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The Electoral College Will Destroy America

Rogue Valley

Lead or get out of the way
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The Electoral College Will Destroy America | The New York Times

And no, New York and California would not dominate a popular vote.

67e98530-1f76-11e9-9c64-c9c78a3d50c7-rimg-w526-h295-gmir.jpg

9/8/20
Last week, Nate Silver, the polling analyst, tweeted a chart illustrating the chances that Joe Biden would become president if he wins the most votes in November. The “if” is probably unnecessary. It’s hard to find anyone who disputes that Mr. Biden will win the most votes. This isn’t a liberal’s fantasy. In a recent panel discussion among four veteran Republican campaign managers, one acknowledged, “We’re going to lose the popular vote.” Another responded, “Oh, that’s a given.” The real question is will Mr. Biden win enough more votes than President Trump to overcome this year’s bias in the Electoral College. Mr. Silver’s analysis is bracing. If Mr. Biden wins by five percentage points or more — if he beats Donald Trump by more than seven million votes — he’s a virtual shoo-in. If he wins 4.5 million more votes than the president? He’s still got a three-in-four chance to be president. Anything less, however, and Mr. Biden’s odds drop like a rock. A mere three million-vote Biden victory? A second Trump term suddenly becomes more likely than not. If Mr. Biden’s margin drops to 1.5 million — about the populations of Rhode Island and Wyoming combined — forget about it. The chance of a Biden presidency in that scenario is less than one in 10.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me really angry. Yes, I am aware that the United States has never elected its president by a direct popular vote; I wrote a whole book about it. I still cannot fathom why, in a representative democracy based on the principle that all votes are equal, the person who wins the most votes can — and does, repeatedly — lose the most consequential election in the land. The Electoral College as it functions today is the most glaring reminder of many that our democracy is not fair, not equal and not representative. No other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like it, and for good reason. The election, as Mr. Trump would say — though not for the right reasons — is rigged. Every time a new national poll on the presidential election is released, it’s followed by a chorus of responses along the lines of, Who cares? The national popular vote is meaningless. Well, I care. So do tens of millions of other Americans. And so does Donald Trump. “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy,” he tweeted on election night 2012. Why? Because he believed Mitt Romney would win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College. Not only has he never taken that tweet down, but he continues to claim that he won the popular vote in 2016. Why does he care so much about making that case unless he believed in his heart, like the rest of us do, that the person who gets the most votes should win?

No other democratic country in the world uses a mechanism such as the EC. It is an anachronism and needs to be tossed onto the ash heap of history.
 
The arguments for the EC are based on nothing but fluff.

They will say "Oh but the founders never wanted big cities to choose" or that they didn't want the "tyranny of the majority".

But how is that objectively better or worse than the tyranny of Florida or Ohio?

Election after election.

It doesn't make any sense as an argument, the peoples voice is not being heard, now I don't even support a straight shot FPTP either, I believe in proportional representation.

But the EC is an affront to Democratic Values, it's stupid, it's ridiculous and nothing but weirdo, delusional "Founding Father" worshippers buy into it, they were just people, not everything they said or did was gold, including the EC.
 
The Electoral College Will Destroy America | The New York Times

And no, New York and California would not dominate a popular vote.

67e98530-1f76-11e9-9c64-c9c78a3d50c7-rimg-w526-h295-gmir.jpg



No other democratic country in the world uses a mechanism such as the EC. It is an anachronism and needs to be tossed onto the ash heap of history.

Well I guess we know your opinion. Now, that's over and we can move on. Instead of worrying about how we elect the President how about Term Limits to get rid of the dead wood in Congress 3, 4, 5 decades of the same old political BS from these folks.
 
We have a mechanism for changing our government, when pieces of it do not work right.
Both sides of the political spectrum have had an opportunity to change the Electoral College,
yet neither has! Perhaps both sides see some advantage in keeping it around!
 
Well I guess we know your opinion. Now, that's over and we can move on. Instead of worrying about how we elect the President how about Term Limits to get rid of the dead wood in Congress 3, 4, 5 decades of the same old political BS from these folks.

The problem isn't term limits.

The problem isn't necessarily the politicians themselves.

It's like someone in a very corrupt country, that wants to be a policeman to catch the bad guys, joins up and realizes the police are the criminals on the payroll of Narcos or whatever... Was his intentions bad?

The problem is the entire political structure and more than anything else... Campaign Finance.

If you institute term limits, all that will happen is corporations and wealthy people will create candidate factories, line up who they want to serve their interests for their term for a handsome payout or board membership afterwards, if they have one term, they don't have to worry about re-election and can make even worse decisions in favour of the wealthy and corporations.

That's the way I see it.
 
Get rid of the Electoral College, move to a 66% threshold, adopt ranked choice voting, and implement instant run-off elections.
 
The Electoral College Will Destroy America | The New York Times

And no, New York and California would not dominate a popular vote.

67e98530-1f76-11e9-9c64-c9c78a3d50c7-rimg-w526-h295-gmir.jpg



No other democratic country in the world uses a mechanism such as the EC. It is an anachronism and needs to be tossed onto the ash heap of history.
I have little doubt that, if the situation were reversed, some republicans would be crying the same thing, and we would not hear a peep out of dems.

Popular vote could tear the country apart, because most states are conservative, but can’t overcome Cali and NY to get properly represented.

geographic regions need representation, because of different culture/lifestyles.
 
There are many purposes to the EC. The primary one is to prevent any one region controlling the entire country.

It also prevents any state being able to steal the presidency by voting fraud. Even if 100 million fraudulent mail in ballots are used in the Left Coast states, they still can not steal the presidency. Popular vote nationwide would allow nearly ANY state to steal the presidency.
 
There are many purposes to the EC. The primary one is to prevent any one region controlling the entire country.

It also prevents any state being able to steal the presidency by voting fraud. Even if 100 million fraudulent mail in ballots are used in the Left Coast states, they still can not steal the presidency. Popular vote nationwide would allow nearly ANY state to steal the presidency.

Florida stole the Presidency in 2000. The EC failed horribly.
 
The senate gives vastly more voting power to small population states, Wyoming has as much power in the senate as Cali.

That could be fixed by eliminating the arbitrary cap on the size of the House and increasing it until the ratio of Rep to citizen returns to where it was when that cap was created.
 
That could be fixed by eliminating the arbitrary cap on the size of the House and increasing it until the ratio of Rep to citizen returns to where it was when that cap was created.

That would not effect the senate. You would still the same power inequality in the senate.
 
That would not effect the senate. You would still the same power inequality in the senate.

It would correct the overall power inequality. The issue is not that the Senate has unequal popular representation. The issue is that the House does and it only gets worse every single year that the arbitrary cap stays in place.
 
It would correct the overall power inequality. The issue is not that the Senate has unequal popular representation. The issue is that the House does and it only gets worse every single year that the arbitrary cap stays in place.

But if unequal voting power is a problem, which seems to be the OP premise, then the senate is a problem.
 
But if unequal voting power is a problem, which seems to be the OP premise, then the senate is a problem.

The issue is with the EC, where votes are allocated to states based on their number of Senators AND REPRESENTATIVES.
 
First, the Electoral College [EC] has had over 230 years to 'destroy' the country. The last time I looked outside the door, the country was still there. So much for that nonsense.

There is a problem which relates to the EC, though. It's one peculiar to republics as opposed to simpler forms of democracies. It's the inability to provide both equal representation of states and equal representation of citizens. It's either one state, one voice or one man, one vote. The framers of the Constitution, primarily drawn from the upper strata of the citizenry, chose one way of taking a position. Others, such as a 'pure' democracy or the use of lotteries*, were available but not chosen.

Regards, stay safe 'n well. Remember the Big 3: masks, hand washing and physical distancing.


* Ancient Athens, looked to as the birthplace of democracy by some, made heavy use of selection by lot. The sole remnant of that in modern democracies/republics is the selection of juries.
 
Oh boy. A "Get rid of the Electoral College" thread.

Probably one in a million that will be started from now until November....or January 2021. Depending on who wins.
 
The senate gives vastly more voting power to small population states, Wyoming has as much power in the senate as Cali.

How much more power would that be exactly?
 
The issue is with the EC, where votes are allocated to states based on their number of Senators AND REPRESENTATIVES.

but the rationale thst it’s actually an “issue” is that it gives unequal power to some states in choosing the president, disproportionately to their small population size.

The senate gives the same disproportionate power to states in deciding legislation.
 
but the rationale thst it’s actually an “issue” is that it gives unequal power to some states in choosing the president, disproportionately to their small population size.

The senate gives the same disproportionate power to states in deciding legislation.

No it doesn't. The power is only unequal because the part of Congress meant to represent population is arbitrarily capped and has been for over a hundred years.
 
:lamo

The EC has been in place since the inception of the nation. But NOW its going to destroy America.

You people just woke up, didnt you? You just realized you picked a **** candidate and you have been fanning the flames of racial hatred and violence and its about to bite you in the ass.

:lamo
 
The Electoral College Will Destroy America | The New York Times

And no, New York and California would not dominate a popular vote.

67e98530-1f76-11e9-9c64-c9c78a3d50c7-rimg-w526-h295-gmir.jpg



No other democratic country in the world uses a mechanism such as the EC. It is an anachronism and needs to be tossed onto the ash heap of history.

thread number 226 on the EC and why it is bad....

after all of this time, and all of these threads....you cant figure out what needs to be done to change it?

it hasnt changed.....still the same thing as the last thread, and the one before that, and the one before that, ad infinitum

if so many agree with you, it shouldnt be hard, RIGHT?

so get to the changing, and stop with the bitching....
 
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