Electoral College; Yes or No?

[E-DUB]

The problem with third parties is that a vote for one generally gets you the nominee of the main party you like least. (Voting for Nader gets you Bush, Voting for Perot gets you Clinton, voting for Anderson gets you Reagan.) Unless we have "instant run-off" balloting, were stuck with that and so no 3rd party can become viable.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that when one party veers off too far in one direction and loses bigtime ('64+'72), they learn the lesson, come back to the center and can win again, in the two instances I cited above as soon as the next election.

 

[gturner]

The electoral college cannot be viewed as a polling system. It is systematically biased because every state has minimum number of electors determined by its number of senators and representatives.

Two senators per state alone will bias the electoral college away from the majority. This biases the representation towards low population small/rural states.

And that was necessary to get them to surrender some of their soveignty to a federal government, and remains as a reflection of their status as semi-independent actors, with their own sets of laws, court systems, duties, and responsibilities.

But if you're intent on one person one vote, go argue with the EU, where the Council uses voting weights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Union

Weighting senate votes according to the square root of the member state's population is an interesting idea.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, let me point out a flaw in that system. If you go purely by popular vote, suppose the right runs as Republicans but the left coast and Northeast sprouts a bunch of minor parties, such as the greens, union labor, PETA party, Nader party, progressive party, NYC party, Seattle grunge party, etc, none of which draw enough votes away from Democrats in any of these Democrat strongholds to shift those states' electoral votes, but all of which serve to put another Texan in the White House in the popular vote.

This is why we also need to be able to rank candidates in order of preference.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

This is why we also need to be able to rank candidates in order of preference.

Or have a runoff.

I know that ranked choice voting/instant runoff voting/single transferable vote/whatever you want to call it seems like it would have all the benefits but none of the flaws of actually holding a runoff, but it doesn't.

Here is a simple example, Obama and Romney are running as usual and Ron Paul throws in his hat as well. Obama and Romney finish first and second in some order while Paul takes up the rear. I would venture that a majority of Paul's voters have Romney ranked second. In an instant runoff, Romney is the president. Would Romney have won a straight up contest between the two? Maybe, maybe not, we'll find out on Tuesday.

Here is a more complex example that shows why the system sucks. John, Dick, and Harry are all running. John is a hardcore Republican. Dick openly admits he is a socialist. Harry is an independent and everyone loves Harry. If Harry had taken either party's nomination he would have been assured of a majority in any election system. Unfortunately, because each party's base goes for John or Dick, Harry comes in third. If we are going to use second choice votes to decide the election, why are we eliminating the man who is ranked second on EVERY SINGLE BALLOT that he isn't ranked first on?

Now I know that a runoff would not solve the problem, everyone but the top two candidates would be eliminated. But, since no one is proposing using a system where someone could be everyone's second choice, no one's first choice, and still win, having a second vote would at least allow people to reevaluate their options. The first round becomes a primary election, you vote for your best candidate. The second round becomes a clear choice, which of these two guys, one of whom will win, is best.

For the record, I only think executives and U.S. senators should be elected like this, everyone else should be chosen by proportional representation. I also know that runoffs have lower turnouts. People should have the right not to vote.

 

[stj]

The sovereignty of the state consists of its power to make war. The resort to violence in lieu of republican institutions (regardless of how democratic they may be) is rebellion, while the king's resort to violence is his sovereign prerogative. The US national government was, is and was always meant to be sovereign, nor is this sovereignty divisible, nor is there some ghost of monarchical prerogative in the republican system. The war powers of the presidency are limited only by necessity and the vicissitudes of war. (Necessity does not mean expediency. That is the conservative reading.)

The Constitution's primary motivation was to devise a national government with republican institutions sufficient to the ordinary workings of a sovereign government, to defend against threats foreign and domestic. The individual states' power to make war was extinguished forever. There is no coherent concept of residual sovereignty.

 

[Savious]

Well I think Savious meant the framers of the constitution, or at least that is what I took him to mean.

Thank you for interjecting a little common sense here. Obviously the Constitution doesn’t think; and when I spoke of it envisioning something; I was speaking of what the founders were thinking when they wrote it.

You know, I think the simple change could be that the candidate wins if he receives the most Electoral Votes OR the highest popular vote. That would eliminate the mountain of problems that comes when a president wins one but not the other.

Another words, make the Electoral College meaningless.

I could possibly compromise here though; say the candidate wins if he receives the most Electoral Votes or more than 50% of the popular vote. Although, on the surface, I still disagree with the concept of a popular vote.

The problem with third parties is that a vote for one generally gets you the nominee of the main party you like least. (Voting for Nader gets you Bush, Voting for Perot gets you Clinton, voting for Anderson gets you Reagan.) Unless we have "instant run-off" balloting, were stuck with that and so no 3rd party can become viable.

I know, that’s why some of the more recent democratically elected governments have instituted a run off election.

This is why we also need to be able to rank candidates in order of preference.

Interesting; maybe instead of electing a person for a position, we should vote for the person we dislike the most; removing them, one at a time; and keep running elections until we get down to just one.

 

[Savious]

I see you're new here. Welcome to Groupthink Central.

Yea, I’m starting to see that.

BTW, is group think, something akin to new speak? Not that I’m a huge Orwell fan; always thought Huxley had a better grasp of the dystopian future.

 

[Savious]

Allow me to save you a lot of time and typing, since I've seen this dance over and over. You think you have some kind of insight about history, politics, or economics. Well, you don't. Really, you don't. End of story.

And here’s a NEWS flash for you; neither do you or anyone else here; everyone here, is discussing their fracking opinions. So before you go looking down your smug ass nose at me, take a strong look in the fracking mirror.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I see you're new here. Welcome to Groupthink Central.

Yea, I’m starting to see that.

BTW, is group think, something akin to new speak? Not that I’m a huge Orwell fan; always thought Huxley had a better grasp of the dystopian future.

You mean for example like calling historical events by ridiculous tendentious terms that make judgments about one side or the other in their title?

 

[gturner]

I see you're new here. Welcome to Groupthink Central.

Yea, I’m starting to see that.

BTW, is group think, something akin to new speak? Not that I’m a huge Orwell fan; always thought Huxley had a better grasp of the dystopian future.

You mean for example like calling historical events by ridiculous tendentious terms that make judgments about one side or the other in their title?

That was the common term Southerners used for the Civil War for about a century. Few wars have the same name on both sides. In Vietnam they call the Vietnamese War the "American War". How silly is that? Turns out that while we keep naming wars after the countries we fight, most of those countries just keep reusing the same name for all them. The Brits even have to learn that Yanks call the Revolutionary War something different than they do, and that when we talk about the Civil War it's not the same Civil War that they had, either.

The term "civil war" belies the whole state's rights view that the South relied on to secede, and you can bet that if a European country tried to drop out of the EU over some crazy debt repayment scheme and got invaded by its neighbors, the people in that country would not call it the EU "civil war". To expect them to is kinda of nuts. So:

calling historical events by ridiculous tendentious terms that make judgments about one side or the other in their title?

The term "Civil War" does exactly that, by saying the war was between a single sovereign country where states didn't have a right to secede, and in fact didn't really secede (otherwise it would've been a war between two countries that had newly seperated). The North so labeled it for that reason. They won and the term stuck, and over the following century the term slowly gained acceptance even in the South through common usage in the media, textbooks, and history classes. One day there'll be very few Southerners left who still claim it had nothing to do with slavery, but that day isn't quite here.

 

[MacLeod]

^Yes but when it comes to civil wars espically when discussing them on the World Wide Web as several countries have had them it helps to be specific to which one you are referring to.

It's the same with many things. For example a thread discussing TV Ratings in the US should be called US TV Ratings and not simply TV Ratings.

 

[Squiggy]

Yea, I’m starting to see that.

BTW, is group think, something akin to new speak? Not that I’m a huge Orwell fan; always thought Huxley had a better grasp of the dystopian future.

You mean for example like calling historical events by ridiculous tendentious terms that make judgments about one side or the other in their title?

That was the common term Southerners used for the Civil War for about a century.

But not today. It's use is it's pseudo-intellectual at best or shows the bias of the user at worse.

Like calling WWI "The Great War" when no one calls it that today or calling WWII "The Great Patriotic War".

 

[gturner]

But not today. It's use is it's pseudo-intellectual at best or shows the bias of the user at worse.

Like calling WWI "The Great War" when no one calls it that today or calling WWII "The Great Patriotic War".

You've just called PBS "pseudo-intellectual", which is probably an accidentally accuracy.

They did a big special on the Great War and Paul Fussel wrote a great book titled "The Great War and Modern Memory."

The Imperial War Museum also has wonderful archives of the Great War.

Oddly enough, WW-II started over disagreements about what the last war should be called, with the Brits favoring "The Great War" and the German's wanting "The Sucky War whose ending Sucked." Finally all parties decided to settle on a simple numbering system.

 

[MacLeod]

^I'm going to assume that your last comment re: the reasons why WWII started are not to be taken seriously.

 

[Gryffindorian]

But not today. It's use is it's pseudo-intellectual at best or shows the bias of the user at worse.

Like calling WWI "The Great War" when no one calls it that today or calling WWII "The Great Patriotic War".

You've just called PBS "pseudo-intellectual", which is probably an accidentally accuracy.

They did a big special on the Great War and Paul Fussel wrote a great book titled "The Great War and Modern Memory."

The Imperial War Museum also has wonderful archives of the Great War.

Oddly enough, WW-II started over disagreements about what the last war should be called, with the Brits favoring "The Great War" and the German's wanting "The Sucky War whose ending Sucked." Finally all parties decided to settle on a simple numbering system.

Well, what about the Great Herring War? Between the Johannsons and the Lindstroms. They controlled the most fertile fishing waters off the coast of Norway, and they couldn't figure out what to do with the herring.

 

[gturner]

Oh, well did you ever stop to wonder why on Earth we'd label the World Wars with Roman numerals when the Romans were not a recognized party to the conflict? Obviously they must've been operating behind the scenes to cause both wars.

 

[RJDiogenes]

This is why we also need to be able to rank candidates in order of preference.

Or have a runoff.

I know that ranked choice voting/instant runoff voting/single transferable vote/whatever you want to call it seems like it would have all the benefits but none of the flaws of actually holding a runoff, but it doesn't.

Here is a simple example, Obama and Romney are running as usual and Ron Paul throws in his hat as well. Obama and Romney finish first and second in some order while Paul takes up the rear. I would venture that a majority of Paul's voters have Romney ranked second. In an instant runoff, Romney is the president. Would Romney have won a straight up contest between the two? Maybe, maybe not, we'll find out on Tuesday.

If Paul's supporters had voted for Romney in a straight vote, then yes. If they had not bothered to vote, then no. Part of the purpose of the system is to get the disenfranchised to vote.

Here is a more complex example that shows why the system sucks. John, Dick, and Harry are all running. John is a hardcore Republican. Dick openly admits he is a socialist. Harry is an independent and everyone loves Harry. If Harry had taken either party's nomination he would have been assured of a majority in any election system. Unfortunately, because each party's base goes for John or Dick, Harry comes in third. If we are going to use second choice votes to decide the election, why are we eliminating the man who is ranked second on EVERY SINGLE BALLOT that he isn't ranked first on?

Because if everybody loves Harry, they should have voted for him first. That's the other purpose of this system: To give 3rd party and independent candidates a chance.

 

[gturner]

Part of the purpose of the system is to get the disenfranchised to vote.

Um, are you sure that's what you meant?

 

[stj]

Allow me to save you a lot of time and typing, since I've seen this dance over and over. You think you have some kind of insight about history, politics, or economics. Well, you don't. Really, you don't. End of story.

And here’s a NEWS flash for you; neither do you or anyone else here; everyone here, is discussing their fracking opinions. So before you go looking down your smug ass nose at me, take a strong look in the fracking mirror.

People are equal, not opinions. Your opinions are inadequate, based on insufficient knowledge, advocated with fallacious arguments.

Civil wars take place within single countries. The US was a single country for decades. The Civil War therefore was a civil war, and would have been even if the South had won. The attempt to rewrite the existence of a united country is simply dishonest.

An interesting proposal from HNN:

Jonathan Dresner•3 days ago

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I do think that an institution that has never actually functioned as intended, and which produces results widely agreed to be entirely incorrect one time in ten, should be considered defunct.
Is this where we all post our "How I Would Fix The Electoral College" ideas? Mine is to mostly decouple electors and states. Vote by congressional district instead of state, with the two state-wide electors (the Senate stand-ins) going to the winner of the majority vote across the entire state. This would create a much more finely detailed electoral map, much closer to a popular vote without requiring constitutional amendment. This would also put more political pressure on the redistricting process, which should be enough to force the transition to non-partisan districting, finally.

 

[gturner]

Allow me to save you a lot of time and typing, since I've seen this dance over and over. You think you have some kind of insight about history, politics, or economics. Well, you don't. Really, you don't. End of story.

And here’s a NEWS flash for you; neither do you or anyone else here; everyone here, is discussing their fracking opinions. So before you go looking down your smug ass nose at me, take a strong look in the fracking mirror.

People are equal, not opinions. Your opinions are inadequate, based on insufficient knowledge, advocated with fallacious arguments.

Civil wars take place within single countries. The US was a single country for decades. The Civil War therefore was a civil war, and would have been even if the South had won. The attempt to rewrite the existence of a united country is simply dishonest.

No, it is you who are mistaken, dismissing points that college professors have debated for a hundred years, using well-reasoned historical and legal arguments, not just pretending that other views are retarded. Not only is that a completely ignorant way to study history, it strips everyone of insights into why the other side thought the way the did, how they perceived the structure of the union and their role within it, and how those views motivated their actions. The US Civil War cannot be understood without understanding the South's viewpoint, as well as the North's.

If you applied your methods to European history, the class would go something like "And the English king, who was of course correct on every point and who was therefore the legitimate ruler of France, proceeded to kick the butts of the ignorant and completely incorrect French-speaking members of Continental England, which is provably true because the chapter is titled 'The Great Continental-English Francofone Rebellion."

The Southern view was rejected through force of arms, not by pointing to the "title" of the war as proof that they were wrong. A better set of arguments from your side would show that the war was, indeed, undeniably, all about slavery, which it was.