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

[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?

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."

But what is your argument in favor of the electoral college? Is your argument that the electoral college is good because it prevented President Nixon? Because I have bad news for you...

[Hu Flung Pu]

It doesn't matter.  Take out California and you have a Republican landslide.  I've proposed for years that Democrats and Republicans should form their own countries.  Democrats can have California and we'll take the rest. 

[SteveRogers]

It doesn't matter.  Take out California and you have a Republican landslide.  I've proposed for years that Democrats and Republicans should form their own countries.  Democrats can have California and we'll take the rest. 

"Remove tens of millions of people that I just don't like, and my ideology would win all the time!"

[Kringla Heimsins]

In a democracy, the person who got the more votes wins. Any other system is unfair.

We're too big of a nation to have a popularity contest.

Why ? And how would direct suffrage be more of a popularity contest than today ?

Popular vote would just allow California to decide the election every time anyways.

California is roughly 12% of the American population. It wouldn't decide anything by itself. And, by the way, there is a lot of conservative there, roughly 30 to 40% of the usually voting population, a percentage that would probably increase under direct suffrage.

It doesn't matter.  Take out California and you have a Republican landslide.

Yeah, and take out the Deep South and you have a Democratic Super-landslide. What's the point ? Are Californians not "real Americans" ? Their voice should weight less than those of others ?

By the way, did you know the "New solid South", or "Extended Deep South" has 37 Millions of people ? I'm talking about the states that always vote Republican since 2000: AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, SC, TN. Republicans win there by margins often higher than those the Democrats manage to get in CA. Aren't you afraid that the South would always decide elections ?

In the end, either the sovereignty reside in the hands of the people, or in the federated States. I think the Constitution is pretty clear about the fact that, in the US, it's the states, not the people, that are sovereign. The conclusion is that Donald Trump, while the legitimate and legally elected President whose victory is undeniable and shouldn't be overturned, was not democratically elected.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

That pact can't really be binding can it? 

Of course it can. The Constitution allows the states to allocate their electors however they please, so Illinois is perfectly free to award their 20 EVs to the winner of the national popular vote. Technically, there's nothing in the Constitution that says anyone has a right to vote for president apart from the electors themselves; a state could amend their election laws to mandate the governor just flip a coin, and it would be perfectly constitutional.

[vote for pedro]

That pact can't really be binding can it? 

Of course it can. The Constitution allows the states to allocate their electors however they please, so Illinois is perfectly free to award their 20 EVs to the winner of the national popular vote. Technically, there's nothing in the Constitution that says anyone has a right to vote for president apart from the electors themselves; a state could amend their election laws to mandate the governor just flip a coin, and it would be perfectly constitutional.

 

I guess I meant binding in the sense of who the elector actually ends up voting for.  Like the crazy stuff we saw out of Washington state and Texas this year.  I don't know where they get these people, but if they don't even feel a sense of duty to represent the voters from their own state, I wonder how they would treat voters from another part of the country.

[emailking]

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.

Well, a lot of sh**t happened in Florida in 2000. An advantage of a popular vote system is that no matter what happened in Florida, it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election (Gore wins). It could happen again too. The electoral college system may occasionally get the country out of a pickle, but it can just as easily put us in one.

[vote for pedro]

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.

Well, a lot of sh**t happened in Florida in 2000. An advantage of a popular vote system is that no matter what happened in Florida, it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election (Gore wins). It could happen again too. The electoral college system may occasionally get the country out of a pickle, but it can just as easily put us in one.

Hopefully 2000 is as bad as it gets for either argument.  I'm sorry but I wouldn't want to stake my life that there was a clear cut "leader" of the national popular vote in 1960 or 2000.  I'm not going to say "winner" because 1) that would imply that the leader of this statistical category "wins" something; and 2) if popular vote was the metric, then a majority of voters still voted against (voted for someone other than... ) Nixon, Kennedy, Gore, and Bush.

Obviously some uncertainty exists in each state's reported raw vote totals.  Otherwise there would be no justification for performing recounts.  Even though the winner rarely changes with a recount, the raw vote totals always change.

Everyone I know that thinks “Gore won” in 2000 seems to think that if they had just been able to recount Florida one more time, we would have found out that Gore might have actually won Florida.  i.e. The uncertainty of the Florida vote count was at least 0.01%.  That sounds like a reasonable uncertainty to me.  i.e. I wouldn't stake my life either way.

But hold on a minute.  You don’t get to assume Florida’s count is uncertain and treat every other state’s raw vote count as gospel exactly accurate down to the individual vote!  I would argue that other states that never got recounted would have even more uncertainty than 0.01% in the raw vote totals.  You have to add all those uncertainties up and if the two totals +/- uncertainties overlap; the numbers are statistically equal.  If the sum of all the uncertainties in the 51 separate races  in year 2000 is more than +/- 0.26%, then you can’t say with any certainty that one vote total is larger than the other.  Then where are you?  Florida 2000 only 51 times worse.  I don't know if the country survives that.

I am not saying “Bush won the popular vote” in 2000.  (I would never say that since 52% of the voters voted against him.  Just like 52% voted against Gore, and Hillary this year. )  All I’m asking is that those who are so quick to point out the flaws of our EC, consider that NPV isn’t  guaranteed to have a clear cut winner either.  Not leaving the elections with the individual state governments.

[Vosem]

Here is my point of view (and I say this as someone who did not vote for Hillary Clinton):
- The system we have now is an unjust one, capable of empowering potential Presidents who do not have the support of a majority of the population. Donald Trump, who won 46% and has never attempted to reach out beyond that, is an example thereof. Whether John F. Kennedy is also an example of a President elected like this isn't really relevant; it depends on how you count certain votes. Whatever. We cannot know whether Kennedy or Nixon would have been a better President for the era 1961-1963, even though Nixon was elected later on and performed poorly.
- With that said, Hillary Clinton, who won 48% of the vote, is not a fairly elected President either. 52% of the country was against her.
- A pure national popular vote system would be a bad idea; if an election were very close, a national recount would be impractical, and it's also unjust that certain voters would be enfranchised in certain states but not others. We should preserve the state-by-state election system, and that means preserving the Electoral College.
- But, what we should really do, is reform the Electoral College, so that (first of all, so faithless electors are banned) electoral votes are received proportionally, state-by-state. The result for 2016 is Trump 261, Clinton 261, Johnson 14 (receives 2 votes from California; and 1 each from Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Texas, and Washington), Stein 1 (receives 1 vote from California), and McMullin 1 (from Utah). Thus, if nobody receives a mandate from the American people (as no one did in 2016), the candidates would have to negotiate with those Americans who are still unsure, who would be able to act as kingmakers. Such a system would be ideal; ideally, also, the Electoral College would be able to recall a President and install someone else, in the event that the President tries to break commitments made, so that it has a way of enforcing its authority.
- The vote for 1960 using this method (separating the numbers for Kennedy and unpledged in Alabama, with 6/11 going unpledged and 5/11 going Kennedy, as was the significance of that list, though this is a guess), comes out to Kennedy 267, Nixon 263, unpledged electors 8 (3 each from Alabama and Mississippi, and 2 from Louisiana), and 1 for Faubus (from Arkansas). The segregationists would've had the balance of power; while unfortunate, this would've been a fair result for the election. Or Kennedy and Nixon could've worked out a pact between each other. But neither really won.

[Figueira]

I don't see why national recounts are so awful.

[LLR]

I don't see why national recounts are so awful.

Painstaking wastes of money that will greatly reduce citizens' trusts in the process, will get very messy quickly, and will take months to complete. The odds of a recount getting done before Inauguration Day, much less in time for the president to pick their cabinet or whatever, are slim to none. The economic impact is huge as well, since over 100 million ballots have to be re-checked.

[Figueira]

I don't see why national recounts are so awful.

Painstaking wastes of money that will greatly reduce citizens' trusts in the process, will get very messy quickly, and will take months to complete. The odds of a recount getting done before Inauguration Day, much less in time for the president to pick their cabinet or whatever, are slim to none. The economic impact is huge as well, since over 100 million ballots have to be re-checked.

Seems like a good price to pay for having everyone's vote actually count.

[Vosem]

I don't see why national recounts are so awful.

Painstaking wastes of money that will greatly reduce citizens' trusts in the process, will get very messy quickly, and will take months to complete. The odds of a recount getting done before Inauguration Day, much less in time for the president to pick their cabinet or whatever, are slim to none. The economic impact is huge as well, since over 100 million ballots have to be re-checked.

Seems like a good price to pay for having everyone's vote actually count.

An ideal system would have everyone's vote actually count and avoid that hullaballoo (like the system I detailed in my post would do, for instance).

[muon2]

In a parliamentary democracy the party that gets the most votes does not always win control of the government. Does that make a parliamentary system undemocratic? I don't think so. Neither does the fact that a president is elected by states electors make it undemocratic.

Both systems are based on collecting votes in a limited number geographic areas. Then the results of those areas are tabulated independently of each other. Finally the results by area are used to determine the government. They are just different mechanisms for translating votes collected by geographic area.

To put it another way consider if the US used a UK-style parliamentary system. In any rational, non-gerrymandered map of the constituencies, the Dems would find themselves overpacked in big cities compared to the Pubs. If Trump were the party leader of the Pubs last year in a parliamentary election he would be sitting now as PM. Would that be undemocratic?

[impactreps]

I don't see why national recounts are so awful.

The closest election EV-wise since 1960 was in 2000, and the top two candidates were separated by half a million votes. I think a similar margin would be outside the conditions for a recount.

[jojoju1998]

In a parliamentary democracy the party that gets the most votes does not always win control of the government. Does that make a parliamentary system undemocratic? I don't think so. Neither does the fact that a president is elected by states electors make it undemocratic.

Both systems are based on collecting votes in a limited number geographic areas. Then the results of those areas are tabulated independently of each other. Finally the results by area are used to determine the government. They are just different mechanisms for translating votes collected by geographic area.

To put it another way consider if the US used a UK-style parliamentary system. In any rational, non-gerrymandered map of the constituencies, the Dems would find themselves overpacked in big cities compared to the Pubs. If Trump were the party leader of the Pubs last year in a parliamentary election he would be sitting now as PM. Would that be undemocratic?

That's because of the Rural/City Divide that has developed over the past 20 something years. And one does not have to look at the UK for Parliament Elections.

Sweden for example has an Open Party List System. German has a Mixed Member System. While South Korea has Parallel Voting. 

[muon2]

In a parliamentary democracy the party that gets the most votes does not always win control of the government. Does that make a parliamentary system undemocratic? I don't think so. Neither does the fact that a president is elected by states electors make it undemocratic.

Both systems are based on collecting votes in a limited number geographic areas. Then the results of those areas are tabulated independently of each other. Finally the results by area are used to determine the government. They are just different mechanisms for translating votes collected by geographic area.

To put it another way consider if the US used a UK-style parliamentary system. In any rational, non-gerrymandered map of the constituencies, the Dems would find themselves overpacked in big cities compared to the Pubs. If Trump were the party leader of the Pubs last year in a parliamentary election he would be sitting now as PM. Would that be undemocratic?

That's because of the Rural/City Divide that has developed over the past 20 something years. And one does not have to look at the UK for Parliament Elections.

Sweden for example has an Open Party List System. German has a Mixed Member System. While South Korea has Parallel Voting. 

I wholeheartedly agree on the development of the rural/urban divide as a strongly contributing factor, but it is really that the Dems are more concentrated in the cities than the Pubs are in rural areas that causes the problem. When the the parties are mismatched in the number of precincts that are overwhelmingly in their favor, then no neutral (ie ignoring parties) partition of the country would avoid the NPV-EV mismatch. I used the UK as an example precisely because it has single member constituencies and would suffer the same mismatch between the vote and government if applied to the US. My question is whether that makes the UK system undemocratic? Are all single-member district systems therefore undemocratic?

[Figueira]

I don't see why national recounts are so awful.

Painstaking wastes of money that will greatly reduce citizens' trusts in the process, will get very messy quickly, and will take months to complete. The odds of a recount getting done before Inauguration Day, much less in time for the president to pick their cabinet or whatever, are slim to none. The economic impact is huge as well, since over 100 million ballots have to be re-checked.

Seems like a good price to pay for having everyone's vote actually count.

An ideal system would have everyone's vote actually count and avoid that hullaballoo (like the system I detailed in my post would do, for instance).

It would be impossible to enact that on a national level though, and no state really has an incentive to do it with the possible exception of Virginia if Gillespie wins this year.

[muon2]

I don't see why national recounts are so awful.

Painstaking wastes of money that will greatly reduce citizens' trusts in the process, will get very messy quickly, and will take months to complete. The odds of a recount getting done before Inauguration Day, much less in time for the president to pick their cabinet or whatever, are slim to none. The economic impact is huge as well, since over 100 million ballots have to be re-checked.

Seems like a good price to pay for having everyone's vote actually count.

An ideal system would have everyone's vote actually count and avoid that hullaballoo (like the system I detailed in my post would do, for instance).

It would be impossible to enact that on a national level though, and no state really has an incentive to do it with the possible exception of Virginia if Gillespie wins this year.

Another factor to consider in a large recount is the intrinsic error rate of our ballots. A certain number of ballots in any election will be disputable. That is two experts in reading the ballots will draw different conclusions about the intent of the voter on a ballot. Disputable ballots occur with every system whether paper or electronic. At present the best systems get about 1 in 10,000 ballots that are disputable (cf the 2008 MN Senate race).

If a race is so close that it depends on reasonably disputable ballots, it generally comes down to a judge making a choice between competing reasonable experts. In most races an error rate that small has no effect on the perception of fairness. But if it looks like a judge is stepping in and taking sides the sense of fairness may be lost (cf the 2000 FL race for president).

In 2000 FL the margin of 537 out of almost 6 million votes cast was right in that 1 in 10,000 range. For a national recount of 137 M votes a margin of anything less than 13,000 votes would certainly involve judges taking sides with experts on reasonably disputable ballots, and it would likely be higher due to the variety of systems across the states. At that point you might as well ask a judge to flip a coin to determine the winner - it's statistically just as fair as a protracted recount.

[catographer]

i don't see how NPV isn't fair to both parties. however gets most votes wins, simple. how is that gonna benefit one party over another?

[Slander and/or Libel]

In a parliamentary democracy the party that gets the most votes does not always win control of the government. Does that make a parliamentary system undemocratic? I don't think so. Neither does the fact that a president is elected by states electors make it undemocratic.

Both systems are based on collecting votes in a limited number geographic areas. Then the results of those areas are tabulated independently of each other. Finally the results by area are used to determine the government. They are just different mechanisms for translating votes collected by geographic area.

To put it another way consider if the US used a UK-style parliamentary system. In any rational, non-gerrymandered map of the constituencies, the Dems would find themselves overpacked in big cities compared to the Pubs. If Trump were the party leader of the Pubs last year in a parliamentary election he would be sitting now as PM. Would that be undemocratic?

That's because of the Rural/City Divide that has developed over the past 20 something years. And one does not have to look at the UK for Parliament Elections.

Sweden for example has an Open Party List System. German has a Mixed Member System. While South Korea has Parallel Voting. 

I wholeheartedly agree on the development of the rural/urban divide as a strongly contributing factor, but it is really that the Dems are more concentrated in the cities than the Pubs are in rural areas that causes the problem. When the the parties are mismatched in the number of precincts that are overwhelmingly in their favor, then no neutral (ie ignoring parties) partition of the country would avoid the NPV-EV mismatch. I used the UK as an example precisely because it has single member constituencies and would suffer the same mismatch between the vote and government if applied to the US. My question is whether that makes the UK system undemocratic? Are all single-member district systems therefore undemocratic?

Is discussion of single-member districts relevant here, in a discussion of the winner-take-all Electoral College? The districts under consideration aren't single-member, but weighted (roughly, though skewed) by population. You'd run into a similar problem by aggregating single-member results, but there are ways in which it's exacerbated by aggregating state EC allocations.

[muon2]

In a parliamentary democracy the party that gets the most votes does not always win control of the government. Does that make a parliamentary system undemocratic? I don't think so. Neither does the fact that a president is elected by states electors make it undemocratic.

Both systems are based on collecting votes in a limited number geographic areas. Then the results of those areas are tabulated independently of each other. Finally the results by area are used to determine the government. They are just different mechanisms for translating votes collected by geographic area.

To put it another way consider if the US used a UK-style parliamentary system. In any rational, non-gerrymandered map of the constituencies, the Dems would find themselves overpacked in big cities compared to the Pubs. If Trump were the party leader of the Pubs last year in a parliamentary election he would be sitting now as PM. Would that be undemocratic?

That's because of the Rural/City Divide that has developed over the past 20 something years. And one does not have to look at the UK for Parliament Elections.

Sweden for example has an Open Party List System. German has a Mixed Member System. While South Korea has Parallel Voting. 

I wholeheartedly agree on the development of the rural/urban divide as a strongly contributing factor, but it is really that the Dems are more concentrated in the cities than the Pubs are in rural areas that causes the problem. When the the parties are mismatched in the number of precincts that are overwhelmingly in their favor, then no neutral (ie ignoring parties) partition of the country would avoid the NPV-EV mismatch. I used the UK as an example precisely because it has single member constituencies and would suffer the same mismatch between the vote and government if applied to the US. My question is whether that makes the UK system undemocratic? Are all single-member district systems therefore undemocratic?

Is discussion of single-member districts relevant here, in a discussion of the winner-take-all Electoral College? The districts under consideration aren't single-member, but weighted (roughly, though skewed) by population. You'd run into a similar problem by aggregating single-member results, but there are ways in which it's exacerbated by aggregating state EC allocations.

Larger aggregations potentially have more skew. Many have shown that going to the NE-ME system wouldn't have changed the result, so CD-sized electoral districts in other countries is relevant to the EC.

The problem of aggregating can be viewed from the two extremes. At one extreme is an aggregation of the whole nation, and that's just the NPV. At the other extreme is an aggregation of single voters - every voter is a member of the EC. Both extremes accurately reflect the popular vote. Intermediate aggregations are subject to geographic packing of one party's voters, and that is what happens in the EC or other systems with WTA constituencies.

There's a second factor worth noting for the extreme disaggregation where everyone is a member of the EC. In years like 2016 there would be no winner of the EC vote since no one got to 50%. The Constitution would send the result to the House for a runoff. In a parliamentary system there would be a coalition to form a government. In many presidential system there would be a direct runoff back to the electors. The common feature is a mechanism that doesn't automatically promote the top vote-getter if the total is under 50%. IMO that's the problem with many NPV discussions - there's none of that type of mechanism (though IRV would meet that need).

[JoshPA]

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

well that not how it works in america we are a republic.

[AtorBoltox]

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

well that not how it works in america we are a republic.

Republic- a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
Nothing about being a republic mandates that the President cannot be elected by popular vote

[Sir Mohamed]

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

well that not how it works in america we are a republic.

Uh, what about senators?

States are also a republic (republican form of government) and govs are also elected by direct PV.

And what about France? That is no Republic?