That's like saying "it's not a car, it's a Toyota Camry." :lol2:

 

At any rate, I've made this case on here before, but here goes again.

 

The main problem with the Electoral College is that it obscures the popular will of the citizens for no good reason. Many claim the Electoral College is good simply because the Framer’s designed it, but there are two problems with that reasoning. The first is the Electoral College doesn't function the way it was designed any longer.

 

The second is the assumption there was a grand intentionality behind everything in the constitution, and thus we ought not to tamper with it, is misguided. Like most things in the Constitution, the Electoral College was born of compromise between competing ideas, particularly ideas that were specific to that time period. Madison also notes that the system was created in a bit of a rush, and perhaps suffered because of it (He later goes on to label this part the “faulty part of the Constitution”):

 

 

 

However, its intention of being a mechanism of indirect election is clear. Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68 that the Electoral College would allow people to have some say, but the electors would be the wise men who made the final choice:

 

 

 

Thus it is clear from Hamilton that the idea of the Electoral College would be to allow the intelligent and objective among the citizens to choose the president, rather than have the citizens choose the president themselves. Yet, the Electoral College has not functioned this way since the first few elections, or for almost 200 years. (There's even some evidence that many from the founding period expected no one would win a majority in the Electoral College, thus the House would appoint the president and the Electoral College would simply serve as a nomination tool.)

 

Additionally, Madison also reasons that the Electoral College solved a problem brought on by slavery, saying that the system allowing electors to choose the president made the most sense because of the disparity between suffrage in the North and the slaveholding South:

 

 

 

Today, these things are most certainly changed. Again, Electors are no longer the wise who decide amongst themselves who should be president, but are simply the rubber stamps of the votes of the people of each state. And universal suffrage has been achieved, thus the Electoral College no longer needs to balance the disparities between the North and the South on that measure.

 

So, the essence of the Electoral College is gone as the president is nearly directly elected at this point. The Electoral College now simply masks the popular will of the people by dividing it along state lines. Jefferson’s critique of the system is still relevant today: “The contrivance in the Constitution for marking the votes works badly, because it does not enounce precisely the true expression of the public will.”

 

It was never a perfect system, it's reasons for existence are archaic, we admit that citizens are perfectly capable of choosing their representatives, and thus there are surely better and simpler ways of electing the president.

 

I understand all that. I just don't believe a just popular vote makes any sense in a democratic republic based on a state system. . The votes should still be broken down by state or congressional districts at the least.

I understand all that. I just don't believe a just popular vote makes any sense in a democratic republic based on a state system. . The votes should still be broken down by state or congressional districts at the least.

 

Well, that's what Congress is for. There's just not a compelling reason to elect the executive on a state by state basis, especially when we can look at both the lackluster turnouts and the guarantee only two parties will be competitive under the current system.

I just don't think there's a very good argument to be made in favor of the Electoral College other than posterity. And it was designed to function much differently than it does now.

 

A straight popular vote with a runoff election between the top two if no candidate reaches 50% would be a substantial improvement. It would get more people invested in voting and it would weaken the two-party stranglehold on our democracy.

If KY can't get it's 120 votes -- though the recent gubernatorial election gives me pause -- I vote for this.

Well, that's what Congress is for. There's just not a compelling reason to elect the executive on a state by state basis, especially when we can look at both the lackluster turnouts and the guarantee only two parties will be competitive under the current system.

 

I don't see how a straight popular vote would increase voter turnout much or erase a stranglehold on a two party system. It's all theory. What isn't theory is that we were a nation setup as states. Erasing the states influence over the executive branch is just another eroding of power our original setup was meant to be and I can't get behind it.

 

It's straight popular vote for local and state elections now and we don't see any increase in voter turnout . In fact in years when the presidency isn't up for grabs we see a lower turnout.

 

I just don't see any evidence that says your way results in anything you are promising.

If we ever change it, then just do away with it. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

I would be all for a 1 County, 1 vote election. In every state, each candidate receives 1 vote for every County/Parish/Borough he or she wins. There are 3,144 of them, so theoretically, there could be a tie. I've no idea how we would solve that dilemma.

 

Just making sure I understand.

 

Does Robertson County (KY) get the same representation as Los Angeles County? I can see how someone who leans a bit to the right could run with that.

 

I do agree that the EC system has perpetuated stranglehold of the 2-party system.

I don't see how a straight popular vote would increase voter turnout much or erase a stranglehold on a two party system. It's all theory. What isn't theory is that we were a nation setup as states. Erasing the states influence over the executive branch is just another eroding of power our original setup was meant to be and I can't get behind it.

 

It's straight popular vote for local and state elections now and we don't see any increase in voter turnout . In fact in years when the presidency isn't up for grabs we see a lower turnout.

 

I just don't see any evidence that says your way results in anything you are promising.

 

First, the Electoral College absolutely prevents any ability for consistent competition outside of the two major parties. The reason is that to win the Electoral College a candidate needs not just the most Electoral votes of any candidate, but 270 Electoral votes, which is just more than half. Because a candidate needs more than half of the Electoral votes to win or the election gets sent to the House, a vote cast for a third-party is effectively a vote cast for the opposite party.

 

It’s simple rational choice: If you need to win 270 out of 538 votes then there is no room for more than two parties. It is only rational for people to organize themselves into two groups to compete for majority of needed votes. No party can get to 270 votes if the vote is split anywhere close to evenly three or more ways. This is why all remotely popular attempts at third-parties in the United States have ultimately failed and dissolved after one election cycle. It makes much more sense under the Electoral College to vote for one of the two major-party candidates closest to your opinions, even if you would prefer something else, because that’s the only chance of winning.

 

This is not hypothetical. Other democracies that elect their president through a regular popular vote where the winner is either the candidate who wins the most votes (not necessarily a majority) or whose top candidates participate in a runoff election (so someone reaches a majority) do have more than two competitive parties. France is an example of this. They have a non-parliamentary, presidential election like the USA, but they use a regular popular vote (and a runoff) and have four to six competitive political parties. Under such a system, there is no rational incentive to vote for only one of two major parties because you need a majority of votes to win, i.e. casting a vote for the party closest to your views is not merely a protest vote.

 

Second, the Electoral College in many ways does lead to voter apathy. The reason is already described in this thread: If you live in a non-competitive state then your vote counts for nil. Again, this not hypothetical, in 2012 voter turnout in Kentucky, a non-competitive state, was 45.5%. In swing-state Ohio the turnout was 70.5%. Similarly, swing-state Pennsylvania saw a voter turnout of 67.6% in 2012, where its non-competitive neighbor New York was 46.3%. People are absolutely more likely to vote when they believe their vote matters.

 

Additionally, we can compare voter turnout in the United States to other democracies, none of which have a system like ours for electing president (and obviously parliamentary elections are distinct in themselves). It’s again no surprise the United States lags well behind. Out of the 34 OECD states, the United States ranks 30th in voter turnout for national elections at 53.6%. Belgium comes in first at 87.2%. The United States is a unique country in its level of voter apathy. There’s more that goes into it than simply the Electoral College, but you should see from the disparity between turnout in swing-states and other states that there is nothing otherwise abnormal about American participation in democracy beyond a disinclination to participate in non-competitive states.

 

 

Lastly, you say both that getting rid of the Electoral College would change how things were “meant” to be and erase states influence on the executive. I think I’ve already addressed that the Electoral College functions nothing much like it was “meant” to and even the influential people of the constitutional era had little reverence for it other than as a simple compromise over slavery. I don’t think you can make a convincing case that the Electoral College either limits the power of the executive or increases the power of the states vis-à-vis the federal government. It’s a pointless relic.

I believe Romney would have beaten Obama in '12 had the congressional district method of allocating votes been in play ... even though Romney still loses the popular vote by several million. In other words, what dooms the congressional district method is gerrymandering.

First, the Electoral College absolutely prevents any ability for consistent competition outside of the two major parties. The reason is that to win the Electoral College a candidate needs not just the most Electoral votes of any candidate, but 270 Electoral votes, which is just more than half. Because a candidate needs more than half of the Electoral votes to win or the election gets sent to the House, a vote cast for a third-party is effectively a vote cast for the opposite party.

 

It’s simple rational choice: If you need to win 270 out of 538 votes then there is no room for more than two parties. It is only rational for people to organize themselves into two groups to compete for majority of needed votes. No party can get to 270 votes if the vote is split anywhere close to evenly three or more ways. This is why all remotely popular attempts at third-parties in the United States have ultimately failed and dissolved after one election cycle. It makes much more sense under the Electoral College to vote for one of the two major-party candidates closest to your opinions, even if you would prefer something else, because that’s the only chance of winning.

 

This is not hypothetical. Other democracies that elect their president through a regular popular vote where the winner is either the candidate who wins the most votes (not necessarily a majority) or whose top candidates participate in a runoff election (so someone reaches a majority) do have more than two competitive parties. France is an example of this. They have a non-parliamentary, presidential election like the USA, but they use a regular popular vote (and a runoff) and have four to six competitive political parties. Under such a system, there is no rational incentive to vote for only one of two major parties because you need a majority of votes to win, i.e. casting a vote for the party closest to your views is not merely a protest vote.

 

Second, the Electoral College in many ways does lead to voter apathy. The reason is already described in this thread: If you live in a non-competitive state then your vote counts for nil. Again, this not hypothetical, in 2012 voter turnout in Kentucky, a non-competitive state, was 45.5%. In swing-state Ohio the turnout was 70.5%. Similarly, swing-state Pennsylvania saw a voter turnout of 67.6% in 2012, where its non-competitive neighbor New York was 46.3%. People are absolutely more likely to vote when they believe their vote matters.

 

Additionally, we can compare voter turnout in the United States to other democracies, none of which have a system like ours for electing president (and obviously parliamentary elections are distinct in themselves). It’s again no surprise the United States lags well behind. Out of the 34 OECD states, the United States ranks 30th in voter turnout for national elections at 53.6%. Belgium comes in first at 87.2%. The United States is a unique country in its level of voter apathy. There’s more that goes into it than simply the Electoral College, but you should see from the disparity between turnout in swing-states and other states that there is nothing otherwise abnormal about American participation in democracy beyond a disinclination to participate in non-competitive states.

 

[ATTACH]54037[/ATTACH]

 

Lastly, you say both that getting rid of the Electoral College would change how things were “meant” to be and erase states influence on the executive. I think I’ve already addressed that the Electoral College functions nothing much like it was “meant” to and even the influential people of the constitutional era had little reverence for it other than as a simple compromise over slavery. I don’t think you can make a convincing case that the Electoral College either limits the power of the executive or increases the power of the states vis-à-vis the federal government. It’s a pointless relic.

 

Again a few points you keep making mistakes on. I never said we had to keep the Electoral College . I just said any change should not be a straight popular vote. There is a huge distinction there , and you have wrote many paragraphs making a point over and over , where all I've said is any change needs to keep state influence on the executive branch.

 

You want to wash over the fact we are a nation of states . You can't just erode that. You also keep comparing us to other "democracies" , which makes me wonder do you fully understand the difference between a democracy and a democratic republic . The analogy you made a few posts back was eronous at best.

 

There is a reason we don't allow mob rule to decide our federal laws , the same reason is why we are a nation of states that we allow each regions voice to be heard.

 

To eliminate mob rule.

 

I know you have put a lot of time into your posts and they are well thought out. I appreciate it. But a majority of it is irrelevant if your solution is a straight popular vote.

 

We can agree a change may help and I'm for a change. We can't agree in our country straight popular vote is the choice.

First, the Electoral College absolutely prevents any ability for consistent competition outside of the two major parties. The reason is that to win the Electoral College a candidate needs not just the most Electoral votes of any candidate, but 270 Electoral votes, which is just more than half. Because a candidate needs more than half of the Electoral votes to win or the election gets sent to the House, a vote cast for a third-party is effectively a vote cast for the opposite party.

 

It’s simple rational choice: If you need to win 270 out of 538 votes then there is no room for more than two parties. It is only rational for people to organize themselves into two groups to compete for majority of needed votes. No party can get to 270 votes if the vote is split anywhere close to evenly three or more ways. This is why all remotely popular attempts at third-parties in the United States have ultimately failed and dissolved after one election cycle. It makes much more sense under the Electoral College to vote for one of the two major-party candidates closest to your opinions, even if you would prefer something else, because that’s the only chance of winning.

 

This is not hypothetical. Other democracies that elect their president through a regular popular vote where the winner is either the candidate who wins the most votes (not necessarily a majority) or whose top candidates participate in a runoff election (so someone reaches a majority) do have more than two competitive parties. France is an example of this. They have a non-parliamentary, presidential election like the USA, but they use a regular popular vote (and a runoff) and have four to six competitive political parties. Under such a system, there is no rational incentive to vote for only one of two major parties because you need a majority of votes to win, i.e. casting a vote for the party closest to your views is not merely a protest vote.

 

Second, the Electoral College in many ways does lead to voter apathy. The reason is already described in this thread: If you live in a non-competitive state then your vote counts for nil. Again, this not hypothetical, in 2012 voter turnout in Kentucky, a non-competitive state, was 45.5%. In swing-state Ohio the turnout was 70.5%. Similarly, swing-state Pennsylvania saw a voter turnout of 67.6% in 2012, where its non-competitive neighbor New York was 46.3%. People are absolutely more likely to vote when they believe their vote matters.

 

Additionally, we can compare voter turnout in the United States to other democracies, none of which have a system like ours for electing president (and obviously parliamentary elections are distinct in themselves). It’s again no surprise the United States lags well behind. Out of the 34 OECD states, the United States ranks 30th in voter turnout for national elections at 53.6%. Belgium comes in first at 87.2%. The United States is a unique country in its level of voter apathy. There’s more that goes into it than simply the Electoral College, but you should see from the disparity between turnout in swing-states and other states that there is nothing otherwise abnormal about American participation in democracy beyond a disinclination to participate in non-competitive states.

 

[ATTACH]54037[/ATTACH]

 

Lastly, you say both that getting rid of the Electoral College would change how things were “meant” to be and erase states influence on the executive. I think I’ve already addressed that the Electoral College functions nothing much like it was “meant” to and even the influential people of the constitutional era had little reverence for it other than as a simple compromise over slavery. I don’t think you can make a convincing case that the Electoral College either limits the power of the executive or increases the power of the states vis-à-vis the federal government. It’s a pointless relic.

Mic drop...

Again a few points you keep making mistakes on. I never said we had to keep the Electoral College . I just said any change should not be a straight popular vote. There is a huge distinction there , and you have wrote many paragraphs making a point over and over , where all I've said is any change needs to keep state influence on the executive branch.

 

You want to wash over the fact we are a nation of states . You can't just erode that. You also keep comparing us to other "democracies" , which makes me wonder do you fully understand the difference between a democracy and a democratic republic . The analogy you made a few posts back was eronous at best.

 

There is a reason we don't allow mob rule to decide our federal laws , the same reason is why we are a nation of states that we allow each regions voice to be heard.

 

To eliminate mob rule.

 

I know you have put a lot of time into your posts and they are well thought out. I appreciate it. But a majority of it is irrelevant if your solution is a straight popular vote.

 

We can agree a change may help and I'm for a change. We can't agree in our country straight popular vote is the choice.

 

What's your alternative to keep state influence on the executive branch?

What's your alternative to keep state influence on the executive branch?

 

I was spit balling before but we could award a percentage of a new form of Electoral College by the percantage of vote received from each state. We could also reward by congressional district.

 

I believe there is a version of this currently in the system but encourage more than two parties by having multiple rounds of voting . Eliminating everyone at a certain level until someone wins a majority.

Mic drop...

 

I just don't buy a mic drop. To endorse a straight popular vote is to endorse mob rule at the federal level. There is a reason we don't allow that in our system.

I just don't buy a mic drop. To endorse a straight popular vote is to endorse mob rule at the federal level. There is a reason we don't allow that in our system.

 

No, it is not. Look, our system is not prone to "mob rule" because of the separation of powers between branches, the specified powers for each branch, and the Bill of Rights. Majorities in the United States cannot do whatever they want. This means our country is not a "direct democracy" or some other unimpeded majority-rule system. But, we live and have lived in a democracy for quite some time: We elect our governmental representatives in free elections. There is nothing about an election system where we choose our representatives in this "republic" that will lead to "mob rule." How we select the representatives is not what constrains their power; to wit, the popular vote is precisely how we elect our Congressional representatives. It makes no sense to oppose a popular vote for that reason.

No, it is not. Look, our system is not prone to "mob rule" because of the separation of powers between branches, the specified powers for each branch, and the Bill of Rights. Majorities in the United States cannot do whatever they want. This means our country is not a "direct democracy" or some other unimpeded majority-rule system. But, we live and have lived in a democracy for quite some time: We elect our governmental representatives in free elections. There is nothing about an election system where we choose our representatives in this "republic" that will lead to "mob rule." How we select the representatives is not what constrains their power; to wit, the popular vote is precisely how we elect our Congressional representatives. It makes no sense to oppose a popular vote for that reason.

 

It makes sense if you realize we never decide anything nationwide by 100% popular vote because we eliminate mob rule it's that simple . Plus we are a system setup to give power to the states. I know there are some and it seems you may fall in that category that don't respect the power of the state.

 

Smart minds can disagree , I just don't see anyway your idea ever comes into play nor do I think it it falls in line with how our country was setup and meant to run.

 

But I'd like to add again we don't live in a democracy we live in a democratic republic. We have never been a true democracy in the history of our nation.

 

No reason to go back and forth we aren't going to convince each other .