Electoral College; Yes or No?

[Savious]

They have non-voting (worthless) representation. Republicans oppose the addition of a DC Representative because it would always be a Democrat.

Well now there, is something else I would change. The Constitution never envisioned things like US Territories, or permanent residents of DC.

The HOR, is there to represent the people of the US, not the States, so the HOR and only the HOR should have voting members for all the citizens of the US; including DC and US Territories. With Statehood, you gain the Senate seats.

 

[Trekker4747]

Copy/Paste Fail!

 

[MacLeod]

I hope they don't pay their taxes then.

After all wasn't one of the reason of the American Revolutionary War about No Taxes without representation.

As you say if they representative can't vote they effectively aren't represented.

 

[gturner]

AND EXCUSE me, for thinking that this board, would actually have an open enough mind, to discuss various topics, from a point of view, outside the box.

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

But a quick wikipedia search shows countries with indirectly elected heads of states as

Pakistan (by electorial college)
Suriname (by Electorial college)
S. Afirca (By Parliament)
Switzerland (by Parliament)
United States (by Electorial College )

Parliamentary systems generally don't have directly elected heads of state, unless you happen to be one of the few voters who lives in the Prime Minister's home district, and then only if the opposing party's PM choice happens to be running in that same district, which is extremely rare.

 

[MacLeod]

If you note I said Head of State not Head of Government. In many Parliamentary systems the Prime Minister is the head of Government not the Head of State.

But we could spent hour discussing the pros and cons of Parliamnetary vs Presidential systems.

And this thread is about the Electorial College vs popular vote to elect the US President.

 

[Gaith]

The Constitution never envisioned things like US Territories, or permanent residents of DC.

A telling turn of phrase. Ahem:

The Consitution doesn't "think" or "envision" anything. It's a document, not a Jor-El AI. And it bloody well is not, and never has been, perfect or inerrant. The sensible thing to do is critique it rationally, not treat it like some God-given text.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Since the option of amending it was a fundamental aspect of it from the beginning, that attitude is a bit paradoxical.

 

[MacLeod]

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

 

[Gryffindorian]

I was going to write a long, detailed reply to Savious' comments which showed a profound misunderstanding of political processes, and of what constitutes a republic, a democracy, or a federation, but then I read this:

Civil War/War of Northern Aggression

and I realized there is no point in debating with a slavery apologist.

^ This ...

many folks don’t do refer to that ‘little’ conflict in the 1860’s as the American Civil War, but instead view it as the War of Northern Aggression.

No sane people do.

The South lost. Lincoln is a hero. Get over it.

... and Yes.

 

[Pavonis]

Nevermind, I'm going to just re-read The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers before I chime in here anymore.

 

[gturner]

If you note I said Head of State not Head of Government. In many Parliamentary systems the Prime Minister is the head of Government not the Head of State.

But we could spent hour discussing the pros and cons of Parliamnetary vs Presidential systems.

And this thread is about the Electorial College vs popular vote to elect the US President.

The head of state is problematic because often they are little more than figureheads, such as the President of Germany or the Governor General of Canada (if he's even a head of state in some form).

Anyway, getting back to the electoral college, there is no right to vote for President in the Constitution, but we do so because it's a more accurate way to determine the public's will. It's essentially a poll, and like all such measures has some inherent weaknesses.

One benefit of the electoral college is that it recognizes that the voting is a poll, and allows us to break the polls down by state, adjusting for population. This can be very useful. For example, what if hurricane Sandy hit a week later than it did, pounding the North East right on election day, trapping people in their houses and closing most of the voting precincts?

In a popular vote it might cost Obama millions, if not tens of millions of votes. But since we've broken the voting down by region, the electoral college vote would be barely effected, if at all. If only three people in New York made it to the polls, and two of them were Democrats, the choice of the people of New York would still be accurately reflected, which is all we actually need.

As an aside, the reason we adopted using a head count to determine a course of action, or who rules, is that changes in combat tactics (Swiss pikemen) made it obvious that whoever has the most heads wins. So instead of actually fighting a battle, they could just count the numbers on each side and see how the hypothetical battle would've turned out anyway, eliminating the needs to actually fight. In the early incarnation you had to show up with a pike to have your vote count.

Following that logic, one of the reasons I'd argue against mandatory voting is that neither side should be able to claim people who aren't going to show up to fight, but of course if actually pursued logically it would throw us back to some sort of Heinlein "only soldiers vote" system long after soldiering has become a very narrow and specialized exercize.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I definitely wouldn’t call myself a slavery apologist. But in case you didn’t know; many folks don’t do refer to that ‘little’ conflict in the 1860’s as the American Civil War, but instead view it as the War of Northern Aggression.

Sure some do. Slavery apologists, for example.

AND EXCUSE me, for thinking that this board, would actually have an open enough mind, to discuss various topics, from a point of view, outside the box.

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.

Also, you should, check your, periods, because they, make no sense.

Yes, this thread is indeed not about the War of Southern Treason.

Or my favourite name for it, the Slavers' Rebellion.

 

[MacLeod]

If you note I said Head of State not Head of Government. In many Parliamentary systems the Prime Minister is the head of Government not the Head of State.

But we could spent hour discussing the pros and cons of Parliamnetary vs Presidential systems.

And this thread is about the Electorial College vs popular vote to elect the US President.

The head of state is problematic because often they are little more than figureheads, such as the President of Germany or the Governor General of Canada (if he's even a head of state in some form).

Anyway, getting back to the electoral college, there is no right to vote for President in the Constitution, but we do so because it's a more accurate way to determine the public's will. It's essentially a poll, and like all such measures has some inherent weaknesses.

One benefit of the electoral college is that it recognizes that the voting is a poll, and allows us to break the polls down by state, adjusting for population. This can be very useful. For example, what if hurricane Sandy hit a week later than it did, pounding the North East right on election day, trapping people in their houses and closing most of the voting precincts?

In a popular vote it might cost Obama millions, if not tens of millions of votes. But since we've broken the voting down by region, the electoral college vote would be barely effected, if at all. If only three people in New York made it to the polls, and two of them were Democrats, the choice of the people of New York would still be accurately reflected, which is all we actually need.

As an aside, the reason we adopted using a head count to determine a course of action, or who rules, is that changes in combat tactics (Swiss pikemen) made it obvious that whoever has the most heads wins. So instead of actually fighting a battle, they could just count the numbers on each side and see how the hypothetical battle would've turned out anyway, eliminating the needs to actually fight. In the early incarnation you had to show up with a pike to have your vote count.

Following that logic, one of the reasons I'd argue against mandatory voting is that neither side should be able to claim people who aren't going to show up to fight, but of course if actually pursued logically it would throw us back to some sort of Heinlein "only soldiers vote" system long after soldiering has become a very narrow and specialized exercize.

But in a popular vote in your scenario Republican's wouldn't be voting in those states either. So balance would still be maintained. Provisions can also be made to account for natural disasters. i.e they vote a week or two later and the other ballots are kept secure and only counted then.

Fine you want to adjust for population than apply proporational voting. So each candidates receives a propation of the electoral college votes according to the percentage of the population in that state that voted for them.

Surely if more people are in favour of one candidate (i.e the popular vote) that is the most accurate way to determine the will of the people as a whole.

 

[gturner]

But in a popular vote in your scenario Republican's wouldn't be voting in those states either. So balance would still be maintained.

It's New York. The Democrats lose 10 to 15 million votes and the Republicans lose three, Donald Trump, Rudy Guilianni, and some guy playing outfield for the Yankees.

If you've got a heavily Democrat area and a heavily Republican area that are very evenly matched, and every four years one gets hit with a natural disaster (or just a heavy snow) that alters the relative turnouts, then the elections are actually all being decided by the weather.

If instead you view the election in each area as a poll to determine that area's preference, and then weight that to reflect for each area's population as recorded in the census, you start getting toward an electoral college system where the important thing isn't counting votes per say, it's determining the will of the people by using the votes as a sampling measure.

Provisions can also be made to account for natural disasters. i.e they vote a week or two later and the other ballots are kept secure and only counted then.

As long as the ballots are kept at the RNC headquarters, where everyone is above base vote tampering, then I'm in agreement, except that the Presidential contest is only one of many, many things on the ballot, and it's kind of hard to count only parts of ballots.

Fine you want to adjust for population than apply proporational voting. So each candidates receives a propation of the electoral college votes according to the percentage of the population in that state that voted for them.

Some states do that, but most don't because they get more bang for the buck by going all one way or another. For example, California and New York democrats would never, ever want their state's electoral votes proportioned out like that.

Surely if more people are in favour of one candidate (i.e the popular vote) that is the most accurate way to determine the will of the people as a whole.

That would be true if everyone voted, but only about half do, and in past times voting was even more arduous than today. Many people had to hitch up a team of horses and ride for many hours in the rain or snow across muddy trails to get to a polling place - where they would get drunk and get in a shoot out. (There were actually some good reasons women and children weren't given the vote from the get-go, aside from period chauvenism, but we don't think about them much anymore.)

And of course there are other voting schemes (such as preference cascades) that correct some of the problems inherent even in pure voting.

The best system is to actually split into two alternate realities on election day, stay seperate till the next election, compare notes, and then re-integrate the realities, jump back in time, and revote.

 

[Trekker4747]

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.

 

[MacLeod]

People have a choice to vote or not to vote. Those that don't vote could be considered to think I don't care about who wins.

Or because they live in a heavily blue or red state think there vote wouldn't make a differnce to the result. (When yes it could) by going to popular vote it suddenly doesn't matter that you live in a heavily blue or red state.

 

[MacLeod]

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.

That doesn't make sense.

If cadndiate A wins the EC but loses the popular vote and vice versa for candiate B they have each won one of the criteria so who is President?

 

[Trekker4747]

Essentially, the popular vote "rules all." To become president you have to win BOTH the EC and the popular vote. But if you only win the popular vote (but not the EC) then you win the presidency. Because obviously more people voted for you even though the wacky F-ed up way the EC works doesn't represent this. But, ideally, it should just be a straight popular vote. It should NOT be possible for 22% of the population to decide who is president simply because the EC is a broken system.

 

[gturner]

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.

The Electoral College also serves as a noise filter, allowing you to count, when the big all or nothing counting day arrives, to lump votes for Nader, greens, progressives, and whatnot as counting against the Texan and for the Democrat. At present such parties can swing a close race statewide, but generally the people in that state see that their main candidates are close and come together to put their favored one over the top. Nationwide that's much more difficult because people in San Francisco, Seattle, or Queens might not know anyone who's voting Republican and thus fragment more easily, unaware that simpler folk in Missouri and Wyoming are going for the straight ticket.

 

[stj]

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.

The 435 representatives in the House are reapportioned by population after every census, but each state, even Alaska will get one representative no matter what. The House therefore is also biased towards low population rural/small states. Without redrawing the state's boundaries it is not possible even in principle for one man=one vote to hold.

The value of the Senate as a representative element is imaginary. Without being elected by the legislature of the states, they are not representatives of the states, not even corrupt ones. But direct election didn't change the situtation. The Senate by itself would be a democratic representative element like the House of Representatives is. But the smaller number of senators and the longer terms limit even that. All this in addition to explicit demands for supermajorities on certain issues, such as amendments!

But most of all, the mere existence of a second chamber is intended to prevent the majority of parliamentary representatives from exercising effective control. Any majority must in effect be a supermajority, able to win multiple elections over a period of years without being able to win support by its policies, but only on promise of its policies.

The Senate was modeled on the House of Lords in England, which openly embodied nondemocratic elements. They were incidentally not just the nobility (and some stray Scotsmen, 17 I think?) but the clergy as well.