Democrats who support the electoral college

[Beet]

While I don't necessarily support it, there are good arguments for it. First of all the argument that it is not proportional is flawed in a sense. It is based on the Congress. Using logic against it, you would have to be in favor of making the Senate proportional as well.

Well, the Congress is not proportional either, but it is not really based on the Congress, since it is winner-take-all by state, whereas Congressional delegations are elected by district. It is not true that if you argue in favor of one type of election to be proportional (such as the presidency), you have to argue in favor of all other institutions being proportional as well (such as the Senate). By that logic, if you support Governors being elected statewide by the popular vote, you would have to support state legislatures being proportional as well, and many people don't think that.

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That assumes that there are no people who would be more inclined to vote third party since the chance of their vote being the deciding vote drops dramatically. For every voter who refrains from voting third party due to no longer being in a safe state, another voter might vote third party due to the vastly expanded single electorate. In any case, this is a good argument in favor of IRV.

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IRV should be supported, but it doesn't necessitate opposing getting rid of the electoral college in the meantime.

[The_Doctor]

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I don't necessarily agree that we would be better off switching to another system. For instance, in the recent British elections, the Parliament was hung because May couldn't gain a majority. She was reliant on a small North Irish party that most people hadn't even voted for to attain her majority. These niche parties holding power the way they do without being backed by the people, in my view, is a bad idea. It may work, but I don't necessarily like the idea of small parties holding the balance of power to dictate national policy. I think shoehorning minor coalitions into the grand coalition is a better way to set national policy.

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Let's break your argument down. I've already addressed the first part. To your second part, for 200 years, we've had states elect the President through the College and the legislatures prior to the 1820s were selected by the people, so presumably, the state legislatures represented the will of the people. (there were no, by the way, popular vote losers who won the electoral college from 1792 to 1820).

Third, no, there's a reason for this. That's because Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are widely understood to be the founders of the Democratic Party. The Democratic - Republicans became the Democrats, while the Whigs and Federalists later became the Republicans. So I'm not wrong. Fourth, I contend that Jackson continued the Jeffersonian agrarian frontiersman ideology. If you look at Jefferson and Jackson, they held roughly the same ideology. The D-R may have transitioned to becoming the Democratic Party, but I do contend that Jackson continued Jeffersonian ideology and thus, I don't see that as much of a break. Again, the same holds for McKinley and Lincoln; McKinley continued the Lincoln Republican hegemony (while emphasizing the industrial aspect). As to your last part, I have defined the parties many times here so I won't rehash it - suffice it to say, the parties at the time were largely focused on a certain ideology. Where I differ from historians is seeing the break.

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Here, you uh, miss the whole point of my paragraph about the role of third parties integrating into the New Deal coalition.

I'm skipping over the next few because I think it's extraneous.

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Uh, Beet, a popular vote winner is not necessarily 51%. With many different parties, a popular vote winner can be as little as 35% of the vote. We've seen many parties achieve that and yet become a ruling party.  That's been seen many times and that empowers radicals to carve out strong positions. That's not really in dispute ...

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No. I've defended my positions, thank you.

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I think that if you look at American elections dating to 1800, that the Electoral College has done a decent job of expressing the national will and the strengths of the coalitions that won / lost the election.

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Actually, the Electoral College, logically, forces the Trumpkins into the grand GOP coalition. Arguably, if you demanded the President were only elected with a plurality of the popular vote rather than needing to win certain states, you could in theory elect a President with 35% of the vote and if the opposition was splintered, his party could take a majority. The requirement to hit 270 in the Electoral College, in my view, creates a domino effect that creates a two party system.

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And won 49% in the re-election. But by virtue of Trump's popular vote loss, to win re-election, as the incumbent, he probably has to expand his coalition to survive in the Electoral College. I don't think he can squeak by with a 46% plurality again. The system seems to put a lot of emphasis on the incumbent party assembling a strong enough coalition to win election and re-election (via the Electoral College).

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I admit a parliamentary system is probably feasible, but I don't necessarily agree that we must transition to one. I think the American system works just fine. Why change it if it's broken?

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I oppose the abolition of the Electoral College because I believe strongly that as I said, it encourages stability, it creates two coalitions, rather than niche third parties. For instance, it's more feasible to have two parties rather than many different parties. For instance, a Green party candidate can't win the Presidency with 35% if the other parties split; he needs 45-51%, which dilutes the radical agenda he might hold. Which I think is a virtue, not a vice.

[Beet]

I don't necessarily agree that we would be better off switching to another system. For instance, in the recent British elections, the Parliament was hung because May couldn't gain a majority. She was reliant on a small North Irish party that most people hadn't even voted for to attain her majority. These niche parties holding power the way they do without being backed by the people, in my view, is a bad idea. It may work, but I don't necessarily like the idea of small parties holding the balance of power to dictate national policy. I think shoehorning minor coalitions into the grand coalition is a better way to set national policy.

That may well be the case, but even if so, it has nothing to do with the Electoral College, as the president is a single individual.

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And I've counter-addressed it.

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There's no basis for that presumption, however.

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Thomas Jefferson is the founder of the Democratic Party in the same way Moses wrote the book of Deuteronomy. In other words, he wasn't. We know this because he died in 1826 and the Democratic Party wasn't founded until 1828. What Democrats mean is that he is a figurative founder of the party by being a predecessor with similar politics. But that does not mean that his coalition was the same as Jackson's coalition.

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The Democratic-Republicans split, and only some became Democrats. Others became Whigs. It's true that the Democratic-Republicans and the Democrats came from the same political lineage, but the Democrats' coalition, under a massively expanded franchise, was different from what came before.

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This is true, but having a similar ideology does not mean having the same coalition. Bernie Sanders and Lyndon Johnson have a similar ideology, but very different coalitions. In any case, even if your original point were true, it would have nothing to do with the Electoral College.

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That does not change without the Electoral College, however.

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I never said it's necessarily 51%. Under a runoff or IRV system, the popular vote winner necessarily has a majority of the vote. But even under a single-stage popular vote, there is no threshold below which it is possible for a winner to fall, that is not also possible for a winner to fall under the Electoral College system. A winner can win with 35% of the vote under the Electoral College system, as well.

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Well you have now, but I've rebutted them again.

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I disagree.

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That is true, but you can hit 270 with 35% of the vote as well.

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He does not necessarily have to expand his coalition. He would win with 46% again. Obviously no one can predict the future, but what we can say with certainty is that it's well within possibility in the Electoral College system.

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Because it is broken.

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But you have presented no logical arguments to show why it encourages stability, or creates two coalitions. Some of your statements have been true, but would also be true under a popular vote system. You can definitely win the Presidency with 35% of the vote if the other parties split, under an Electoral College system.

[The_Doctor]

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Uh, the point, Beet, was that the Electoral College creates the need for broad coalitions, not for a narrow majority + requiring you to appeal to a crazy North Irish party. The problem, in my view, with parliamentary systems (and I'm not deriding them, they work fine) is that I'm not comfortable with a coalition being assembled that wasn't necessarily what voters wanted. I prefer to get what I voted for, not necessarily vote for a niche party and hope that I get into a coalition that will achieve some of my goals.

But the larger point is that the EC forces the creation of two parties. Indeed, in most parliamentary democracies, there are multiple parties. For the sake of our argument, we should stick to the American democratic experiment, however.

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Not really useful to our central argument; so I'm not going to deal with this. The evidence is that since record keeping began in 1820s and the states voted to send electors as a bloc, the College has done a very good job in forcing coalitions.

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That ... that's not true. If you look at the election maps of 1800 and 1828, the Jefferson - Jackson maps are fairly consistent and similar, rooted in the South. The Democratic Party was rooted in the Southern frontiersman populists and farmers. You'll notice Jefferson and Jackson won the most westernmost frontiers states as well. So you're wrong.

The Democratic Party honors him as an ideological founder the same way the Republicans honor Lincoln. His death date does not factor into the argument.

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That's not accurate. The Democratic-Republicans split into two groups because they had absorbed everyone after the death of the Federalists. But the Whigs were from the Federalists and later became the GOP. The Democrats expanded their coalition in 1828 under the new laws but they weren't intrinsically different from Jefferson's Democratic-Republican coalition.

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Beet, have you considered that your points don't have anything to do with the College and you tend to digress? I've been rebutting your digressions because they're interesting, but you keep thinking they're centered around your main point. They're not. 

I've defended the Jefferson-Jackson thing here, anyway.

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Read the point again. And read what I've said about the Electoral College in this thread. Or read the answer below the next quoted block.

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Let me explain this. The popular vote by itself allows you to win with 35% alone. The EC forces you to create a coalition that by nature facing a singular opposing coalition - that by definition raises your popular vote floor to above 35% to avoid a House vote. It's a bad idea to require our votes to (in my view) be at a minimum of 35%; the EC kind of raises the floor.

The rest of your statements are kind of just "I think therefore I am right" statements so I'm not addressing them. I think I've addressed the main thrust of your arguments.

Let's just stick to why the EC is essential versus why not.

[Beet]

Uh, the point, Beet, was that the Electoral College creates the need for broad coalitions, not for a narrow majority + requiring you to appeal to a crazy North Irish party. The problem, in my view, with parliamentary systems (and I'm not deriding them, they work fine) is that I'm not comfortable with a coalition being assembled that wasn't necessarily what voters wanted. I prefer to get what I voted for, not necessarily vote for a niche party and hope that I get into a coalition that will achieve some of my goals.

But the larger point is that the EC forces the creation of two parties. Indeed, in most parliamentary democracies, there are multiple parties. For the sake of our argument, we should stick to the American democratic experiment, however.

I'm not saying we should switch to a parliamentary democracy, I'm saying we should switch to national popular vote. The two-party system is as alive and well in gubernatorial elections, where there is no electoral college and governors are elected by the popular vote, as it is in presidential elections. You keep asserting it's the EC that forces the creation of two parties, but you haven't been able to defend that point.

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Well, that's fair enough. I won't respond to the points about history then, since I agree they're digressions. We'll agree to disagree.

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It does? If you win 33% of every state, and three other candidates get about 22% each, then you win the electoral college with at least 535 electoral votes, no? Maybe we just disagree about facts, but I'm pretty sure this is how it is. The EC doesn't force a floor.

[The_Doctor]

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I thought I did.

I am arguing the Electoral College, by dint of how it is constructed, requires the creation of two broad coalitions. Why? It's pretty simple. It's more efficient to have two parties in every state advocating one presidential candidate. It's easier than the Green Party of Massachusetts, the Socialist Party of California, and the Democratic Party of Georgia holding multiple conventions to agree on the same candidate for the Left and the Constitution Party of Idaho, the Southern Evangelical Republican Party of Florida, and the Libertarian Party of Texas joining to nominate a conservative candidate.

Therefore, by dint of agreeing on a presidential candidate, it's just easier to organize downballot with a Republican and Democratic candidate rather than multiple candidates. It makes very little logistical sense to not organize with the same Presidential candidate (who would be the President and leading that coalition). I think that the Electoral College reinforces and creates this dynamic.

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Well, remember that not every state will see 33%. In fact, you will get wildly varying figures in different states (1912 is a good example of this). So, usually, the EC will mean that you will probably organize and have two parties at roughly 80-100% of the vote. The EC probably means that to avoid a House runoff, you try to maximise your vote, and that leads to coalitions.

[Beet]

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I thought I did.

I am arguing the Electoral College, by dint of how it is constructed, requires the creation of two broad coalitions. Why? It's pretty simple. It's more efficient to have two parties in every state advocating one presidential candidate. It's easier than the Green Party of Massachusetts, the Socialist Party of California, and the Democratic Party of Georgia holding multiple conventions to agree on the same candidate for the Left and the Constitution Party of Idaho, the Southern Evangelical Republican Party of Florida, and the Libertarian Party of Texas joining to nominate a conservative candidate.

Therefore, by dint of agreeing on a presidential candidate, it's just easier to organize downballot with a Republican and Democratic candidate rather than multiple candidates. It makes very little logistical sense to not organize with the same Presidential candidate (who would be the President and leading that coalition). I think that the Electoral College reinforces and creates this dynamic.

The Electoral College does not reinforce this dynamic. As evidence, let us do a thought experiment and remove the Electoral College. Is it suddenly efficient for the Green Party of Massachusetts, the Socialist Party of California, and the Democratic Party of Georgia to organize separately? Or the Constitution Party of Idaho, the Southern Evangelical Republican Party of Florida, and the Libertarian Party of Texas? No, it is not. It is still not efficient. You still must organize nationally in order to win. This is true in a national popular vote system, as well. Once again, let's take the analogy for gubernatorial elections. Do you see the Constitution Party of Loudon County, Virginia, the Libertarian Party of Tidwater, Virginia, and the Nationalist Party of Roanoke, Virginia, organizing separately? No, you don't. To the extent that third parties run for governor, they still organize statewide. There are still broadly two coalitions for the 2017 Virginia governor's election. Putting a "college" of unelected electors between the voter and the outcome doesn't change this aspect of the calculus.

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Well true, but you don't need 535, either. 1912 is a perfectly good example... Wilson won despite having only 42% of the vote, and it is very likely (although I haven't done the calculation) that he would have won if you dropped him to 35% of the vote and split the 7% drop-off between TR and Taft. That would prove my point that you can easily win with just 35% of the vote in the EC system, as well.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

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I thought I did.

I am arguing the Electoral College, by dint of how it is constructed, requires the creation of two broad coalitions. Why? It's pretty simple. It's more efficient to have two parties in every state advocating one presidential candidate. It's easier than the Green Party of Massachusetts, the Socialist Party of California, and the Democratic Party of Georgia holding multiple conventions to agree on the same candidate for the Left and the Constitution Party of Idaho, the Southern Evangelical Republican Party of Florida, and the Libertarian Party of Texas joining to nominate a conservative candidate.

Therefore, by dint of agreeing on a presidential candidate, it's just easier to organize downballot with a Republican and Democratic candidate rather than multiple candidates. It makes very little logistical sense to not organize with the same Presidential candidate (who would be the President and leading that coalition). I think that the Electoral College reinforces and creates this dynamic.

The Electoral College does not reinforce this dynamic. As evidence, let us do a thought experiment and remove the Electoral College. Is it suddenly efficient for the Green Party of Massachusetts, the Socialist Party of California, and the Democratic Party of Georgia to organize separately? Or the Constitution Party of Idaho, the Southern Evangelical Republican Party of Florida, and the Libertarian Party of Texas? No, it is not. It is still not efficient. You still must organize nationally in order to win. This is true in a national popular vote system, as well. Once again, let's take the analogy for gubernatorial elections. Do you see the Constitution Party of Loudon County, Virginia, the Libertarian Party of Tidwater, Virginia, and the Nationalist Party of Roanoke, Virginia, organizing separately? No, you don't. To the extent that third parties run for governor, they still organize statewide. There are still broadly two coalitions for the 2017 Virginia governor's election. Putting a "college" of unelected electors between the voter and the outcome doesn't change this aspect of the calculus.

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Well true, but you don't need 535, either. 1912 is a perfectly good example... Wilson won despite having only 42% of the vote, and it is very likely (although I haven't done the calculation) that he would have won if you dropped him to 35% of the vote and split the 7% drop-off between TR and Taft. That would prove my point that you can easily win with just 35% of the vote in the EC system, as well.

Yup.

. With 284 electoral votes, too.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

280, actually.
Map

Woodrow Wilson/Thomas R. Marshall: 34.87%, 280
Theodore Roosevelt/Hiram W. Johnson: 30.89%, 176
William Taft/Nicholas Butler: 26.66%, 75
He would have had to do about a point worse to lose, too.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

Nevada is very, very, very close in this (33.08%-33.04%), and almost certainly spoiled.

[The_Doctor]

Beet, I don't know how else I can explain my position, so we'll agree to disagree.

[Beet]

Beet, I don't know how else I can explain my position, so we'll agree to disagree.

You don't have to? You explained a position, and I rebutted it. I can't make you change your mind, I can only show that your arguments are illogical as presented.

[Beet]

280, actually.
Map

Woodrow Wilson/Thomas R. Marshall: 34.87%, 280
Theodore Roosevelt/Hiram W. Johnson: 30.89%, 176
William Taft/Nicholas Butler: 26.66%, 75
He would have had to do about a point worse to lose, too.

Interesting. I figured as much since he won in 1916 without New York.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

Margins on that map
Nevada: Wilson 33.08%, Roosevelt 33.04% (.04%)
Delaware: Wilson 38.73%, Taft 36.72% (2.01%)
West Virginia: Wilson 35.09%, Roosevelt 32.93% (2.16%)
New York: Wilson 34.39%, Taft 32.12% (2.27%)
Arizona: Wilson 36.27%, Roosevelt 32.92% (3.35%)
Nebraska: Wilson 36.41%, Roosevelt 32.77% (3.64%)
Ohio: Wilson 34.13%, Taft 30.23% (3.90%)
Colorado: Wilson 35.67%, Roosevelt 30.66% (5.01%)
Missouri: Wilson 39.46%, Taft 33.70% (5.76%)
Indiana: Wilson 35.89%, Roosevelt 28.34% (7.55%)
New York is the tipping point state (without WV, NV, and DE, wilson gets 266 electoral votes with roughly 33.5% of the vote.)

[Slander and/or Libel]

This debate was interesting and maddening, but none of it even began to touch on the elephant in the room: winner take all electoral votes. Sure, there's a population disparity, but the real source of almost all of the disparity in the Electoral College is the fact that electoral votes are winner take all.

Also, when The_Doctor said that the Electoral College did a decent job of reflecting the national will, by what metric was he measuring? I see a lot of people defend the popular vote by saying that it usually matches the popular vote. Why would that even matter unless the popular vote were a good standard to use, in which case, why not just use it?

[Mr. Smith]

Really, the EC should reformed to fit the population proportions and NOT by Congressional Districts. Virtual ties could see the winner take the remaining votes left.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I think it's best if we change nothing except for adding a pool of 100 EVs that go to the popular vote. It's a sensible compromise.

[Former President tack50]

This debate was interesting and maddening, but none of it even began to touch on the elephant in the room: winner take all electoral votes. Sure, there's a population disparity, but the real source of almost all of the disparity in the Electoral College is the fact that electoral votes are winner take all.

Also, when The_Doctor said that the Electoral College did a decent job of reflecting the national will, by what metric was he measuring? I see a lot of people defend the popular vote by saying that it usually matches the popular vote. Why would that even matter unless the popular vote were a good standard to use, in which case, why not just use it?

Yup, this is the real issue; electoral votes should be allocated in a proportional basis at the state level. Though that means that more elections would go to the House. In fact 2016 would have gone to the house; the results would be:

Trump 267
Clinton 265
Johnson 3
Stein 1
McMullin 1

Similarly doing a quick count for 2000 it would also go to the house:

Bush 261
Gore 263
Nader 12