What's your honest opinion of the US electoral college? Is it an outdated relic like it's critics say or is it working as intended to strike a balance of power.
Is the Direct Democracy of "one man one vote" really the better alternative for the country
The British colonial aristocracy wouldn't let the States ratify the Constitution without a good old boys club having the final say.
We already have the direct election of representatives and senators, governors and state legislatures. The next logical step is the popular election of the president and vice president.
It was a precondition for the adoption of the US constitution. Trying to change it without going through one of the constitutionally mandated ways will trigger the breakup of the Union.
Good, keeps the regional party from dominating the entire country. Republicans may be permanently locked out from a popular vote win despite winning 60% of the states due to states like California.
I agree with the idea, but it needs to be reformed.
I'd say each state gets 1 votes, no more, no less. All states in the Union being equal in any federal matter.
So this fixes two issues
>Popular vote determines if a state as a whole goes red, blue, yellow, and what not
>It fucks over California.
This way it's popular vote via states, it represents what the states as a whole wants, instead of the population centers (Cities).
Besides I like it, it keeps the balance of power... relatively in check. Think about it, the popular vote would essentially be dominated by a hand full of cities, like DC, San Diego, LA, Chicago, and so on...
One of the points of our system was to prevent the 51% from oppressing the 49%. Overall it's meant to keep mob rule at bay.
The electoral college vs. popular vote is like nationalism vs. globalism. If there was just a popular vote, people in low population areas would have no say over how they were governed. City people would dictate their lives entirely from afar. There would be no representation for people in low population states. Power would be centralized in a few cities ruling from afar. It would be like saying that low population countries in the EU shouldn't matter if they are outvoted by other high population countries far away.
The electoral college is another way to respect the rights of people to live how they want locally. To ensure that a distant power doesn't run their lives for them. Same reason we have states at all. States rights have largely been undermined by federal power to a far greater extent than was ever intended. America was supposed to be more of a confederacy than a homogenized whole. The electoral college is just one small area that acts as a counterbalance to that.
direct democracy would be a fucking disaster. it's always been a disaster and never works.
>We already have the direct election of representatives and senators, governors and state legislatures. The next logical step is the popular election of the president and vice president.
Well depends on your veiw of the role federal government. Should the role of president really be the supreme representative of the people or simply the representative of the representatives of the people?
One man one vote would unironically solve everything
Based aussie. The president represents the states, not the people.
>All states in the Union being equal in any federal matter.
Because the people of Maine should have an equal say to everyone in Texas?
Want to make the EC modern, fair and effective? End winner take all voting. If 40% of the people voted one way and 60% the other, the winner shouldn't get to speak with 100% of the vote they should get a proportional vote. So all the conservatives in CA and NY get some say just like all the lefties in Texas should get some say.
Or at the very least if you insist on the current system then offer to let the massive western states subdivide to sizes like the east coast states did.
Well the main issue is the population imbalance. The creation of the Union was meant to give all members a say in government. (Hints the great compromise)
In summery
>Small states need a vote.say in government in all levels
>Big states would dominate any forum of direct democracy in most cases
>All the "fly over" states would get assed fuck by Texas, California, Maryland, New York, and so on....
It would be like saying that low population countries in the EU shouldn't matter if they are outvoted by other high population countries far away.
Speaking of has there ever be a "1 state 1 vote" push?
That could work, but each state would need ~10 representatives give or take. (no matter the population)
>10% of the vote = 1 representative
You can do it with just 2. If you get at least 50% then you get a vote, if you get 76% then you get 2.
In the end it's massively more fair than winner takes all when 51% commands all the votes in most states.
>Speaking of has there ever be a "1 state 1 vote" push?
Poland Lithuania tried that and gave everyone (voting lord as it was) a veto. It failed comically.
what's going on in france is a perfect example of what happens when you let big cities dictate laws for the entire country
Protects the minority from the tranny of the majority.
The US doesn't need California nut jobs deciding what happens for the rest of the country.
We can give up on a republic if those receiving government $$$ give up their vote. So long as those getting gubbmit $$$ can vote for more of it, we need the electoral college and the Senate.
It prevents commiefornia from importing millions of illegals and having them control the national election.
>We can give up on a republic if those receiving government $$$ give up their vote. So long as those getting gubbmit $$$ can vote for more of it, we need the electoral college and the Senate.
Sorry what does making an aristocracy and selecting a King/Queen; Giving up on being a republic have to do with needing an end to voting?
Or did you think Republic means a federation of states that form a nation?
>It prevents commiefornia from importing millions of illegals and having them control the national election.
Although not in every outcome. You could give CA enough population to hold a majority of the EC votes alone. That's unlikely but it's not impossible under the current system.
Electoral college should be kept but done differently. They should do proportional representation to dish out electoral votes.
Yeah, that's about the size of it. I'm honestly somewhat stunned to hear the left piss and moan about a mechanism expressly designed to protect the rights of vulnerable minority groups from mob rule, but whatever.
The reason for 10 is this.
>Be any republican county in California
>Be any democratic county in Texas
So if it's spit up by every 10% then it's possible for a canadet from
Hold up a second here. You think the EC was built to protect a minority of voters? Not as a means to close the massive communication gap of the 18th century?
You vote for your elector who would then travel to the capital to listen to debates prior to the election and then vote on your behalf because it wasn't possible to communicate a presidential election to all the people to make informed votes. Why else do you think you vote for the EC and wait for them to vote later?
>The reason for 10 is this.
>>Be any republican county in California
>>Be any democratic county in Texas
>So if it's spit up by every 10% then it's possible for a canadet from
Why not 100 EC votes then?
Also >So if it's spit up by every 10% then it's possible for a canadet from
Is nonsense. Please try again and check what you wrote before posting.
Liberals want true majority vote. You know who use to have true majority vote? The nazi's!
Fuckkin' gottem.
No. But that is basically how the senate works. Every state gets 2 senators. Wyoming gets 2, and California gets 2. The house representation is supposed to be based on population, so the initial intention was to create a balance. Respecting that larger populations should get a larger say via the house, with the senate allowing for representation of states with small populations so that their local needs are served. The electoral college is mostly biased to population based outcomes, but tries to strike a balance. If the founders knew how it would turn out, they would probably have put far more stringent checks on federal power in favor of the states.
>The electoral college works when my side wins.
>The electoral college is outdated and broken when my side loses.
It's fine the way it is.
Our Forefathers were brilliant enough to conceive the electoral collage system. It should stay otherwise the large states (NY, TX, CA, IL, OH) would consistently pick our President.
use the system to ones advantage. move to wyoming and montana and make your vote count
I think it's a good thing and it's the only reason the GOP has been able to win the presidency during the last few election cycles. Of course that won't really matter once Texas, Florida, and other deep South states like George turn blue due to demographic change and the GOP cannot ever win the presidency again.
electoral college is fine. The current "critics" are not really critics. For example, when George Bush was running about John Kerry, leftists loved the electoral college cause they thought they could just win Ohio and then suddenly Kerry would triumph over Bush. Now that it doesn't benefit them, they suddenly hate it once again.
Leftists control the narrative and so long as the electoral college hands them a defeat, they will hate it. When it hands them a win, they will run articles on the genius of it.
> commondreams.org
I guess most people here are young. I'm old enough to remember that shit. Leftists were all in favor of the electoral college when they thought they could win with it.
It's a trash system that makes it possible to ignore all of the country in favor of 5-6 swing states because 45% minorities of voters in safe states might as well all kill themselves.
In fairness to the system it's not a requirement by the constitution for the states to be winner take all.
3? states don't.
The system behind it is pretty decent at what it is supposed to be doing which is to make sure that the election of the president is a balance between full popular vote and full state vote. The physical manifestation of electoral college is stupid and outdated.
It does not intend to save rural areas either, you can just win biggest cities in biggest states to get elected.
The part that is completely off balance is the individual state elections to choose who the electors will vote for. It's just a statistically proven bad system. Either STV (to allow other candidates to run without ruining the election) or proportional representation would be much better.
One other thing you may not realize is how decentralized US is. The things that affect your daily life are often related to your local and state government. You don't interact with the federal government as often as you may think. It's just that no one cares that much about actually running things (making policies), so direct democracy doesn't work either.
It's naive to think that abolishing electoral college or doing this or that thing will fix democracy. It's a process.
I think it'd be great to keep the EC but institute proportional allocation of EVs like they do non-pledged delegates in the Party Nomination Primaries. That or split them like Maine & Nebraska do.
I have an honest theory, that I believe if candidates had an electoral incentive to campaign and win even just strong minorities in safe states our national politics would get better. We might also see some interesting results as the majority of US citizens that are non-voters register to turnout in what would otherwise correctly be seen as a kabuki state elections. Maybe Rhode Island, Connecticut, & Delaware go Red while Kansas, Oklahoma, & Idaho go Blue after both being ignored for decades by the other side.
Kennedy and Reagan killed California.
If the electoral college is disbanded by a constitutional amendment, then the federal government has to take over all federal elections. With the electoral college the states keep their right to conduct elections as they see fit.
The Federal government already has the power to regulate the administration of Federal elections, see:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org