The electoral college. Why?

Lord Starch | Ascended Posting Rampage
 
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I've been thinking recently as to why we have the electoral college and how it essentially hinders true democracy. Like I live in the south and almost always my state will be majority red due to the demographic. Now if a democrat votes, doesn't it make it essentially useless just based on a statistic perspective.
I think the best example I can give is California. They haven't voted red since 88, and due to their population, that's an automatic 55 votes for the democrats. And studies have shown that the bipartisan system has been getting increasingly polarized[1].
So I wonder, is the electoral college pretty much hindering democracy at this point since the win really just relies on swing states?

[1]http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/7-things-to-know-about-polarization-in-america/


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Because voting by popularity means that politicians would only pander to coastal states; and even then, only the urban areas. At least they have to try in places like Ohio as it is.


 
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It forces candidates to focus on more than just a few key states, and ensures the election is representative of the decision of the states. Yes, of course the electoral college hinders democracy, because we're not a democracy; we're a constitutional republic.
Last Edit: November 08, 2015, 10:26:39 PM by RadioactiveTurkey


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His eyebrows sparkling, his white beard hangs down to his chest. The thatched mats, spread outside his chise, spread softly, his splendid attos. He polishes, cross-legged, his makiri, with his eyes completely absorbed.

He is Ainu.

The god of Ainu Mosir, Ae-Oine Kamuy, descendant of Okiku-Rumi, He perishes, a living corpse. The summers day, the white sunlight, unabrushed, ends simply through his breath alone.
Also, reminder that a true Democracy hadn't been a thing since ancient Athens. We have way too high of a population to put every single measure to a vote; that's why we're a federal republic with democratic tendencies.


Lord Starch | Ascended Posting Rampage
 
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The majority isn't always right.
You seem to be the only one who sort of got where I was going with this. I get why the EC exist and what it's purpose is, but the fact is that in certain states voting for a certain party is completely useless. Among other things.


 
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Because voting by popularity means that politicians would only pander to coastal states; and even then, only the urban areas. At least they have to try in places like Ohio as it is.
Basically this.

I'll use my State as an example. When Ed Rendell ran for governor, he won his primary with only 10 of 67 counties supporting him. Those counties would be the ones comprising or near the Philly area, and one way in center state where Penn State is.


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With National Popular Vote, big cities would not get all of candidatesโ€™ attention, much less control the outcome.

One-sixth of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities, and they voted 63% Democratic in 2004. 

One-sixth lives outside the nationโ€™s Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and rural America voted 60% Republican. 

The remaining four-sixths live in the suburbs, which divide almost exactly equally. 

Big cities do not always control the outcome of elections. The governors and U.S. Senators are not all Democratic in every state with a significant city.
   
A nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.  In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attentionโ€”roughly in proportion to their population.
      
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.


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I'm torn on the college. On one hand it is a hinderance, but on the other hand it can prevent people like Trump from coming to power.

The National Popular Vote bill would end the disproportionate attention and influence of the "mob" in the current handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, while the "mobs" of the vast majority of states are ignored.
Analysts already conclude that only the 2016 party winner of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire (with 86 electoral votes among them) is not a foregone conclusion. So, if the National Popular Vote bill is not in effect, less than a handful of states will continue to dominate and determine the presidential general election. 

9 states determined the 2012 election.
10 of the original 13 states are politically irrelevant in presidential campaigns now. They arenโ€™t polled or visited. 
None of the 10 most rural states matter
24 of the 27 lowest population states, that are non-competitive are ignored, in presidential elections.
4 out of 5 Americans were ignored in the 2012 presidential election. After being nominated, Obama visited just eight closely divided battleground states, and Romney visited only 10. These 10 states accounted for 98% of the $940 million spent on campaign advertising.

Candidates do not bother to advertise or organize in 80% of the states.

The current system does not provide some kind of check on the "mobs." There have been 22,991 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 17 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector's own political party. 1796 remains the only instance when the elector might have thought, at the time he voted, that his vote might affect the national outcome.
The electors are and will be dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable rubberstamped votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
   
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).

There is no reason to think that the Electoral College would prevent Trump from being elected President of the United States, regardless of whether presidential electors are elected on the basis of the state-by-state winner-take-all rule or the nationwide popular vote



toto | Newbie
 
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It forces candidates to focus on more than just a few key states, and ensures the election is representative of the decision of the states. Yes, of course the electoral college hinders democracy, because we're not a democracy; we're a constitutional republic.

More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states in 2012

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!
   
But the political reality is that the 11 largest states rarely agree on any political question.  In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey).  The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country.  For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry. 

Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.
With National Popular Vote, the United States would still be a constitutional republic, in which citizens continue to elect the President by a majority of Electoral College votes by states, to represent us and conduct the business of government.

The National Popular Vote bill would replace state winner-take-all laws that award all of a stateโ€™s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), in the enacting states, to a system guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
   
The National Popular Vote bill would take effect when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votesโ€”270 of 538. 
All of the presidential electors from the enacting states will be supporters of the presidential candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC)โ€”thereby guaranteeing that candidate with an Electoral College majority.
      
The bill retains the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It ensures that every voter is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
   


toto | Newbie
 
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The majority isn't always right.
You seem to be the only one who sort of got where I was going with this. I get why the EC exist and what it's purpose is, but the fact is that in certain states voting for a certain party is completely useless. Among other things.

National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state.  Now their votes are counted only for the presidential candidate they did not vote for. Now they don't matter to their candidate.   

In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their stateโ€™s first-place candidate).
         
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state, are wasted and don't matter to presidential candidates. 
Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
8 small western states, with less than a third of Californiaโ€™s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate.  Most Americans think it is wrong for the candidate with the most popular votes to lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.


Ridiculous Tales | Respected Posting Spree
 
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I'm torn on the college. On one hand it is a hinderance, but on the other hand it can prevent people like Trump from coming to power.
The electoral college is basically how Dubya was able to win in 2000 despite Gore receiving the majority of the popular vote. If anything, the college would be what gets Dump into the Oval Office. What is there to be on the fence about?


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I neither fear, nor despise.
The majority isn't always right.
You seem to be the only one who sort of got where I was going with this. I get why the EC exist and what it's purpose is, but the fact is that in certain states voting for a certain party is completely useless. Among other things.
I registered Democrat in my hometown because otherwise I would never really vote for anything.


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>Copying and pasting arguments instead of forming your own



 
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Is that Dustin again?


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His eyebrows sparkling, his white beard hangs down to his chest. The thatched mats, spread outside his chise, spread softly, his splendid attos. He polishes, cross-legged, his makiri, with his eyes completely absorbed.

He is Ainu.

The god of Ainu Mosir, Ae-Oine Kamuy, descendant of Okiku-Rumi, He perishes, a living corpse. The summers day, the white sunlight, unabrushed, ends simply through his breath alone.
One-sixth of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities, and they voted 63% Democratic in 2004. 
18 points is a pretty big deal. That's not even the biggest cities by state-- that's at the national level. That'd be multitudes larger state-by-state.

Quote
One-sixth lives outside the nationโ€™s Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and rural America voted 60% Republican.
And again, 18% is a pretty big deal. If someone secured just the top 100 cities and the hick-vote, that'd be a third of the nation.

Quote
Big cities do not always control the outcome of elections. The governors and U.S. Senators are not all Democratic in every state with a significant city.
This has nothing to do with who is a Democrat or Republican, it's the fact that the Electoral College helps solve the problems of popular election. The most practical being where populations are located. Here's a map I threw together to help explain it:



The red states are the 9 most populous states. With just those nine states, you have a majority of the population. Right off the bat, you've narrowed your campaigning to less than 20% of the continent. The purplish-blue areas are the where a majority of each state's population is. Quite obviously, in every single instance, it is either near the coast and/or close to the state capital. There's no need to campaign an entire state, thanks to television, radio, and other media sources, so candidates only visit the highest concentrations of population. That would mean they would likely only touch on the largest of the purplish-blue areas on that map; that being where they already do visit, judging by the fact that four of the nine states are swing states with the Electoral College system, and the other five are nearly-evenly divided in whether they vote for the left or right. So with a popular election, the essential vote would be marginalized from 24% of states to 18%, and then even further when you realize that in no single instance is a population evenly divided throughout a state; if you high ball it, they would visit 2.3% of the country's area in campaigning. (This is, again, lower than the current system.)

Another issue is the margin of error; when you limit you margins at lower countings, you end up closer to the realistic statistics. I'm going to assume that you're smart enough to realize that, even with popular election, it would have to be limited on a state-to-state basis; the failed idea of internet voting partially went the way of the buffalo due to the immensely impractical nature of containing all votes in one location and how easy it would be to sabotage the results. When you don't have representatives for each population (see: electors), your margin of error goes up; obviously, when talking about battleground states (which make up 22.2% of the US population, and 44.4% of the 9 most populous states) this can mean the difference between a win and a loss (see: 2000 Presidential Election).
      
Quote
The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.
Yeah, and that literally will never happen. Even in battleground states, they only visit the largest populated areas and capitals. Which is where they would still go in popular elections because, obviously, that's where the most people are.

Quote
But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.
That isn't exclusive in the Electoral College. This is what makes me think you haven't bothered to educate yourself on the subject sans possibly the article you Googled and are regurgitating; Nebraska and Maine both use Proportional Representation in the Electoral College. And, shockingly, it completely works with the Electoral College.

If you're upset about Winner-Take-All, that's a state-level issue and not the problem of the Electoral College. If your state offers a ballot-initiative, then circulate a petition within your state to have their system changed to Proportional Representation. If not, miraculously try to find the one Congressional candidate that would support it, and support him/her.
Last Edit: November 09, 2015, 07:40:19 PM by Prime Megaten


 
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toto | Newbie
 
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Margins of error occur in statistics, not in a vote count. Any amount of more popular votes than an opponent obtained, makes that candidate the winner in an election decided by popular vote.


 
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Newbro I'd advise you not copy and paste other peoples arguments and actually come up with them on your own.

Also keep all your stuff in one post if you can instead of posting a bunch of different ones.


๐Ÿ Aria ๐Ÿ”ฎ | Mythic Inconceivable!
 
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His eyebrows sparkling, his white beard hangs down to his chest. The thatched mats, spread outside his chise, spread softly, his splendid attos. He polishes, cross-legged, his makiri, with his eyes completely absorbed.

He is Ainu.

The god of Ainu Mosir, Ae-Oine Kamuy, descendant of Okiku-Rumi, He perishes, a living corpse. The summers day, the white sunlight, unabrushed, ends simply through his breath alone.
Margins of error occur in statistics, not in a vote count. Any amount of more popular votes than an opponent obtained, makes that candidate the winner in an election decided by popular vote.
You know that voting percentages are statistics, right? Especially when the vote is literally fractional among different groups that are competing for it.

Prime example: Florida, 2000. The vote was too close to call, so they had to recount it again. It wasn't an exact tie, just so close that it fell within the margin of error.
Last Edit: November 09, 2015, 10:06:53 PM by Prime Megaten


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Get of my lawn
Popular Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner


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His eyebrows sparkling, his white beard hangs down to his chest. The thatched mats, spread outside his chise, spread softly, his splendid attos. He polishes, cross-legged, his makiri, with his eyes completely absorbed.

He is Ainu.

The god of Ainu Mosir, Ae-Oine Kamuy, descendant of Okiku-Rumi, He perishes, a living corpse. The summers day, the white sunlight, unabrushed, ends simply through his breath alone.
Popular Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner
Pretty much the entire reason that the Connecticut Compromise was a thing; larger states get more say in half of Congress, smaller states are equal in the other. Larger states get more votes in the Electoral College, but at least allows that a battleground state doesn't necessarily have to have the highest population density.


 
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Well Samuel L Jackson needs to time to carefully hand pick every member, implant a device in their central nervous system (see this credible source) and then Al Gore is cheated out of his presidency and then 14 years later someone on sep7agon makes a thread about it.


 
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Despite the copy paste, I honestly had my own interpretations about the Electoral College but a few of you re-educated me on the issue.

Thank you.