that mandate gave him the moral authority to veto acts of congress that he disagreed with. Every president since has taken the same attitude. This era also happened to coincide with every single state switching to allocating electoral votes based on statewide popular vote (except for South Carolina who held out for quite a while). I take your point that "representative" might be the wrong word, but I don't think it can be denied that the "democratization" of the presidency that occurred fairly early on in our country's history represented a pretty dramatic break from the role the founders intended the office of the presidency to occupy in our government and society. In my opinion, what the office of the Presidency ultimately came to be is just plain incompatible with the goals the electoral college was designed to serve.

[vote for pedro]

Different sources list Kennedy or Nixon winning the popular vote. This really isn't a good comparison.

Not really.  The "official" vote totals now reported everywhere match the Atlas site.  34.2 million popular votes for Kennedy.  But it was never reported that way until after JFK's assassination. 

It doesn't matter, it is mostly a harmless fib, since it had nothing to do with determining the winner in a Presidential Election.  Kennedy had enough support in other parts of the country that he didn't need any votes from Alabama.

[Intell]

If Nixon got more popular votes in 1960, he should've won, as Clinton should've won, under an ideal electoral system.

[Sir Mohamed]

What actually matters is under which rules of the constitution the election was won. Aside from free, fair and equal elections. In 1960, there are rumors that at least IL was stolen by Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. TX is seen as unlikely (according to Wikipedia), because the margin of 46,000 votes was too large to manipulate, though there were cases of fraud in smaller numbers. But even when you flip IL to Nixon, Kennedy would still have won with 276 EVs. According to Wikipedia and Atlas, Kennedy also won the PV 49.72% to 49.55%. AL however makes that figure difficult. But under the rules of the constitution, Kennedy was elected, with or without the PV. Nevertheless, the EC should have been abolished early in the 20th century and be replaced by a national PV (with ballot access in the whole country or nowhere for all candidates). It may have been that Nixon then would have won. So, let it be. I would have voted for Kennedy, but would also have accepted a Nixon PV win, no matter how small the margin. More votes is more votes.

Interesting: A de-facto PV loss of the winner can also happen in a parliamentary system with a coalition government, when you have a certain minimum percentage of votes a party needs to enter the legislature (3% or 5% in most countries; even 10% in Turkey). Now let’s you have party A and B in a coalition government before the next election, while parties C and D form the opposition. In the election, A ends up with 46% of the vote and B with 4%; a combined 50% of the votes for the incumbent government. B, however, fails to enter the parliament because 5% are necessary. Meanwhile, party C ends up with 40% and D with 7%; a combined of 47%. With no other parties entering the legislature (impossible, because just 3% are left to add up to 100%), C and D could now oust the incumbent by forming a coalition government, although 50% of the people voted for the incumbents. That’s democracy.

[Figueira]

I don't oppose the electoral college because I hate Bush and Trump. I oppose the electoral college because it's an incredibly undemocratic system that doesn't count everyone's votes. It also doesn't give more power to rural areas, nor does it prevent populist demagogues from taking over. It's just a flawed system that usually matches the popular vote, but occasionally doesn't due to random chance.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't oppose the electoral college because I hate Bush and Trump. I oppose the electoral college because it's an incredibly undemocratic system that doesn't count everyone's votes. It also doesn't give more power to rural areas, nor does it prevent populist demagogues from taking over. It's just a flawed system that usually matches the popular vote, but occasionally doesn't due to random chance.

[Hillary Lost]

We're too big of a nation to have a popularity contest.  Plus it would just make it easier for Russians to hack right Democrats.  Seriously though give it up!  You lost now get over it.  Popular vote would just allow California to decide the election every time anyways.  Why do Democrats always have to cry fowl when they lose?  Basin an election on the popular vote would be like the winning team in a football game being the team that gained the most yards instead of scoring the most points.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Um, the issue isn't who won the election. We know that under the rules as currently laid out by the Consitution, Kennedy won the 1960 election. Nobody disputes that. The debate is over what metric should matter in a healthy, functioning democracy. Those (like me) who support abolishing the electoral college believe that when it comes to choosing the one elected official who gets to claim to have a mandate from the people of the nation at large, the actual will of the voters should take precedence over a deeply flawed measure of how "widespread" each candidate's vote is.

I don't oppose the electoral college because I hate Bush and Trump. I oppose the electoral college because it's an incredibly undemocratic system that doesn't count everyone's votes. It also doesn't give more power to rural areas, nor does it prevent populist demagogues from taking over. It's just a flawed system that usually matches the popular vote, but occasionally doesn't due to random chance.

This. The OP has completely missed the point; clearly Kennedy was the lawful winner of the 1960 election, just as Hayes, Harrison, Bush, and Trump won their respective elections. The argument in favor of a popular vote is not a matter of re-litigating the past, but of establishing a just government that represents all citizens equally. This is why arguments such as "the U.S. is a 'republic,' not a democracy"  and "the founders intended [xyz]" are utterly meaningless when it comes to discussions of constitutional reform, because we are not debating what the United States is, we're debating what the United States should be.

[vote for pedro]

I haven't missed the point. 

I did title the post inappropriately, since I meant to target "those who insist Hillary won the 2016 election" rather than "those who insist we should scrap the constitution and  become a pure democracy."  Even though there seems to be a large overlap between the two groups.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I haven't missed the point. 

I did title the post inappropriately, since I meant to target "those who insist Hillary won the 2016 election" rather than "those who insist we should scrap the constitution and  become a pure democracy."  Even though there seems to be a large overlap between the two groups.

It's impossible to know who would have won a popular vote election in 2016, and those who claim otherwise are being very silly. It's probably true that most of the "Hillary won" crowd support abolishing the electoral college, but I would be careful about assuming the inverse.

[Xing]

If those had been the totals, then under a fair system, Nixon would have won.

[SteveRogers]

I haven't missed the point. 

I did title the post inappropriately, since I meant to target "those who insist Hillary won the 2016 election" rather than "those who insist we should scrap the constitution and  become a pure democracy."  Even though there seems to be a large overlap between the two groups.

It is indeed wrong to say that Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election. However, it is just as wrong to say "The people voted for Donald Trump" since the people, in fact, voted to elect Hillary Clinton.

And it is laughable to suggest that abolishing the electoral college would "scrap the constitution." There's an amendment process right there in the Constitution for a reason, and switching to a national popular vote wouldn't change the fundamental structure of our federal government one bit; we'd still be a representative democracy.

Perhaps you could actually clearly explain your arguments in favor of keeping the electoral college instead of vaguely alluding to 1960 or launching ad hominem attacks against Hillary supporters?

[vote for pedro]

If those had been the totals, then under a fair system, Nixon would have won.

Ifs and buts, candies and nuts; what are you trying to say?

Are you trying to say our system is unfair?  Is the system unjust because it allowed JFK to win in 1960 without relying on any support from MS or AL?  It’s okay, this is a discussion forum.  We can discuss things. 

I happen to think our system has a lot of advantages.  A lot of sh**t happened in 1960.   The magnitude of the sh**t is impossible to determine in terms of individual “popular votes.”  I think it’s naïve to think none of it could ever happen again.  One advantage of our EC system is no matter what happened in Illinois, Texas, Mississippi, or Alabama; none of it changes the outcome of the 1960 election.

[vote for pedro]

I haven't missed the point. 

I did title the post inappropriately, since I meant to target "those who insist Hillary won the 2016 election" rather than "those who insist we should scrap the constitution and  become a pure democracy."  Even though there seems to be a large overlap between the two groups.

It is indeed wrong to say that Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election. However, it is just as wrong to say "The people voted for Donald Trump" since the people, in fact, voted to elect Hillary Clinton.

And it is laughable to suggest that abolishing the electoral college would "scrap the constitution." There's an amendment process right there in the Constitution for a reason, and switching to a national popular vote wouldn't change the fundamental structure of our federal government one bit; we'd still be a representative democracy.

Perhaps you could actually clearly explain your arguments in favor of keeping the electoral college instead of vaguely alluding to 1960 or launching ad hominem attacks against Hillary supporters?

Oh, please.  There are Hillary supporters and then there are the "Hillary won"/"the people voted for Hillary Clinton" contingent.  I'm not attacking either group that I am aware of, I certainly support the right of people to support Hillary.

I'm just putting a different face on the argument and asking you to explain to me how "the people actually voted for Richard Nixon in 1960" if you believe that "the people actually voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016."

[vote for pedro]

And it is laughable to suggest that abolishing the electoral college would "scrap the constitution." There's an amendment process right there in the Constitution for a reason, and switching to a national popular vote wouldn't change the fundamental structure of our federal government one bit; we'd still be a representative democracy.

And I see there is a movement to shortcut/undermine the amendment process I just found out about.  I'll admit I am horrified it has so much support and embarrassed to find out that my state has already passed/enacted whatever the NPVIC.  Especially embarrassed that I didn't know about it.  Although thinking about it, it might be an entertaining scenario if the Republicans ever won the "popular vote" without California.  Just to see if California could even find 55 R votes to send to the EC. That pact can't really be binding can it?