Electoral college is fucked

For the second time in my life we have a president elect after losing the popular vote.

50+1 is bad enough, but what kind of democracy is this?

When will someone be brave enough to throw this antiquated system in the garbage and give the people actual power?

AMEN!!!

Didn't Bernie want to do something along those lines?

So, what else from the Constitution would you guys like to throw out with the electoral college?

I like the electoral college. It's designed to balance the interests of low population rural areas with those of densely populated cities and it does that pretty well.  NYS should implement if at the state level. Upstate basically has no economy because the whole state government is based on population and is thus dominated by the city and Long Island. I understand that you don't like the results of this election and I have sympathy but that doesn't mean it's a bad system.

Brownski wrote

I like the electoral college. It's designed to balance the interests of low population rural areas with those of densely populated cities and it does that pretty well.  

Much like representation in Congress. House of reps - population based. Senate - two each state. Clever actually.

You have a good point about NY state adopting a similar election process. I never thought about it on a state level.

It just seems to me that common sense is lacking in the electoral vote. Why can't it be as simple as 1 vote per person counts just as that, one vote per person.

I'm assuming anyone who is up in arms about the two times since 1888 that the result of the popular vote deviated from the electoral college voted for Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.  

Based on those two results, even though those same people have likely benefitted from the system of Government and freedoms that have served our country well for almost 250 years, they are willing to step all over the Constitution.

Worse, they are willing to step all over the Constitution based on what are, very likely, faulty assumptions.  You see, you cannot assume the results of a popular vote taken under an electoral college system would look the same as a popular vote taken under a system where the electoral college didn't exist.

There are relatively few blue states when you look at the electoral map.  However, those few states include the major population centers.  Those major population centers render large chunks of voters in these populous states disenfranchised.  I suspect more so than in the numerous less populous red states.

Heck, you have a sample of that right here in our tiny little blogosphere, where several people didn't cast for President, or cast a third party vote, because they knew that whichever way they voted the state's delegates would go to Hillary.  Being disenfranchised in that way those voters were given cover to, essentially, throw away their vote to keep their conscience clean by not voting for either of the detestable major party candidates we had to choose from.

Would the same have held true without the electoral college?  I submit no.  I know for me it wouldn't.  If I wasn't disenfranchised by the current system, without the luxury of throwing away a vote to ease my conscience I would have held my nose and pulled the lever (filled the circle) for Trump.  

So, I believe the results of the popular vote under a system without an electoral college would certainly have been different than what we saw this year.  Would it be enough to flip the results of the popular vote?  Who knows.  However, given the reasons the electoral college was established in the Constitution in the first place, and the relatively few times the popular and electoral results have differed, I don't see how anyone can be willing to throw out the Constitution.

JTG4eva! wrote

 However, given the reasons the electoral college was established in the Constitution in the first place, and the relatively few times the popular and electoral results have differed, I don't see how anyone can be willing to throw out the Constitution.

That's a very valid and strong point. I take back my AMEN comment.

p.s. I didn't vote for Gore or Hillary.

Hey, I assumed, knowing full well what happens when you assume....

ml242 wrote

When will someone be brave enough to throw this antiquated system in the garbage and give the people actual power?

Just curious.  If the result went the other way, what would you say? If Clinton won the electoral, but Trump won the popular?

I don't see the constitution a being that sacred, in fact, sometimes I think it should be rewritten with a more modern slant to it. Leave a lot of the old shit, but throw in a bunch of new shit that reflects the reality of 21st century life.  

That said, JTG makes a really good argument for leaving it as it.

Electoral college also protects the elites in the power centers. It contains the ultimate control against the non-establishment, country dupe, media stereotype trump voter: our votes aren't even the ones that actually count!  We have "Electors" to represent us.  They do the important work on behalf of us.

There has always been class conflict.  It's baked into our system.  

I understand the sentiment behind this. Believe me. But I disagree.

Right or wrong the constitution provides mechanisms to protect for the minority. The veto is one.

The fillibuster is another.  In general the fillibuster feels like a joke to me, but if Trump has his party's backing to build the wall or deport 11 million undocumented, I'll be glad it exists.

Hillary won the popular by 200,000 or so. IMO it's not enough to me to give up the protection of the minority.

This election was decided by 400,000 rural white males in four states who voted for Obama last time.  

There is no such thing as a mandate. You win, and if you are a decent human, you do your best for all Americans.

Brownski wrote

I like the electoral college. It's designed to balance the interests of low population rural areas with those of densely populated cities and it does that pretty well.  NYS should implement if at the state level. Upstate basically has no economy because the whole state government is based on population and is thus dominated by the city and Long Island. I understand that you don't like the results of this election and I have sympathy but that doesn't mean it's a bad system.

JTG4eva! wrote

I'm assuming anyone who is up in arms about the two times since 1888 that the result of the popular vote deviated from the electoral college voted for Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.  

I'll raise my hand since you just described me.

I am pissed. People didn't like Gore because they didn't like the way he talked (down to them) and would rather have a beer with Bush. But you know what, he got more votes.

We know what happened, GW then went to completely FUBAR our country. I guess it was the promise of a tax cut? That he didn't like abortion? And that some fiscal conservatives didn't like the surplus Clinton was leaving with because it was their money. GW cut taxes. He restricted abortion. And he spent like no tomorrow putting two wars on the credit card, setting the table for many more problems around the world. In short, I think he was the worst president ever, when he could have just been a historical sidenote.

I believe that there are good ideas on the R side and the D side, but winner take all is proving to be too much yet again. Do you think it is really the mark of a good system to have wild swings in which people are ridiculously unrepresented by each change of laundry in the government? To me the system works best with checks and balances; and now we have a GOP president, senate, and house. Does that represent a bitterly divided populace?

I wish Donald the best with his better ideas; repatriating corporate money from abroad, getting rid of H1b's that steal jobs in industries like customer service (that's a really cheap move by companies), hell, fix obamacare (I would suggest a public option to keep corporations from hiking rates).

But the result still seems broken and undemocratic. So, thank you electoral college + 47%. As far as the other implications of this election, don't even get me started.

On the bright side, my dad told me that "Lots of presidents have been horrible people" and that things go on.

The electoral college system has served us very well and is part of the constitutional federalist system meant to balance the states.  Without it currently the urban areas with thier overalls liberal populations would not be balanced by the areas that literally feed those cities.

As an up state NY conservative voter I am currently a disenfranchised voter.  Imagine if all the poeple that live in the red on the below map had no say compared to the snail blue areas.  Chances are we would not have made it this far as a single country and would have split apart at several different times over the past almost 250 years.  Notice in particular how little of NY is blue and Clinton won 69% of NY popular votes.  Why would a candidate ever bother to visit or care about the rural parts of our country. Instead they would just pander to the cities.



The way I'd suggest to modify the system is to use what Nebraska and Maine do.  Each house district is one electoral vote and if you win the popular vote for the state you get the 2 elrvyral votes representing the senate seats.  That way every voters vote is meaningful.  The winner take all thing is messed up and it prevents the Gore Bush hanging chad thing with a huge amount of electral votes going to a candidate that wins a state by just 1 vote.

I like the idea, but models would need to be run showing how it would affect the elections when they are close.

With the current system, candidates only really campaign in arbitrary "battleground" states.  They don't campaign everywhere across the country, which is what the electoral college was meant to do.  You couldn't win one area in a landslide and win an election.

With your proposed system, candidates would need to campaign everywhere or at least in more locations to win an election.

In my opinion the EC is not the problem.

I'd like to see swing states, ranked in order of closeness from the previous election, determine the order in the next primary.

Often primaries are essentially over after five or six contests and the candidates who come out alive are extreme and have pandered to Iowa, NH or South Carolina. (In fairness NH was a swing state this time.)

Force candidates to "pander" to the middle and get more reasonable candidates.

So the map is very red but fewer people live in those areas so it doesn't change the fact that more people voted for Hillary. Why should I vote in the city count as 95% of a vote? If it's supposed to balance out, then there shouldn't be a radical swing. Maybe presidents should be decided by the electoral college but in a situation like this the vp should be from the popular vote. Make them work together. That would achieve "balance" at least.

Maine also just passed "ranked choice voting".  And they might know a thing or two about having an embarrassing executive who speaks before thinking and more than half the population can't stand.

When I see coaches map and think of  using the popular vote I picture rural areas being indentured servants to cities.  I'm not a scholar on this stuff but it appears to work.