Should We Get Rid of the Electoral College?

SG854 · Mar 19, 2019

This is something i’ve been wanting to talk about for along time.

It mostly comes up when people are discussing that Trump should’ve lost because Hillary won the popular vote. It’s something that always makes me laugh because the popular vote part always comes up everytime and because they want to get rid of the electoral college because their side lost the election.

So getting rid of the electoral college is a crazy idea, and hopefully people learned in school why the electoral college is important for representation of smaller groups. Imagine that whites being the majority voted for stuff that benefits only them and blacks being the minority are outnumber and gets nothing passed to benefit them. That’s what electoral colleges are.

If we abolish the Electoral College then only a few big counties with high population density (like in California, New York, and Washington) votes will matter and 95% of the counties votes won’t matter. There are higher concentration of people in urban areas. Rural areas will get screwed over. But we have many things prouduced in Rural areas one of them being food. People in Urban will only pass policies that only benefits people’s in cities and it will negatively affect food producers that the country relies on. Our founding fathers knew this which is why they created the electoral college.

A good anology i’ve seen online is imagine a World Series Baseball match and one team wins one game 16-2. The other team wins 4 games 1-0. One team has the most total points but lost most games. The electoral college makes it so the team that wins the most matches are champions and not the team that scores the most points in one game.

Getting rid of electoral college will mean smaller counties will give up their power and them voting for things that will help their very specific communities living style.

Hillary won the popular vote mostly due to California and if you got rid of California then she would’ve lost the popular vote. But Trump won the most electoral votes. Therefore was a valid win. And only a few times in history someone that won the popular vote lost the electoral vote. So getting rid of electoral college because of a few instances isnt a good idea and will back fire. Abraham Lincoln was one president that was hated with lower approval ratings then Trump, but became popular after he died.

So debate below if we should get rid of the electoral college.

Lacius · Mar 20, 2019

There's no reason why some people's votes should be worth more than others'.

CallmeBerto · Mar 20, 2019

WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY!!

In fact, democracy” does not appear in the Declaration of Independence (1776) or the Constitution of the United States of America (1789)

Universal suffrage was a mistake.

FAST6191 · Mar 20, 2019

There are things I would sooner get rid of with regards to primaries (and variations thereof), systems that all buy assure two parties, a lot of the districts and ways they are assigned, define a better vote split method in said college (various states float between proportional and winner take all and the inconsistency bothers).

As far as the college itself then does it do the job? If you do want to boost the effective power of less dense populations/states does it serve to do that? How would one measure that? Does it matter in the face of boring two party setups? Do you really want to boost apparent power? Do we have any examples of things failing when power is not boosted? By how much should we boost things?

this video series has covers some things fairly well, though I am not sure about all of it (the metric of visits by prospective candidates for one, though there might be something to how many reassuring platitudes* would be politicos offer).
*I imagine we all agree campaign promises are typically all hot air.

regnad · Mar 20, 2019

CallmeBerto said:
Universal suffrage was a mistake.

Who would you exclude? The negroes? The womenfolk? The unwashed peasantry? The godless savages roaming the western prairies?

CallmeBerto · Mar 20, 2019

regnad said:
Who would you exclude? The negroes? The womenfolk? The unwashed peasantry? The godless savages roaming the western prairies?

Those who don't pay taxes. Only net taxpayers should vote. Kinda how only landowners could only vote because there wasn't an income tax.

regnad · Mar 20, 2019

CallmeBerto said:
Those who don't pay taxes. Only net taxpayers should vote. Kinda how only landowners could only vote because there wasn't an income tax.

Would you have a cut off? Would one net tax cent be enough?

Would it be income tax only? So retired people wouldn’t be able to vote? What about people with severe disabilities that make them unable to work?

Would an entire household count as a unit, including unemployed homemakers dependent on their spouse?

Other than the obvious ethical problems it seems from a practical standpoint a nightmare to implement fairly.

CallmeBerto · Mar 20, 2019

@regnad

Retired people could vote as long as the welfare they take in doesn't exceed their income taxes.
If you are disabled and unable to work, you most likely get welfare that exceeds the taxes you pay so no.

No, it would be based on per person. Example father works but the mother doesn't, the father can vote mother can't

I am quite aware such a system will never come into play in the current climate but a man can dream.

Basically, I am tieing the vote to some kind of responsibility. If you aren't a NET taxpayer then why the hell should you be able to decide what the money is spent on?

This would also help cut down on corporate welfare. We all bitch how the rich get a fuck ton of their money back and in some cases pay no taxes. Well, this system will help lower that since if they do get more welfare they would lose their voting power.

regnad · Mar 20, 2019

CallmeBerto said:
@regnad

Retired people could vote as long as the welfare they take in doesn't exceed their income taxes.
If you are disabled and unable to work, you most likely get welfare that exceeds the taxes you pay so no.

No, it would be based on per person. Example father works but the mother doesn't, the father can vote mother can't

I am quite aware such a system will never come into play in the current climate but a man can dream.

Basically, I am tieing the vote to some kind of responsibility. If you aren't a NET taxpayer then why the hell should you be able to decide what the money is spent on?

This would also help cut down on corporate welfare. We all bitch how the rich get a fuck ton of their money back and in some cases pay no taxes. Well, this system will help lower that since if they do get more welfare they would lose their voting power.

Corporations don’t vote, but they are the ones receiving the tax breaks.

The monetary power they wield far far exceeds the handful of votes from their executives.

You’re basically writing off poor retired people who paid taxes all their lives but now are dependent on SS because they worked shit pay but necessary jobs their whole lives.

I’m not sure what results you want from this scheme, but I guarantee it won’t turn out how you’re imagining it.

Deleted User · Mar 20, 2019

SG854 said:
If we abolish the Electoral College then only a few big counties with high population density (like in California, New York, and Washington) votes will matter and 95% of the counties votes won’t matter. There are higher concentration of people in urban areas. Rural areas will get screwed over. But we have many things prouduced in Rural areas one of them being food. People in Urban will only pass policies that only benefits people’s in cities and it will negatively affect food producers that the country relies on. Our founding fathers knew this which is why they created the electoral college.

Exactly.

Imagine this. A plague sweeps across American farmland, killing every avocado plant in sight. In a desperate plea, the farmers turn to the government for help. The government, voted in by the cities, doesn't gives a rat's ass about agriculture problems and abandons the farmers, leaving their crops to get wiped out. America runs out of avocados and a large number of the country's problems starve to death.

notimp · Mar 20, 2019

Snugglevixen said:
Exactly.

Imagine this. A plague sweeps across American farmland, killing every avocado plant in sight. In a desperate plea, the farmers turn to the government for help. The government, voted in by the cities, doesn't gives a rat's ass about agriculture problems and abandons the farmers, leaving their crops to get wiped out. America runs out of avocados and a large number of the country's problems starve to death.

Imagine people in cities showing humanity and charity for their fellow citizens in that case. Imagine them already subsidizing rural life with tax dollars every day, without even saying a thing. Never crossed your mind hasnt it?

But in terms of the argument - yes, its a weighing layer on top of a direct democratic vote. No one else in the free world has it (not that I can think of), when voting for the presidency - but then in general, on other levels those things exist.

Usually never ever to be reevaluated...

Next argument, why jerrymandering is needed for the same reasons?

Complicated electoral design is beautiful?

SG854 · Mar 20, 2019

FAST6191 said:
There are things I would sooner get rid of with regards to primaries (and variations thereof), systems that all buy assure two parties, a lot of the districts and ways they are assigned, define a better vote split method in said college (various states float between proportional and winner take all and the inconsistency bothers).

As far as the college itself then does it do the job? If you do want to boost the effective power of less dense populations/states does it serve to do that? How would one measure that? Does it matter in the face of boring two party setups? Do you really want to boost apparent power? Do we have any examples of things failing when power is not boosted? By how much should we boost things?

this video series has covers some things fairly well, though I am not sure about all of it (the metric of visits by prospective candidates for one, though there might be something to how many reassuring platitudes* would be politicos offer).
*I imagine we all agree campaign promises are typically all hot air.

Good points. If you can come up with good reasons that it doesn’t do its job like it’s suppose to and if we can come up with a better system then I’m all ears. So far it’s looks like a good system, as long as we can get corruption out of it.

Ya, campain promises are always hot air. Usually say things that gets votes.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Snugglevixen said:
Exactly.

Imagine this. A plague sweeps across American farmland, killing every avocado plant in sight. In a desperate plea, the farmers turn to the government for help. The government, voted in by the cities, doesn't gives a rat's ass about agriculture problems and abandons the farmers, leaving their crops to get wiped out. America runs out of avocados and a large number of the country's problems starve to death.

Ya, the problem is the abolishment of electoral college mostly because they want their political party to win elections, but they don’t think of the ramifications as a whole on how it’ll affect smaller less represented counties. It’s tunnel vision to want to win elections but not looking at the whole picture.

notimp · Mar 20, 2019

SG854 said:
Good points. If you can come up with good reasons that it doesn’t do its job like it’s suppose to and if we can come up with a better system then I’m all ears.

Heres a good point as well.

People will have all kinds of different opinions as to what it is actually for (especially over time). People will lie, when they say what its for. People will lobby when they say what its for. People will cut deals, when arguing about a replacement system, people will whip others in place with threats and promises over the same matter.

Its called politics. You should look it up some time..

Usually people refer others to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister in terms of a good pop cultural representation.

Thats after you reached stage one of "model UN, everyone is talking to everyone on a best argument basis" doesnt work.

Maybe the weighing was put in there for "the plumb harvest of 1897", maybe it was put in there for rural vs urban (but the presidency does little in terms of those matters), maybe the presumed reasons shifted over time.

What political capital would be needed to "do it over". The sort of which does hardly exist anymore in our days. I think it would make universal healthcare feel like a pinprick in comparison.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Counter argument for "only the bigger states would matter": "only the swing states matter now".

And campaigning them with "candy for all" is more easy.

Not sure if I'm correct in principal, just gathering arguments for the other position.

kuwanger · Mar 20, 2019

SG854 said:
If we abolish the Electoral College then only a few big counties with high population density (like in California, New York, and Washington) votes will matter and 95% of the counties votes won’t matter. There are higher concentration of people in urban areas. Rural areas will get screwed over. But we have many things prouduced in Rural areas one of them being food. People in Urban will only pass policies that only benefits people’s in cities and it will negatively affect food producers that the country relies on. Our founding fathers knew this which is why they created the electoral college.

So, uh, yea, no. The President != government. Rural states represent a decided majority in the Senate and hence have de facto veto power to just about anything more populace States in the House desire. They can, if so desired, demand the House push through legislation they desire or vote down everything--not unlike Trump's shutdown efforts. Congress as a whole can veto the President. Congress has consistently shown itself beholden to agricultural, subsidizing it and generally looking the other way when it comes to agricultural pollution. Hell, there was a massive debate in California during their long drought precisely about the fact that so much water was being diverted to water almond trees. Beyond that, urbanities simply aren't inclined to bite the hand that feeds them. Tying into my point about Trump's shutdown efforts, people actually want agricultural subsidies a lot more than they want a wall. Basically, everything you're arguing on this front is decidedly wrong.

Having said all that, the reason I think we should keep the electoral college has less to do with per se better representing less populace states and more to somewhat mellow out the potential mob rush towards an incompetent President which has sufficient amounts of charisma. To that end, the real problem I see today with the electoral system we have for President is precisely that we have a binary system in most States where all votes of a State go to one candidate. To further mellow out the mob rush of the people, it'd make more sense to have proportional (as best as possible) electoral voting for States. This also would help counter the "red state == blue votes are pointless [for president]" and "blue state == red votes are pointless [for president]". The approach we have now is akin to State-level gerrymandering almost--and gerrymandering itself is a mess of a thing.

Taleweaver · Mar 20, 2019

Interesting topic. I've been thinking of starting a thread that slightly had this as topic (it was more on whether there should be more political parties), but in the end I wasn't satisfied with it so I haven't made it.

Anyhow...I personally would say "just get rid of it", but I voted 'I don't know'. The reason: I'm not a US citizen. I know a bit on the topic, but it doesn't personally concern me. Likewise: the voting process in Belgium is quite a mess, but as soon as a foreigner would say something like "wow...that election process is quite a mess", I'd be up in arms on it*. So while I'll go into details as to why I would argue against it, please remember that I take it pretty light. It's kind of like with soccer. I personally think the offside-rule is stupid, but ey...if it makes you happy to have it: go on ahead.

*kind of similar to when Trump called Brussels a hellhole. The response from me and my friends was mostly in the style of "IT MAY BE TRUE BUT NOBODY INSULTS OUR HELLHOLE BUT US!!!!

"

SG854 said:
It mostly comes up when people are discussing that Trump should’ve lost because Hillary won the popular vote. It’s something that always makes me laugh because the popular vote part always comes up everytime and because they want to get rid of the electoral college because their side lost the election.

I may be wrong, but wasn't this proposed to get rid of under Obama's government as well (but rejected by republicans)?

SG854 said:
So getting rid of the electoral college is a crazy idea, and hopefully people learned in school why the electoral college is important for representation of smaller groups. Imagine that whites being the majority voted for stuff that benefits only them and blacks being the minority are outnumber and gets nothing passed to benefit them. That’s what electoral colleges are.

Sorry...I didn't learn it in school (again: not US citizen). From what I picked up, this originated back in the day when USA was still fairly new and had to find a way to make sure everyone could vote without having to mass emigrate all over the place.
I'm not sure I understand the idea behind these electoral colleges (in this day and age, that is). My first conclusion upon following a US election was that if you lived in a non-swing state, your political opinion meant jack shit. The term "first-past-the-post" is far more prone allowing discrimination than anything else, but it's not like you can fix it with just two candidates.

SG854 said:
If we abolish the Electoral College then only a few big counties with high population density (like in California, New York, and Washington) votes will matter and 95% of the counties votes won’t matter. There are higher concentration of people in urban areas. Rural areas will get screwed over. But we have many things prouduced in Rural areas one of them being food. People in Urban will only pass policies that only benefits people’s in cities and it will negatively affect food producers that the country relies on. Our founding fathers knew this which is why they created the electoral college.

Is that 95% figure accurate? I'm not joking here: if 95% of the US citizens live in the large urban areas, then I don't even need to check a map of the weight of those colleges to know cities are vastly underrepresented in the US.
I can't say anything on why those colleges were created (okay...so maybe "it was more convenient before communication improved came along" was a wrong assumption on my part), but I honestly don't see a connection with your conclusion. Why would rural areas get screwed when the president with the most citizen votes would win the election? In case you forgot: Al Gore (who lost despite a popular vote from George W. Bush in 2000) was an environmentalist. And last I checked, humans living in cities know that they rely on food production (which happens mostly in the countryside).

SG854 said:
A good anology i’ve seen online is imagine a World Series Baseball match and one team wins one game 16-2. The other team wins 4 games 1-0. One team has the most total points but lost most games. The electoral college makes it so the team that wins the most matches are champions and not the team that scores the most points in one game.

Oh...is that so? I thought that most candidates downright ignored states because their electoral weight (or the chance to claim a victory) was too small to make an income on the outcome. I guess I was wrong on that. Thanks for the correction.

But on a serious note: there are things very wrong with the comparion. The main one: it isn't the best team that wins, but the best team that can compete that wins. And seeing how much presidential elections cost, the comparison with world baseball would be correct if three major rules would be enforced in that sport:
* every baseball team needs not only visit every state but also build a new stadion. In theory, sponsors can contribute to these teams without asking anything in return. In practice, sponsors can contribute to these teams asking all sorts of stuff in return.
* there should only ever be two teams competing. Sure, the teams start out with little subdivisions, but in the end you can only ever root for one of these teams
* actually scoring points is...erm...I guess it's still somewhat relevant somehow, but even so it would be vastly underprioritized to the perception to which team scores. There might be a referee on the field, but the media is pretty inventive in ways to undermine his verdict.

If you think that baseball would still be the same with those three rules in place...then sure: the candidate that scores the most victory points as opposed to the largest victory points wins.

SG854 said:
Getting rid of electoral college will mean smaller counties will give up their power and them voting for things that will help their very specific communities living style.

Okay...color me interested. Why would they vote different? Again: the way I see it, these states give up their COLLECTIVE power to gain INDIVIDUAL power. Both those republicans AND democrats who live in non-battle states will actually have a chance of making an actual impact on the election. All this "your vote really matters" that gets thrown around each election (except in Belgium, where voting is obligated

) might actually ring true.

SG854 said:
Hillary won the popular vote mostly due to California and if you got rid of California then she would’ve lost the popular vote.

Okay...and your point is? It's not hard to predict that if you exclude enough voters then at some point the opposition would win.

SG854 said:
But Trump won the most electoral votes. Therefore was a valid win. And only a few times in history someone that won the popular vote lost the electoral vote. So getting rid of electoral college because of a few instances isnt a good idea and will back fire. Abraham Lincoln was one president that was hated with lower approval ratings then Trump, but became popular after he died.

I have honestly no idea how many times it has been the case, but I wouldn't call these "a few instances". Democracy means "rule by the people". This means that each of these "few instances" are four year periods where the very principle of democracy simply were not applied. And I know this is pretty controversial, but I think that those hardcore fore fathers that kickstarted the USA actually meant their brand new democracy to be actually democratic, and that the electoral colleges were at that time the best way to do it because the internet hadn't been invented yet.

I'm pretty sure that others know more about Lincoln than me, but I'm fairly sure that he believed in something bigger than himself. That obviously wields enemies. Trump doesn't believe in anything aside his brand name. So I'm fairly confident he won't become much more popular after he dies.

Flame · Mar 20, 2019

you really have two parties right?

who ever gets the most votes wins.

last time the person with the second most vote won.

:wtf:

Xzi · Mar 20, 2019

If we aren't going to eliminate it, we definitely need to update it. The number of EC votes per state has not stayed consistent with population at all. This nation was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation, and a fair amount of the American populace has no representation in the electoral college.

SG854 · Mar 20, 2019

Taleweaver said:
Oh...is that so? I thought that most candidates downright ignored states because their electoral weight (or the chance to claim a victory) was too small to make an income on the outcome. I guess I was wrong on that. Thanks for the correction.

Yes, 90% of electioneering takes place in 11 swing states. But swing states change. They mostly ignore non swing states which they know will vote for their side. Swing states change based on industry and changing times. Like loosing manufacturing jobs to robots. These places voted for Trump because he said he will bring jobs back. You would have people only campaign of the ideals of the big cities with individual vote system and rural areas would be left out.

If we abolish the electoral college then then they only need to focus on big counties in California, New York, Texas ignoring the rest of the country. It undermines the principles of federalism which will remove powers from individual states and they will have to give up their power to larger states like California and New York. They will have imperial rule over most states. Most of the states in country is going to be ignored. People in California will dictate what you can and can’t do if you live in the middle of a rural nowhere.

People have vowed to get rid of the electoral college when they become president but that’s not going to happen because you need 2/3 of states to vote in favor of it and many states want the electoral college.

No, your right that a big reason for the creation of the electoral college was because communication because all people had were horses. The founding fathers knew that if you want other states to be part of the union they can’t be out voted by the popular vote.

Trump won the overall majority of counties in this country. Hillary won the popular vote. Electoral college is about state representation not individual person representation. The president doesn’t represent individuals, they represent the union. If you have individual problems then talk to your state government. The national government isn’t the only thing that exists.

Many states mostly Blue States have vowed to vote their electorates based on popular vote. And this will back fire bad.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/color...idents-by-popular-vote-skip-electoral-college

Now with the current system if most people in the state want a Democrat then then can vote for a Democrat. But then let say they go by individual national popular vote and a Republican gets the national popular vote, well now they have to vote their electorates for the Republican, going against what their state wants. They would have to explain to their state why they are going against the wishes of the people in that state. And Republicans can see this as an advantage to benefit them.

x65943 · Mar 20, 2019

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

Thankfully we don't need a constitutional amendment. We just need 270 EV to sign this compact.

We are already over half way there.

SG854 · Mar 20, 2019

x65943 said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

Thankfully we don't need a constitutional amendment. We just need 270 EV to sign this compact.

We are already over half way there.

Why do you think we should get rid of electoral colleges?

Should We Get Rid of the Electoral College?

Should we get rid of Electoral College?

Yes

No

I don’t know

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