Should The Electoral College Be Done Away With?

[iliveonramen]

If the president is elected by the cities the he represents them. We already have this problem in California. I live in a mainly rural area and the cities and state keep taking the water we need and have PAID for and diverting it to themselves or to the sea which is worse. The founders went round and round on this very issue.

That is a good point...but what should happen? So a rural district should have a much higher level of representation per person that a rural district (or state?). That even if a vast amount of tax dollars is raised by densely populated urban areas the money should be going equally to both rural and urban?

US transportation dollars is an example of this. Mass Transit has so many benefits, less congested roads and lower dependence on fuel, yet the Federal Government doesn't do much to support it. With upgraded mass transit in some geographic areas you would improve the situation for 10's of millions of folk. Getting funding though is pulling teeth. Granted infrastructure spending period has been lacking but there's a lot of positives associated with mass transit.

 

[mvymvy]

80% of the states and people have been merely spectators to presidential elections. They have no influence. That's more than 85 million voters, 200 million Americans, ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.

During the course of campaigns, candidates are educated and campaign about the local, regional, and state issues most important to the handful of battleground states they need to win. They take this knowledge and prioritization with them once they are elected. Candidates need to be educated and care about all of our states.

The number and population of battleground states is shrinking.

Policies important to the citizens of non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to the handful of ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.

Charlie Cook reported in 2004:
“Senior Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday that the Bush campaign hadn’t taken a national poll in almost two years; instead, it has been polling [in the then] 18 battleground states.” [only 10 in 2012]

Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer acknowledging the reality that [then] more than 2/3rds of Americans were ignored in the 2008 presidential campaign, said in the Washington Post on June 21, 2009:
“If people don’t like it, they can move from a safe state to a swing state.”

The winner-take-all rule adversely affects governance. Sitting Presidents (whether contemplating their own re-election or the election of their preferred successor) pay inordinate attention to the interests of “battleground” states.
** “Battleground” states receive over 7% more grants than other states.
** “Battleground” states receive 5% more grant dollars.
** A “battleground” state can expect to receive twice as many presidential disaster declarations as an uncompetitive state.
** The locations of Superfund enforcement actions also reflect a state’s battleground status.
** Federal exemptions from the No Child Left Behind law have been characterized as “‘no swing state left behind.”

The effect of the current winner-take-all system on governance is discussed at length in Presidential Pork by Dr. John Hudak of the Brookings Institution.

Compare the response to hurricane Katrina (in Louisiana, a "safe" state) to the federal response to hurricanes in Florida (a "swing" state) under Presidents of both parties. President Obama took more interest in the BP oil spill, once it reached Florida's shores, after it had first reached Louisiana. Some pandering policy examples include ethanol subsidies, Steel Tariffs, and Medicare Part D. Policies not given priority, include those most important to non-battleground states - like water issues in the west, and Pacific Rim trade issues.

As of June 7, 2012 “Six current heavily traveled Cabinet members, have made more than 85 trips this year to electoral battlegrounds such as Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a POLITICO review of public speeches and news clippings. Those swing-state visits represent roughly half of all travel for those six Cabinet officials this year.”

 

[mvymvy]

In 2012, about 80% of the country was ignored --including 24 of the 27 lowest population and medium-small states, and 13 medium and big states like CA, GA, NY, and TX.

None of the 10 most rural states (VT, ME, WV, MS, SD, AR, MT, ND, AL, and KY) is a battleground state.
They are politically irrelevant in presidential elections.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes does not enhance the influence of rural states, because the most rural states are not battleground states, and they are ignored. When and where voters are ignored, then so are the issues they care about most.

Support for a national popular vote in rural states: VT–75%, ME–77%, WV–81%, MS–77%, SD–75%, AR–80%, MT–72%, KY–80%, NH–69%, IA–75%,SC–71%, NC–74%, TN–83%, WY–69%, OK–81%, AK–70%, ID–77%, WI–71%, MO–70%, and NE–74%.

Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state, presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are non-competitive in presidential elections. 6 regularly vote Republican (AK, ID, MT, WY, ND, and SD), and 6 regularly vote Democratic (RI, DE, HI, VT, ME, and DC) in presidential elections. Voters in states that are reliably red or blue don't matter. Candidates ignore those states and the issues they care about most.

Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK -70%, DC -76%, DE --75%, ID -77%, ME - 77%, MT- 72%, NE - 74%, NH--69%, NE - 72%, NM - 76%, RI - 74%, SD- 71%, UT- 70%, VT - 75%, WV- 81%, and WY- 69%.

Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in nine state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.

 

[haymarket]

how many states did not count absentee ballots after the margin was too much for the losing candidate to overcome

Turtle - as you are concerned about counting absentee ballots and the 2000 election, I was trying to find the evidence of what you claimed earlier. I did locate this

Did Illegal Overseas Absentee Ballots Decide the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election? | Gary King

It is a very in depth look at why Florida was awarded to Bush and apparently it involved absentee ballots for Bush which should NOT have been counted. The entire study also may be accessed via a link at the end of the short description.

Abstract:
Although not widely known until much later, Al Gore received 202 more votes than George W. Bush on election day in Florida. George W. Bush is president because he overcame his election day deficit with overseas absentee ballots that arrived and were counted after election day. In the final official tally, Bush received 537 more votes than Gore. These numbers are taken from the official results released by the Florida Secretary of State's office and so do not reflect overvotes, undervotes, unsuccessful litigation, butterfly ballot problems, recounts that might have been allowed but were not, or any other hypothetical divergence between voter preferences and counted votes. After the election, the New York Times conducted a six month long investigation and found that 680 of the overseas absentee ballots were illegally counted, and no partisan, pundit, or academic has publicly disagreed with their assessment. In this paper, we describe the statistical procedures we developed and implemented for the Times to ascertain whether disqualifying these 680 ballots would have changed the outcome of the election. The methods involve adding formal Bayesian model averaging procedures to King's (1997) ecological inference model. Formal Bayesian model averaging has not been used in political science but is especially useful when substantive conclusions depend heavily on apparently minor but indefensible model choices, when model generalization is not feasible, and when potential critics are more partisan than academic. We show how we derived the results for the Times so that other scholars can use these methods to make ecological inferences for other purposes. We also present a variety of new empirical results that delineate the precise conditions under which Al Gore would have been elected president, and offer new evidence of the striking effectiveness of the Republican effort to convince local election officials to count invalid ballots in Bush counties and not count them in Gore counties.

 

[TurtleDude]

Turtle - as you are concerned about counting absentee ballots and the 2000 election, I was trying to find the evidence of what you claimed earlier. I did locate this

Did Illegal Overseas Absentee Ballots Decide the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election? | Gary King

It is a very in depth look at why Florida was awarded to Bush and apparently it involved absentee ballots for Bush which should NOT have been counted. The entire study also may be accessed via a link at the end of the short description.

we could spend hours complaining about the election-like liberal news anchors calling Florida for GORE before the GOP heavy pan handle had finished voting. Or all the votes that call cost Bush in Central time, mountain time and pacific time zone areas.

Al Gore would have lost again if the supreme Court had imposed his demands on Florida

I am curious, who did Gary King support in the 2000 election?

 

[Hard Truth]

I support democracy, so I oppose the electoral college and support direct elections. The reason I support democracy (with protections for the rights of minorities and dissenters) isn't because the people will always make the right decision, rather it is because it is the only process that is fair to all. A fair process results in a public that feels they were given a reasonable deal, reducing cynicism and social unrest.

The intent of the Founding fathers means little to me. A larger percentage of the population is literate and few consider it acceptable to limit voting to land owning white men.

 

[AlabamaPaul]

I support democracy, so I oppose the electoral college and support direct elections. The reason I support democracy (with protections for the rights of minorities and dissenters) isn't because the people will always make the right decision, rather it is because it is the only process that is fair to all. A fair process results in a public that feels they were given a reasonable deal, reducing cynicism and social unrest.

The intent of the Founding fathers means little to me. A larger percentage of the population is literate and few consider acceptable to limit voting to land owning white men.

A democracy is inherently prejudicial against minorities and dissenters...

 

[haymarket]

we could spend hours complaining about the election-like liberal news anchors calling Florida for GORE before the GOP heavy pan handle had finished voting. Or all the votes that call cost Bush in Central time, mountain time and pacific time zone areas.

Al Gore would have lost again if the supreme Court had imposed his demands on Florida

I am curious, who did Gary King support in the 2000 election?

In my posts, I listed some evidence of absentee ballot problems that you are concerned about in the 2000 election. Was that the evidence you were referring to earlier?

Why do you wonder who Gary King voted for? Why is that relevant?

What Bush votes are you referring to?

 

[Hard Truth]

A democracy is inherently prejudicial against minorities and dissenters...

A democracy can be prejudicial against minorities and dissenters, that doesn't mean it will be.

That is one of the reasons for the Bill of Rights and other human rights protections that have become law.

There is no reason to think that a system that gives power to elites will be any less prejudicial against minorities and dissenters.

 

[TurtleDude]

In my posts, I listed some evidence of absentee ballot problems that you are concerned about in the 2000 election. Was that the evidence you were referring to earlier?

Why do you wonder who Gary King voted for? Why is that relevant?

What Bush votes are you referring to?

because King's "analysis" appears to be nothing more than a liberal academic trying to "prove" that Bush wasn't the real president

He started with a goal and works backward to try to prove his analysis

 

[haymarket]

because King's "analysis" appears to be nothing more than a liberal academic trying to "prove" that Bush wasn't the real president

He started with a goal and works backward to try to prove his analysis

You object to his conclusion. Okay. But what specifically in his analysis do you question? Point out his errors.

YOu say he worked backwards - why is that relevant and can you prove that? And if he did - so what? How does that negate his research?

here is the article for your convenience

http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/ballots.pdf

Please be specific as to where he went wrong and why.

His choice of candidate has nothing to do with his evidence. Are you saying that only Bush voters can hold forth on the election results and only they have any credibility?

King hinges his findings on this piece of hard evidence

In one of the longest sets of articles ever published by the Times, the news organization concluded that 680 of the overseas absentee ballots that had been counted by Florida counties unambiguously violated one or more aspects of Florida election law and, by any reasonable interpretation of the law, should have been discarded. Indeed, after the Times story appeared, commentators and partisans from both sides accepted these factual claims.2

That is a cut and dried statement of fact and violation of the law. It has nothing to do with who he voted for or what his politics are.

and this seems very damning to the Bush win

Rather, according to the Times, the overseas ballot problem was due to blatantly illegal actions on the part of local election officials, encouraged by Republicans, that had not been previously noticed. The Times argued that these local officials were influenced by the deliberate political strategies employed by the Bush campaign and by comparative neglect from the Democrats.3 The Times concluded that “under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with the state laws.”4

Is this the evidence of absentee ballot problems which you referred to earlier because I can find nothing else on this subject (other than the TIME article I also linked to) that even comes close to what you suggested in your earlier post #184

we don't know who won the popular vote since millions of votes were NOT counted in states where the margin would not have changed

What evidence of ballot problems were you referring to?

 

[Dittohead not!]

i dont give two flying flips on what the country was founded on. those people are dead.

You and a significant portion of the people we've sent to Washington.

 

[TurtleDude]

You object to his conclusion. Okay. But what specifically in his analysis do you question? Point out his errors.

YOu say he worked backwards - why is that relevant and can you prove that? And if he did - so what? How does that negate his research?

here is the article for your convenience

http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/ballots.pdf

Please be specific as to where he went wrong and why.

His choice of candidate has nothing to do with his evidence. Are you saying that only Bush voters can hold forth on the election results and only they have any credibility?

Is this the evidence of absentee ballot problems which you referred to earlier because I can find nothing else on this subject (other than the TIME article I also linked to) that even comes close to what you suggested in your earlier post #184



What evidence of ballot problems were you referring to?

given his analysis would be nothing more than a discussion topic, what do you think his goal was for trying to prove "gore won"

1) to undermine Bush

2) to discredit Bush

3) to make Bush haters feel better

 

[haymarket]

given his analysis would be nothing more than a discussion topic, what do you think his goal was for trying to prove "gore won"

1) to undermine Bush

2) to discredit Bush

3) to make Bush haters feel better

I have no idea - nor do I care as it has nothing to do with the evidence he presented. I ask you what specifically is wrong with the specific evidence he presented in his analysis?

What evidence do you have when you earlier referred to ballot problems of millions of votes not counted?

 

[TurtleDude]

I have no idea - nor do I care as it has nothing to do with the evidence he presented. I ask you what specifically is wrong with the specific evidence he presented in his analysis?

What evidence do you have when you earlier referred to ballot problems of millions of votes not counted?

I couldn't care less. Bush won, Gore lost and those who claim the system "failed" tend to be bitter Gore supporters

 

[haymarket]

I couldn't care less. Bush won, Gore lost and those who claim the system "failed" tend to be bitter Gore supporters

I am not asking you if you care or not. That is your own private matter.

What I am asking you is

1 - you criticize the King analysis but you fail to point out where his evidence is factually incorrect. Do you have any such instances of faulty evidence in his analysis to report?
2- you previously referred to millions of ballots not counted -

we don't know who won the popular vote since millions of votes were NOT counted in states where the margin would not have changed

do you have evidence of this? I looked for it today and could find nothing which supports your claim.

I am retiring for the night. I look forward to examining any evidence you may present on either matter tomorrow.

 

[Hard Truth]

I couldn't care less. Bush won, Gore lost and those who claim the system "failed" tend to be bitter Gore supporters

If you support democracy a victory for a presidential candidate who did not win the popular vote is a system failure, even if it is by design.

 

[TurtleDude]

If you support democracy a victory for a presidential candidate who did not win the popular vote is a system failure, even if it is by design.

I don't support "democracy". I support a constitutional republic. those who whine that Bush won are akin to those who think total points ought to determine the winner of a Table tennis, squash or tennis match. Indeed, many pundits believe that Bush was going to win the popular vote and Gore the electoral college and the Dem spin machine had started to work on how to handle that scenario

BTW Al Gore lost his own home state which was not normally hard core GOP. That alone says something

 

[haymarket]

If you support democracy a victory for a presidential candidate who did not win the popular vote is a system failure, even if it is by design.

Which is why the system itself is flawed no matter how it functions since the spectre is always looming of a president who the people said NO to.

 

[haymarket]

I don't support "democracy". I support a constitutional republic. those who whine that Bush won are akin to those who think total points ought to determine the winner of a Table tennis, squash or tennis match.

Just because those activities have a screwed up system of awarding victory does not justify another screwed up system.

You do not win a football game for winning three quarters..... or a hockey game for winning two periods ..... or a baseball game for winning five innings.

 

[TurtleDude]

Just because those activities have a screwed up system of awarding victory does not justify another screwed up system.

You do not win a football game for winning three quarters..... or a hockey game for winning two periods ..... or a baseball game for winning five innings.

is not a screwed up system. And you are making a silly analogy which has no relevance. Bush won more electoral college votes. he won, Gorebot lost and only the sore-loserman whiners tried to argue that the popular vote ought to matter. It doesn't anymore than the total score matters in Tennis (sets), table tennis and squash (Games). Both Gore and Bush knew the system and played to win under the rules

 

[haymarket]

is not a screwed up system. And you are making a silly analogy which has no relevance. Bush won more electoral college votes. he won, Gorebot lost and only the sore-loserman whiners tried to argue that the popular vote ought to matter. It doesn't anymore than the total score matters in Tennis (sets), table tennis and squash (Games). Both Gore and Bush knew the system and played to win under the rules

It was you who brought up the analogy - I merely pointed out the error of it.

It is worth noting - that the three sports you brought up in your analogy - tennis, table tennis and squash all come from Europe - more specifically England playing a major role. Here in the good old red white and blue USA we prefer winners that are clear cut based on who garnered the most points or runs or goals and flush all that other nonsense.

Its about time we applied that to the one elected office in this country that is NOT based on who gets the most votes of the people.

 

[TurtleDude]

It was you who brought up the analogy - I merely pointed out the error of it.

It is worth noting - that the three sports you brought up in your analogy - tennis, table tennis and squash all come from Europe - more specifically England playing a major role. Here in the good old red white and blue USA we prefer winners that are clear cut based on who garnered the most points or runs or goals and flush all that other nonsense.

Its about time we applied that to the one elected office in this country that is NOT based on who gets the most votes of the people.

well you are not accurate. here in the USA the FOUNDERS set up a system where the person who won the MOST state electors wins. Nice try but fail

I made no error-you insinuated that a system failed when Gorebot lost. The system didn't fail

 

[Hard Truth]

No it didn't fail. we don't know who won the popular vote since millions of votes were NOT counted in states where the margin would not have changed

I haven't heard of that. Link?

 

[haymarket]

well you are not accurate. here in the USA the FOUNDERS set up a system where the person who won the MOST state electors wins. Nice try but fail

I made no error-you insinuated that a system failed when Gorebot lost. The system didn't fail

Of course that is well known that the system was set up with the possibility of picking the popular vote LOSER. That is the point of people pointing out the major FAULT with it.

The FAIL you refer to is the system that was set up.

Your ERROR was in comparing it to ridiculous scoring in games like tennis and squash - European imports which also run against the grain of American winner take all methodologies.