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Cons on electoral college

Pro:

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So what reason is there that we still have it?

"To keep the states balanced in voting power" or something to that effect.

However the college still doesn't "balance" each states voting power as each state has varying amounts of electorates, the larger states having more. It makes no difference, if anything it shrinks the amount of people deciding who's the next president by a significant margin.

In short, the Electoral College is redundant and the power to vote for president should be put in the hands of the people.

“To keep the states balanced in voting power” doesn't make sense since the states get more votes if they have more more people. If Texas had 60% of the population, they'd have around 60% of the electoral vote.

I believe it was important back in the early America, as there were more inhibiting factors surrounding elections back then. It took all fucking week to just meet in another state, the founding states had far more population than the rest of the 13 original states continuing into newly annexed states, top citizens were still suspicious of each other after the war, believe it or not, and just conjecture, but I don't know if they fully thought how to even make a proper election. I think it was just an "okay, we finally won the war, we're America now, fuck I'm tired, but we need a leader, how do we make it official?"

It was clear they were trying to eliminate bias, like with the dual-senate system, but I believe that is now too archaic to keep. When small states, the people who are in most need of help, aren't sought after because both votes AND electoral votes, you need to change something. With such a heavy overrepresentation towards the huge states, we need to tone that shit down.

Then there's the whole way in which candidates obtain electoral votes. It's a Winner Takes All approach, which is damning at the start. 50.1% of the vote in one state nets you 100% of the electoral votes, but by removing that, a 50.1% of the vote still means the opponent candidate (in a two-party system, but that's another thread) has 49.9% of the vote and a statistical tie.

That's not true. Each state, regardless of population, has at least 3 electoral votes, skewing the actual precentages. California has 12% the population but only 10% the vote, while Vermont has .2% the population but .55% the vote. Bigger states still have more votes, but smaller states have bigger Electoral Vote to Population ratio. This was originally intended so smaller states would still have a say, but all it did was make it so certain votes counted more than others.

In Vermont, one electoral vote counts for 213K people but in California, one electoral vote counts for 705K people. A persons vote in California is worth only 30% that of a persons vote in Vermont. Three Californians can be outvoted by one Vermont citizen. In an America where the power of the states are not as important and each person cares about the federal government as an individual and not as a hive mind shared by the state they live in, adding in the "Winner takes all" system that makes a Texan democrat or Californian republican's vote actually, literally worthless, it is a very unfair voting system.

The winner take all system is the worst part of it. It manages to disenfranchise everyone who doesn't live in a swing state and large chunks of those who do. I would prefer a simple majority vote but that would likely cause politicians to focus all their campaigning in highly populated areas and screw over those who live in more rural areas.

First, I've said even before the election I don't like the Electoral College, but I'm going to play devil's advocate since no one else seems to want to.

Pro(ish):
This School House Rock video will only exist to show how bad the system is

Okay, so here are videos with something a bit more substantial. The first mostly explains what the system is, the second one does more to explain why they think we should keep it.

TL;DR: The biggest tangible point for most people is that the electoral college kinda does a better job at making it more difficult for election to be rigged. That having been said, with voter fraud generally shown to be functionally non-existent… It's hard to see this as the trump card for why we should keep it. As CPG Grey said in his earlier Electoral College video, many states are generally almost completely ignored even with the system that's supposed to prevent that.

Do you seriously want all of the most populated states (most of them democrat), like California and New York to ALWAYS win? That really sounds unfair, if you think about it.

The problem I've always had with this argument is either

1) The majority of people live in cities, thus it makes sense to focus on where more people are, because there are more people there to be affected by the president or

2) All the major cities don't hold the majority of the population, so just focusing on cities loses you the election, making it a moot point.

The current system has the candidates only care about Ohio, Flordia, Michigan, and any other potential swing state while ignoring 90% of the country anyway, including heavily populated areas like California. Changing the system doesn't add this problem, it just shifts it.

Should people living in cities get screwed over because rural areas are given bigger votes because they have a lower population density? If 80% of the population lives in cities, they should get 80% of the vote, not 50%. The candidates can't possibly campaign everywhere, so they have to choose the areas that are worth more, so would you rather that be locations based on what amounts to a game or would you rather the locations be based on where the most voices are?

Do you seriously want all of the most populated states (most of them democrat), like California and New York to ALWAYS win? That really sounds unfair, if you think about it.

No, I want the candidate the most people want to win, win, not for peoples voting power to be based on their location. Seriously, you people are focusing too much on location and population density and not enough on the individual vote. What state people are in shouldn't matter, how densely populated their home is shouldn't matter, what should be the only thing that matters is how they are one person, and they get one vote, and that vote is worth the same as everybody elses vote, regardless of where they live.

>" but that would likely cause politicians to focus all their campaigning in highly populated areas and screw over those who live in more rural areas."

do…. do they not already do this? When was the last time someone campaigned in Montana?

What you're asking is if we should just abolish the states altogether and become one big empire.

{ what should be the only thing that matters is how they are one person, and they get one vote, and that vote is worth the same as everybody elses vote, regardless of where they live. }

It does, in your state. Your state laws and regulations are totally different than another state's laws. How federal issues will impact people in your state is totally different than how it will impact people in another. Your state collectively decides which candidate is more to their advantage. Carbon regulations, for example, will effect a 'rural state with less people but more factories' a lot more than a 'urban state with more people but less factories'.

Simply giving everybody one vote without taking any other factors into consideration is how you get tyranny of the majority.

The view that informed the Electoral College is seeings the states as semi-sovereign, if not entirely. They had their own distinct cultures and wanted to be almost their own country. That was the point of the United States – almost countries, but not quite.

However, why would a smaller state, like Rhode Island, want to be part of the U.S. if it's just going to get pushed around by all the other states in federal elections? It'll be a slave to the larger ones, since their voice would heavily outweigh them in a direct election.

This is why the electoral college is as it is. Smaller states wouldn't want to be part of the group if their say means practically nothing next to the larger ones in the government that controls them all. So, they had the smaller ones have more of a say-per-citizen.

It was meant to represent states while not being too ridiculous in dealing with the popular vote.

Our modern society, though, sees states much less as their own cultures, their own mini-countries. State governments are much more ignored in favor of the federal government. Simply put, we don't hold the mentality that led to the creation of the electoral college today.

It doesn't even necessarily work as intended. By my count, ~35 states in the last election didn't even matter really in the ultimate vote because their populations are so polarized they can't be swayed, and they're close in terms of how many electoral votes they have between Republican and Democrat. The electoral vote comes down to other states, that end up often being high in population and electoral count anyways. The only low-electoral state to get much attention is New Hampshire, because of its high swinginess.

So, we have a system that has not kept up with changing views and doesn't even work as intended.

Why keep it?

Well, for one thing, it'd be horrendously painful to fix it. We haven't done a change like that in many years, and it'd have to go through the states iirc. Given that most states are Republican (the party that's benefited most by it), I don't see it going through without massive grassroots action and popular demand.

For another, it'd entirely change how the people in charge have to do things. Popular-Electoral vote splits are an easier path to go than popular vote. Everyone is trying to abuse the system. Everyone. The Democratic party might push for change, because it's gotten burnt twice by it, but they can still benefit from it if they change up their strategy.

Edit: wow I took so long to write this everyone else said like everything, darnit

The states would still have the power to rule at a local level, but the president has power over the whole country evenly so should be voted for evenly. My vote counts the same compared to fellow statemen but not compared to fellow Americans. Again, the importance of state power is less than when America was founded. The federal government supersedes state government and affects the lives of all Americans, it doesn't govern the states, it governs the people, so the people should have the power, not the state. I don't see how someone from Vermont should have 3 times the voting power of someone in California just because their state government governs less people.

Simply giving everybody one vote without taking any other factors into consideration is how you get tyranny of the majority.

As opposed to tyranny of the minority? In a democracy, in any form it takes, including a representative republic, the main point is that the power of government is spread out amongst the people and the citizens living in said democracy have equal say in how their government if run. Someone is always going to be out-voted, and someone is always gonna be ruled by representatives they did not choose nor represent their concerns, that is unavoidable and the Electoral College does nothing to stop that. That's democracy, there is no way around that, but giving the power to the majority is much more favorable than giving the power to people who happen to live in the right location.

@lisalombs
How is our current system of just letting ~5 swing states decide everything better than the majority?
What exactly does a President do that differs states by state, affecting each state differently?

In the last 200 years, over 700 proposals have been raised to eliminate the Electoral College. They have all failed. Good luck.

That's because a constitutional amendment is hard. Especially when it has to go through people terrified of anything that threatens their power. I know I will never see it happen, but that doesn't mean I won't argue it should happen.

{ but the president has power over the whole country evenly so should be voted for evenly }

No, he doesn't. He has literally no power over the country's domestic legislation beyond recommendations to Congress. This should immediately highlight to you just how greatly Obama has overstepped his bounds, dodging Congress to do so in almost all cases. Is that the problem, are so many people confused because they don't know anything but Obama? Some of his actions have been UNANIMOUSLY overturned by the Supreme Court.

{ The federal government supersedes state government and affects the lives of all Americans, }

Federal law only has supremacy over state law within its Constitutional jurisdiction, that's the Supremacy Clause, and literally none of that legislating power belongs to the Pres/VP who are the only people elected by electoral college, so…? All members of the federal legislature (Congress) are in fact chosen by popular vote. Maybe this is also highlighting how important it is to vote in your local elections…

{ As opposed to tyranny of the minority? }

It's called checks and balances, a compromise. The majority population states don't totally outrank the minority population states which aren't outrageously over-weighted in return.

Well, in my opinion, we should keep it until some practical system superior to both the popular vote and the electoral college comes around, after thoroughly picking at it to gauge it. Both the EC and the popular vote have their pros and cons. A change on such a scale shouldn't be taken lightly.

We should switch to something better than the EC, but in my opinion, the popular vote just isn't close to being better enough for a switch to be worth it.

Here's an idea:

Keep the electoral system, but do away with the winner-takes-all-the-electoral votes as is the current case for most states.

Instead:

-The winner of each state's popular vote receives two electoral votes (these are the "Senate" evs.)
-The remaining electoral votes in each state go the winner of the popular vote in each Congressional District.

In states with the minimum number of electoral votes (three), two votes would go to the winner of the state, and one to the winner of the state's one Congressional district. In reality this would mean the winner of the popular vote would win all three.

However in states with large numbers of Congressional districts, there would multiple electoral votes going to each candidate.

The advantages to this system would be

a) to encourage candidate attention to more areas.
b) giving more importance to individual votes in states which tend to be dominated by one party.
c) to make it harder/less productive to attempt voter fraud, since winning an individual state's popular vote would be less meaningful and more areas would need to be stolen.

Now, this will never happen because it would currently reverse the Democratic Party's advantage in the Electoral College (the result of California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York's 118 votes being in solid Democratic states) and give the Republican Party one instead.

Here's a map of the popular vote by Congressional District for the 2012 election (I haven't been able to find one for the 2016 election yet). While it doesn't reflect the current electorate, it does give us a rough idea of what the new electoral baseline would be: with the exception of Texas Republicans would continue to take all the electoral votes in solid red states, but Democrats would lose some electoral votes in solid blue states.

Had electoral votes been allocated this way in 2012, Romney would have defeated Obama 273-265 (Obama won 332-206).

It is also important to remember that as a result the Republicans controlling Congress, they have been in charge of redrawing Congressional districts. This gives them an advantage in creating districts that are easier for them to win and hold. Therefore, Democrats have some justification in resisting such a change to the electoral system.

Edit: I forget to mention that states can choose to do this on their own, and that currently Maine and Nebraska have an at large electoral vote system.

The president is the one that signs bills into law, bills that affect the whole country and it's people. What the president does affects the whole country. Checks and balances have nothing to do with the voting system. Again, it's the people that are affected, and it's the people, we are told, that chooses the president, but that's a lie. And again, you are placing too much importance on states when it's the people that are affect uniformly.

The states are not conscious beings, and the people of the states are not a hive mind, so why have a voting system that behaves like they do? Why should a republican in California just have to accept they have zero say in who their president is? Also, why are you pretending that Ohio, Florida, Michigan and New York are not the only states the presidential candidates care about in the current system?

Here's the way I look at it.

>California is our most populous state
>Roughly 38 million people live in California alone
>According to google about 9 million people voted in California this year
>The smallest states only see turnouts in the hundreds of thousands

I think it's fair because there is a much smaller disparity between 3 and 55 (the number of electoral votes California is worth) than there is between millions and thousands. Even in the Electoral college some states still wield a huge amount of power, but with the electoral college those state's interests aren't outvoted as easily as they would be. 20 states have less than 1% of the US population living in them respectively and with the Electoral college a few small states and some bigger ones can make up for California.

Just my two cents, I think we should keep it.

California has ~10% of the us population, its not as if you some how convince every single person in california to vote for you, you suddenly win. Why would a candidate care more about the vote of a californian than an alabamian?

A Californian is voting in a state with 55 electoral votes, instead of a state with 9. That's over six times more importance to a candidate's victory with the Electoral College in effect. I'm not sure if you already knew this and were asking for something else, or what.

Again, you guys are placing too much importance on states in an election where which state you live in doesn't affect how president affects you. If the president signs a bill that bans the ownership of snakes, it makes no difference if you live in Ohio or Texas, it affects you all the same. If the draft is reactivated and the president decides to send 100,000 troops to fuckoffistan, who your state voted for state won't make difference in your chances to be drafted. These are decisions that affect people on a individual level, yet what state you live in decides if your voice matters in these decisions or not.

Here is another way to look at it. There is an apartment building that holds 21 people and the landlord decides to hold a vote to see if he will spend money on a pool or fixing the plumbing. There are 10 rooms, five hold three roommates the other six hold single bachelors. The roommates vote plumbing but the bachelors vote pool. Our current system means there are six votes pool and five votes plumbing when 15 people voted plumbing but only six voted pool. The bachelors, because they take up more rooms, got more of a vote than the roommates did, despite the fact they are affected by the decision the same individually.

This insistence that people in smaller states should get more power so they are somehow even with people in bigger states border on insanity in my view. It's placing the power out of the hands of those it affects and into the hands of state, which couldn't care less about my pet snake or if I die against my will in fuckoffistan.

When I said "Why would a candidate care more about the vote of a californian than an alabamian?" I meant in regards to if we had popular vote.

An Alabama electoral vote represents 522K people while a California electoral vote represent 705K. Someone from California has 75.6% the voting power of someone in Alabama. That makes a person from Alabama matter more to a presidential candidate than someone from California.

I don't understand how changing to a popular vote really improves things much, rather then simply swapping the states focused on from the ones with the most electorate votes or swing votes to the ones with the highest amount of populations.

Who would give a fuck about Montana's 1 million people when Texas's 25 million could dwarf it? North and South Carolina have a combined total of 14 million, but New York has 19 million so guess what? Fuck you Carolinas, you don't matter anymore. Any state that cannot bring double digit millions into the equation will become the new ignored states, while the ones with the multi-millions will get all the focus.

California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and Michigan become the new key states while states like Oregan, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Colorado, Alabama, Mississipi, Nevada and New Mexico become mid tier barely worth getting states compared to their neighbors.

And states like Hawaii, Vermont, Delaware, New Hampshire, and West Virginia become the bottom tier states that nobody gives a fuck about because why would they, they barely count as 1 million of a vote.

So where's the improvement in the system exactly? Where's the part where all states matter, and all people's votes matter? Because in all honestly, I'm really having a hard time seeing it here.

This also doesn't get into the fact that most of Americas population doesn't fucking vote, thus making a popular vote more dubious a result imo. Like, I could understand if like, 80 percent of the country voted and their vote wasn't being represented well. But when like, almost 50 percent vote only? I can't really find myself being very open to the idea of giving the system to the people, when the people don't even want to work to get their voices heard. Why shouldn't we have a group who decides this stuff by just looking at the results and giving it as winner take all system if people aren't going to bother voting anyway? What is lost in this voter translation?

Bringing up the tyranny thing Lisa brought up, it's true. We're a republic instead of a democracy for this reason. If everything was direct all the time we'd be in complete chaos. Republics while not perfect at all are meant to protect the little guys in terms of decisions. The electoral college is a very fundamentally Republican (the form of government not the party ideology) idea in that way. I'd say I agree with Lisa in that the electoral college still has a purpose. You could say "states don't matter that much anymore" but I see that as a bad thing, the wrong direction to go towards. Something that gives more power back to states I'm all for.

I'm no expert but what if we kept electoral votes, same amount we have for every state as we do now and all. But remove the winner takes all portion? So you make it that every major district or whatever gets an elector like how we vote in the House. So that way it still gives smaller states more weight and checks places like California but also makes votes for everyone worth more? Like all those Republican Californians and Dem Texans can finally get out and do something and inspire turn-out overall. Just an idea tear it apart all you want I'm no political scientist.

Needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few.

Essentially the system was created also to keep idiots out of the office.

… in theory.

With these elections, and Clinton's popular vote, Trump could still lose. In theory he has the electoral votes, but not officially. The electoral votes can still choose to abstain from what they should vote for, and with enough of that happening Hillary could still become President that way. It's an insanely faint glimmer of hope some liberals still cling on to.

But it's never gonna happen. Congress can still choose to ignore rogue votes, and electoral voters handing out their votes post-election has become nothing more than redundant in today's political climate.

So that reason for keeping the electoral votes has become moot.

@Black Graphic T

>"Who would give a fuck about Montana’s 1 million people when Texas’s 25 million could dwarf it? "

Who currently cares about their 1 or 2 electoral votes? When was the last time someone campaigned in Montana?

>"Fuck you Carolinas, you don’t matter anymore."

Why?
If 1 million people from that state vote for you, thats a million votes. Literally every single votes matters, it would make literally no sense what so ever to not campaign everywhere.
Currently, the only states that matter are swing states, no one cares about states where they only get 35% of the vote, why should they? They get literally nothing out of that 35%.

>"This also doesn’t get into the fact that most of Americas population doesn’t fucking vote"
With the current system, what reason does someone in Alabama or California have to vote? There is no question that there would be an increase in voter turnout of, you know, their vote actually meant something.

{ The president is the one that signs bills into law, bills that affect the whole country and it’s people. }

He has no ability to control what's in them, the President is a last check on Congress' legislating power. Congress is the one who creates the bills that effect the whole country, that's why every state gets 2 members of the Senate for equality and Reps in the House based on their population.

{ And again, you are placing too much importance on states when it’s the people that are affect uniformly. }

Presidents aren't supposed to be issuing law that effects people at all, that's literally the point. Their Constitutional duties don't involve almost all the shit Obama has done which is why it's all slowly being reversed by higher courts. Even Obama couldn't snap his fingers and pass gay marriage or bathroom access for trans people (he tried, SCOTUS said nope), so I really don't know why everybody is convinced Trump or Pence can.

Presidents are our international figureheads, they negotiate treaties and war, that's pretty much it. When you're electing a President you're supposed to be thinking "who will fight for my personal benefit on the international stage" not "he's the last signature on a law that has to go through all the Congressmen to even get to his desk". If he vetoes Congress can pass it anyway, which a bipartisan Congress did in fact do recently on family of victims of 9/11 being able to sue Saudi Arabia for their role (which is mostly a symbolic gesture). It's all checks and balances and the President has zero legislating power.

Presidential elections have always been more of a yes/no kind of issue, that's why the two party split is so ingrained while we see third parties gaining some momentum in the states. You either wanted a Republican who'd going to keep us the top military power or you wanted a Democrat who'd retreat because they think the "era of war" is over so we can sit down and hug shit out with all the countries that still want to eradicate our culture. I know it seems super typical now but people did not go to Presidential elections thinking about social issues/etc that were obviously under jurisdiction of the State.

{ the people of the states are not a hive mind, so why have a voting system that behaves like they do? }

The whole country isn't a hive mind, why have a voting system that behaves like we are? Whoever is elected isn't going to adopt a blended policy, whether they're elected by 49.7% vs 49.6% of the population or 300 of the electoral votes. You can try to rearrange the numbers so it would have suited your side best in hindsight, but only one person is going to win bruh.

{ Who currently cares about their 1 or 2 electoral votes? When was the last time someone campaigned in Montana? }

Why would they waste time and money in a state that only has a few hundred thousand people who vote vs a state like California where millions of people vote? What are they each at now, about 60 million votes? You'd only have to win big in California and Texas and the election is over. The Electoral College makes up for some of that, now instead of focusing on two or three big states they focus on eight or ten.

>"Why would they waste time and money in a state that only has a few hundred thousand people who vote vs a state like California where millions of people vote?"

Because you can't win by only convincing everyone in one or two states to vote for you? With popular vote, every vote matters, so you want to convince anyone you can. With the EC, only people's vote in ~5 states matter, literally no one else's vote even matters. Campaigning in Montana with popular vote will actually lead to something, unlike a dem campaigning in Montana, which will not benefit them at all. Popular vote means you can actually care about the smaller states

Also, uhh
>"Presidents aren’t supposed to be issuing law that effects people at all".
>"Presidents are our international figureheads, they negotiate treaties and war"

Yea, how does war possibly affect the common person /s

{ Because you can’t win by only convincing everyone in one or two states to vote for you? }

Why? Barely half the country voted in the 2016 election. Are you assuming 100% voter turnout? All you have to do is win a majority of the votes. With a less controversial set of candidates and a lower turnout the odds are even better.

{ Yea, how does war possibly affect the common person /s }

It really doesn't effect us much on an individual basis, and negotiating treaties/war isn't issuing law, but the point is that he has no jurisdiction outside of international affairs. He can't legislate anything. No part of our government is obligated to do something just because he wants it done.

80 million voted this past election, Cali's population is just under 40 million, so yea, even assuming 100% voter turn out, you can't win with only one state, so doesn't that prove my point more?
Anyways, its hard to compare the number of voters now vs how many voters we'd have with popular vote. People in states like California and Alabama would be much more likely to vote if their vote actually meant something.
As it stands right now, you don't even have to get anywhere near the majority of states to win. if you get the 11 biggest states, then you win every time.

Again, war does affect us, a lot. How many people have been injured or killed due to war?

He has no ability to control what’s in them, the President is a last check on Congress’ legislating power. Congress is the one who creates the bills that effect the whole country, that’s why every state gets 2 members of the Senate for equality and Reps in the House based on their population.

Yes he does, he can veto them with a stipulation for a rewrite.

Presidents aren’t supposed to be issuing law that effects people at all, that’s literally the point.

It's literally the executive branches job to enforce laws. And in regards to his job as an international figurehead, the point still stands because he doesn't represent the states, he represents the people of the US and his decisions to enter a war or reactivate a draft affects the people, not the states.

The whole country isn’t a hive mind, why have a voting system that behaves like we are? Whoever is elected isn’t going to adopt a blended policy, whether they’re elected by 49.7% vs 49.6% of the population or 300 of the electoral votes. You can try to rearrange the numbers so it would have suited your side best in hindsight, but only one person is going to win bruh.

I've been arguing against the EC since I first found out about, this has nothing to do with hindsight. You missed the point of my post. States like California or Texas are so polarized that anyone in that state trying to vote for the other party literally has no say in the outcome of the presidency. If the winner take all state system is abolished, their vote would actually count, but seeing how anybody who voted Clinton in Texas might as well have had their ballot thrown into a furnace, I don't see why people are complaining about the whole "#NotMyPresident" deal, they didn't get outvoted, they had their vote thrown away.

{ you can’t win with only one state, so doesn’t that prove my point more? }

Your point is that you want all the states and people to count equally. Forget about the states altogether, if I'm confident I can hit a majority by only campaigning in 10 large cities, then the rest of them and the people in them don't matter. The other guy isn't going to get above my majority even if everybody in every other city combines votes for him, that's what majority means. The electoral college was established to prevent that scenario, if there is ALWAYS a majority in 10 big cities then those 10 big cities' interests ALWAYS win, which is why we don't live in a pure democracy.

Voting by population facilitates tyranny of the majority, we establish the electoral college to reduce that effect, the minority opinion manages to barely scrape through this time meaning the electoral college which is meant to equalize the states is doing its job properly, but the majority opinion is pissed about less than 1% of difference so we should go back to the majority rule so they can have their way. That's the argument.

{ Yes he does, he can veto them with a stipulation for a rewrite. }

Which Congress can overrule and I then gave you an example of it happening less than 4 months ago. The President is Congress' last power check, he is nothing else domestically.

{ It’s literally the executive branches job to enforce laws. }

The President isn't the only member of the executive branch wtf, zero part of his job is enforcing the law. He picks other people to enforce the law at best, in your argument. The Department of Defense/Education/Energy/so on are the people who bring action against employers/etc accused of violating federal discrimination/etc law.

& enforcing the law is still not the same as writing and deciding what goes into the law, which is still Congress, which is the point you're trying to dodge.

{ his decisions to enter a war or reactivate a draft affects the people }

THOSE ARE NOT HIS DECISIONS WTF. CONGRESS has to make both of those decisions!! He can make NO decisions on behalf of the people because he does not represent the people, he represents the UNITED STATES of America, what is so hard about this?! Your Congressional REPRESENTATIVES represent we the people in the federal government. Do you have any idea how our government works at all??

THOSE ARE NOT HIS DECISIONS WTF. CONGRESS has to make both of those decisions!! He can make NO decisions on behalf of the people because he does not represent the people, he represents the UNITED STATES of America, what is so hard about this?! Your Congressional REPRESENTATIVES represent we the people in the federal government. Do you have any idea how our government works at all??

Um, the president is the one that decides to send troops over, even if he can't officially declare war, that hasn't stopped the president since WW2. Yes, the president represents the people of the US, the US is not a conscious entity, it is a piece of land that has no say in anything nor cares about anything. The presidents decision to send troops and sign laws affect the people of the US, so the people of the US should be the ones to decide the president, how is this concept flying over your head?

>"if I’m confident I can hit a majority by only campaigning in 10 large cities, then the rest of them and the people in them don’t matter. "

Is that not true now?

THOSE ARE NOT HIS DECISIONS WTF. CONGRESS has to make both of those decisions!! He can make NO decisions on behalf of the people because he does not represent the people, he represents the UNITED STATES of America, what is so hard about this?! Your Congressional REPRESENTATIVES represent we the people in the federal government. Do you have any idea how our government works at all??

how is this concept flying over your head?

You can try to rearrange the numbers so it would have suited your side best in hindsight, but only one person is going to win bruh.

This is a pre-emptive request for you two, Lisa and Ryumaru, to calm down a bit and be more respectful. While you aren't doing anything against the rules atm, it's just escalating. Calm yo tits before it gets any worse, please.

Also, while I'm at it, I should point out that you have taken a slight detour down what the government does and the power of the President. While it's relevant, only so much time should be spent on something other than the topic directly at hand in Serious Debate.

I have seen an interesting argument for something like the electoral college. I'm going to use a bit of a lengthy analogy. It'll be both overly simple and overly exaggerated, but it should be clear enough how to apply it to our situation. At least, I hope so.

Lets say we have three states: Amberlin, Bacchen, and Carna. Amberlin is the largest state, Bacchen is moderately sized, and Carna is small.

Amberlin has laws against bullfighting,and has ever since the Great Tragedy of '53. They do not bullfight, and their population overall has a negative view of it.

Carna has bullfighting subsidized by the state. It's the state's national sport. Every year there's a huge bullfighting event. The state is known for it.

Bacchen's never really given a damn about bullfighting.

Now, let's say a new presidential candidate shows up. Part of their platform is to ban bullfighting nationally. They'll encourage the legislature to do it and will gladly sign any laws that restrict it. They'll probably veto anything that encourages bullfighting.

Now, Amberlin would not be affected by this very much. The population would like it, more than other states' populations, but it's not really going to affect THEM.

Bacchen's citizens don't really give much of a heck as to bullfighting, and thus they're focusing on other parts of the candidate's platform.

Carna, on the other hand, would be majorly affected by a bullfighting ban, and any restrictions on it. Their citizenry would hate it. They don't want it.

Now, here's the question: if we're viewing this state-by-state, which state should have the biggest say in the bullfighting ban?

The logical conclusion is Carna, because they'd be influenced the most. However, Carna is the smallest. If we just went completely equal votes for every state, then things would be all out of whack. So, lets go with a compromise – they have more say-per-person, so that Amberlin doesn't force laws on them that'll majorly hurt them.

Obviously, this metaphor is super simplified. However, I believe it can be extrapolated to the U.S. Each state has their own laws, and their citizens are, in some ways, noticeably different than those in others. Wouldn't you say that Alaska's citizenry is different than California's? In elections, we see stark differences, such as in primaries, where the home state of the candidate tends to disproportionately lean towards them. (See: Kasich and Ohio during the Rep primary.) With the laws, a state can be overly influenced by things such as environmental protections.

Shouldn't a smaller state be able to have a say in the things that matter to them more than the bigger states?

By giving the smaller states a larger vote-per-person, they're able to protect their own interests, because states do have interests. They form these by their citizens, which do differ from other states, and their laws, which make them distinct from other states.

The ultimate question, if you accept this argument, is "How do we balance this?" The current system isn't doing well, as I previously elaborated.

I don't have an answer right now. But I think a system similar to the electoral college could work.

The answer to that is, thats why we have the senate. The senate and house are meant to represent the states, while the president is meant to represent the people.

The senate and house are meant to represent the states, while the president is meant to represent the people.

Senate is meant to represent the states. House is meant to represent people, give or take. And based on the existence of the electoral college, I believe the presidency was meant to represent both the people and the states in parts – not wholly one or the other, but somewhere in between. A compromise.

@Rivers

If there had to be a compromise, one would be to keep the EC as it is right now but get rid of the "Winner takes all for each state" aspect that's the biggest problem with the system.

The "winner take all" deal allows for people to be silenced by their immediate neighbors even if their voice would help those across the country, and also allow a president to win with 22% of the popular vote if they just play the game right. It's the reason we have swing states, the reason why democrats in Texas have no say in who becomes president and the reason California and Texas, the two states with the biggest population and the most EC votes, are never visited or acknowledged by presidential candidates.

The EC as it is right now gives all the power to the state and none to the individual, if they both need power, getting rid of the winner take all system would be the simplest way to do it. This doesn't change the states voting power, which is the main argument for keeping the EC, and still allows for people to be completely silenced in smaller states with only three votes, but at the very least it gets rid of the current electoral game the candidates play and makes the EC count match more like what the people actually wants.

And based on the existence of the electoral college, I believe the presidency was meant to represent both the people and the states in parts – not wholly one or the other, but somewhere in between. A compromise.

The problem is it's not a compromise, the states as a whole have all the power and the individuals have none. My vote did not factor in to the election results because I was outvoted by the people around me, if I didn't vote, the outcome would 100% the exact same. How is that a compromise when I as an individual had no say in the outcome because the state I live in decided against me?

Your passion is admirable, but unfortunately not backed by facts. Doing a rough estimate, the top 10 states with the highest populations, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carlonia, New Jersey, have a combined population number of about 176 million. That is 10 states only.

The rest of the 40 states, combined now, have a population of 122.5 million people. Assuming everyone votes because suddenly a popular vote inspires every US citizen to vote again, that still means that even if you focused on all 40 of the other states, you'd have no where near the commanding lead winning the first 10 states would give you.

The electorate vote is a winner take all system, but the winner who takes all from those states tend to be based on the popular vote numbers. Except for odd states like Nebraska and Maine, the electoral college gives its vote to whoever wins that state. Thus, even if you got rid of the electoral college, the results would still be the same.

You'd have a handful of states which are considered key, and a bunch of states who would be considered worthless, and whose vote would not matter. It shuffles around which states are key states, but it does nothing to actually change the system for the reasons state.

Does it stop favoritism or focused campaigning based on state populations? No it doesn't. Does it help to make low population states matter in the election? No it odesn't.

And can you actually garuntee that voter turnout would go up if we changed the system? That's an absolute No on that front. Otherwise, I'd need to ask why you are wasting your apparent clairvoyant abilities on a stupid meme site like this, when you could have won the lottery by now?

>"Doing a rough estimate, the top 10 states with the highest populations, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carlonia, New Jersey, have a combined population number of about 176 million. That is 10 states only."

…right…
With popular vote, you'd have to get 100% of them to vote your way, with electoral college, you only need 50.1% of them to vote your way to win. That sounds better to you?

@Rivers
Model it after the democrat's primaries would be the best comprise, something I would support. all the states are worth different points based off population, the points are split proportionately, and if it is 51%/49%, even though it is basically a tie, the winner still gets an extra point.

I like the smaller-states-get-more-votes-but-its-split-proportionally idea, quite a lot actually. And Ryumaru, I'll say so there's no confusion: I don't like the system as-is. I think it was an attempt to compromise but it failed.

I always see this argument but then you remember that under our current system 3 of the largest states Texas, California, and Newyork some how get less attention then fucking Iowa.

The argument is away that it would make it so only a few states are viable for winning so only high populated areas would be campaigned in. As opposed to what tho, having California be entirely ignored in picking our president but these tiny ass swing states basically get all the power?

Yeah im gonna say it, California should have more priority in elections if we have more people!
38 million > 3 million. That looks right to me. You end up having candidates playing political games and mostly holding rallies in the mid west.

Then also what about solid blue and solid red states? One person one vote is one big bullshit lie if you live in the wrong states. You would think California is one big lib party right? In the 2016 election, Most of north CA is republican. Hillary won 5,589,936 votes Trump 3,021,095. but since CA is solid blue demographic state. If you're republican in Califonria then sorry fuck you, your vote is meaningless. Same with Texes. Cites tend to be more blue while the ruel are parts are red so sorry city dems your vote is worthless. Instead of your vote just going tward election someone you need to battle your own statesmen and hope your state wins for your candidate.

Its so fucking stupid

But you still only need 50.1 percent of a state to completely dominate the election under a popular vote anyway. If you get 50.1 percent of the vote in all of those states, that's still 88 million votes.

Getting 50.1 in every other 40 states would net you 61 million votes, 20 million votes short of the commanding lead you'd have if you captured the first 10 states anyway.

No matter how you slice it, it doesn't really matter which system we go with, because the end result is still the same. One person gets a winner-take-all anyway, even if they were elected by popular vote, because that 49.9 percent of people who voted against that candidate won't get their way.

And nothing you do, and nothing you implement, is going to "make their vote matter". Not unless you change the way the entire countries government works and turn it into a Parliament.

Like, let me put this into even starker numbers. Say you won 2/3's the majority of votes, 66% of the votes in every 40 states, you'd have 81 million votes total. You'd still be no where near capturing the number of votes that even just 50.1 percent of votes in the first 10 states can get you.

This isn't even getting into the fact that a lot of states which are hardline red or blue would still be ignored in the election because of their majority voting pattern of voting usually democrat or republican with a hefty lead of 55 to 63% of the time.

You crunch the numbers and you get a disparity, and no amount of popular vote making is going to change simple geography and demographics.

The electoral college is a method created by America's founders to decide elections in a represented republic. It provides each state, regardless of population to have a voice in its president. This year, my home state (Wisconsin) was actually relevant to the election. We've been blue for a very long time, and now we're red.

Here in Wisconsin, Madison and Milwaukee are the most populated cities in the state – Janesville is in the top 10 as well. Dane, Rock, and Milwaukee Counties all went blue. Overall, Donald got about 48%, whereas Hillary got 47%.

A better example of how high population centers skew the process is to look at the counties within each state. Chicago dwarfs the state of Illinois because of sheer numbers, but the entire state does think like the citizens of Chicago.

One would only have to make promises to voters in Chicago, NYC, LA, Miami to win the presidency. That would not be representative of the entire republic. And since we're not a true democracy, every citizen should have input, not just those who choose to live in metropolitan areas.

Does the electoral college have its flaws? Yes. Faithless electors are a thing. However, if you want to get rid of the electoral college, you would have to overhaul our political system from a 2-party system to something more robust.

Pros:
>The electoral college causes candidates to focus on state and regional issues, rather than pandering to individual counties or cities.

Half the population lives in blue, half lives in gray. I'd rather not be completely ignored just because I don't live in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, or Kent counties. This election proved the power of the electoral college. Clinton paid little attention to the rust belt, and their electoral college votes are now making the Democratic Party completely reconsider it's position and policies.

>It limits constant post-election bickering and recounts.
Imagine Florida of 2000 but spread across a dozen states, as both candidates bicker and demand recounts over a couple thousand votes here and there. What if the tally's within a few ten thousand (as it was in 1888)? Do we recount all 80,000,000 votes to ensure they're accurate?

Cons:

>It sometimes doesn't pick the candidate who won the most votes
Which is pretty absurd given someone winning the most votes is how most (shitty FPTP) democracies are run. Notice I didn't say "majority." In neither of the two most recent failures of the electoral college did any of the candidates get a majority of votes, that is 50%+ one vote.

>It focuses most attention on a select few states
States, and everyone in them, are sorted into three piles: guaranteed blue, guaranteed red, and either. No one cares about the guaranteed states since they're a shoe in, thus all attention is on the either ("battleground states").

It will take a monumental effort to change it--since a constitutional amendment is required. Yeah, they're trying to loophole things, but if it ever hits SCOTUS, I don't think it'll pass muster. Article 1, Section 10's pretty clear about state compacts and it's easy to argue about federal supremacy, what with the election of the President and all.

Which means you need 2/3 of Congress and then 38 states. and I don't think the rust belt or the upper midwest want to give up what little power they have over the coasts any time soon.

Ryumaru Borike said:

A persons vote in California is worth only 30% that of a persons vote in Vermont. Three Californians can be outvoted by one Vermont citizen.

I've never understood this logic when arguing about the electoral college. How is a Vermont vote worth more than a California one when the national popular vote is irrelevant? A Vermont vote is only worth something in Vermont, where it decides who gets the three electors.

In fact, I'd argue a California vote's worth far more than a Vermont one--a Californian is, after all, voting on who gets 55 electors, 18 times as many as a Vermontian would vote on.