Thoughts on the Electoral College

[MLD Woody]

Before we start, I am not here to complain about the results. Trump won and I'm hoping for the best. I thought both candidates sucked.

(Some of you will now ignore this and jump to calling me a complaining, liberal, Hillary supporter... because comprehension is lacking on here. That's alright, I only expect a decent response from a few on the board)

 

 

 

After seeing the topic pop up in a handful of thread on here, what are your thoughts on the Electoral College? This would be the 2nd time since 2000 a candidate won the popular vote but lost the election (both Dems). Is the system outdated? Any thoughts on what we should move to?

 

 

 

 

[bbedward]

There has to be some sort of system in place to represent voters in different parts of the country. Not sure how you do it without the electoral college.

 

If we went by popular vote alone then a few big cities would be the only ones that mattered.

[One Post]

Electoral College.

 

How in the fuck else are they going to learn the students how to git the power to the house? Idiots!

[gftChris]

It's always difficult to balance the needs and volumes of people living in the cities and those in the fields, so to speak. I will say, the US does actually a somewhat better job of it than us, although here 'the cities' is London and 'the fields' is everywhere else.

 

It's also difficult in a winner-take-all kind of situation like the presidency to even attempt to reflect the views of the ~50% who each time don't vote for the winner.

 

Lastly, one thing that would be worth thinking about is having the senate linked to the electoral college (and obviously having the same term limits and election cycles etc) such that the bigger the majority for the president, the easier it is to get shit done, while the more divided the country and the closer the results, the more you need to work with other parties. Suppose you had 500 seats in senate, the republicans would have gained about 242, democrats 240, and libertarians/greens the rest. Then you actually need laws that people agree on in order to do anything. It of course could lead to obstructionist politics with the parties not in power banding together to stop everything, but then we get a decent amount of obstructionism as it is.

 

Anyway, not a perfect or even particularly well thought out system, but maybe worth thinking about. It's all for shit though, it's not changing any time soon.

 

 

Side note - with this one, and the bush/gore election, does that mean that of the last seven elections - '92-'16 - the republicans have only won the popular vote once? And yet are in line for three out of those seven presidencies?

[calfoxwc]

http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/07/why-the-founders-created-the-electoral-college/

[DieHardBrownsFan]

Fuck off:

[flyingfooldoug]

In easy terms, it prevents NYC and LA dictating what the rest of the country should do.

[Westside Steve]

First of all we know you didn't vote for Hillary. But you have to admit that almost every one of your posts that attack or defend either of the two political candidates were one sided.

 

As for the Electoral College yes it's a little bit archaic. One side that benefits isn't going to be as outraged as the one who doesn't. Still if it were one man one vote across the board whatever small amount of power the individual states retain from the original United States plan will be gone.

We have already chipped away at The Sovereign power of States a great deal just in my lifetime. Some may think that it's time to erase the borders and make it one large entity. We have the technology to do that now but I don't know how many people want that. Territorial royalty still means something around the world.

 

WSS

[gftChris]

In easy terms, it prevents NYC and LA dictating what the rest of the country should do.

NYC and LA have a combined population of maybe 11-12m people, out of a country of ~320m - how exactly would they dictate to the rest of the country?

[Westside Steve]

Then again Chris hasn't spent any of his adult life living in a sovereign England, just a member of the EU. So he probably has a different take on it.

 

WSS

[gftChris]

Then again Chris hasn't spent any of his adult life living in a sovereign England, just a member of the EU. So he probably has a different take on it.

 

WSS

The UK has been sovereign all along. The EU can't impose laws on us we didn't vote for.

[Osiris]

So yeah, the one thing I haven't seen anyone talk about in regards to the electoral college is its roots in slavery. From Time Magazine:

 

 

 

At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.

 

And further on in the article...

 

If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority.As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.

[Westside Steve]

The UK has been sovereign all along. The EU can't impose laws on us we didn't vote for.

Not yet. The first alignment of States under a federal government still included a great deal of sovereignty. As time and Technology rolled along it became less and less.

 

I think I read something about some of our states wanting to secede from the Union over a century ago. I forget what happened.

 

WSS

[bbedward]

Fwiw there's still ~10 million votes to be counted and CNN projects Trump will win the popular vote.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/president

[DieHardBrownsFan]

Not yet. The first alignment of States under a federal government still included a great deal of sovereignty. As time and Technology rolled along it became less and less.

 

I think I read something about some of our states wanting to secede from the Union over a century ago. I forget what happened.

 

WSS

France may militarily prevent Brexit from happening. They hate the english anyway.

[bbedward]

Good video on the electoral college:

 

[One Post]

Republican video.

[MLD Woody]

First of all we know you didn't vote for Hillary. But you have to admit that almost every one of your posts that attack or defend either of the two political candidates were one sided.

 

As for the Electoral College yes it's a little bit archaic. One side that benefits isn't going to be as outraged as the one who doesn't. Still if it were one man one vote across the board whatever small amount of power the individual states retain from the original United States plan will be gone.

We have already chipped away at The Sovereign power of States a great deal just in my lifetime. Some may think that it's time to erase the borders and make it one large entity. We have the technology to do that now but I don't know how many people want that. Territorial royalty still means something around the world.

 

WSS

1) you remember what you choose to

2) 99% of this board was already Trump dick riding and Hillary bashing. Sorry I chose to at least attempt to add some balance.

3) "Defend" and "she's probably not a murderer" are different. "L

[MLD Woody]

Fwiw there's still ~10 million votes to be counted and CNN projects Trump will win the popular vote.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/president

I think a dive into the validity of the electoral college can happen regardless

[MLD Woody]

Good video on the electoral college:

 

That video made some good points, but also seems very pro electoral college

[OldBrownsFan]

[Westside Steve]

1) you remember what you choose to

because it's true.

 

2) 99% of this board was already Trump dick riding and Hillary bashing. Sorry I chose to at least attempt to add some balance.

you do indeed. I don't dispute that. It just makes your posts somewhat one-sided that's all.

 

3) "Defend" and "she's probably not a murderer" are different. "L

of course that's what the defense attorney says about the murder. Right?

 

 

WSS

[One Post]

If the electoral college would've worked for the Dems then there wouldn't be an arguement. In my state the big city decides us which is why we're broke as a state. I have to pay for lazy people.

[Taco918]

The reason the electoral college was created by the founding fathers was, to put it simply, to prevent the uninformed public from electing an unsuitable candidate, as well as to provide smaller states a more equal voice. In essence, the electoral college was basically a check on the popular vote.

 

 

I would say the founding fathers are rolling in their graves right now but neither candidate would've been fit in their eyes. One is a snake oil salesmen with authoritarian leanings while the other was a woman married to a former President.

 

The really sad part about this thread is that 2 pages in, none of you dumb dumbs even looked it up, much less knew a basic historical fact.

 

Congrats on proving the founding fathers right. Although the uninformed voters of their time couldn't read so, don't feel too great about yourselves.

[Westside Steve]

True enough. Oh. The entire Republic idea is to keep the final decision out of the hands of the Great unwashed.

 

WSS

[Pumpkin Eater]

The founders of the constitution knew that majorities can often be wrong and that's why we have a representative democracy and that's why the electoral college is in place.

[One Post]

True enough. Oh. The entire Republic idea is to keep the final decision out of the hands of the Great unwashed.

WSS

Awesome.

[Pumpkin Eater]

And originally the only people who were supposed to vote were landowners. If that was still the case we wouldn't have a welfare state.

[DieHardBrownsFan]

The reason the electoral college was created by the founding fathers was, to put it simply, to prevent the uninformed public from electing an unsuitable candidate, as well as to provide smaller states a more equal voice. In essence, the electoral college was basically a check on the popular vote.

 

 

I would say the founding fathers are rolling in their graves right now but neither candidate would've been fit in their eyes. One is a snake oil salesmen with authoritarian leanings while the other was a woman married to a former President.

 

The really sad part about this thread is that 2 pages in, none of you dumb dumbs even looked it up, much less knew a basic historical fact.

 

Congrats on proving the founding fathers right. Although the uninformed voters of their time couldn't read so, don't feel too great about yourselves.

The founding fathers were slave owners.

[MLD Woody]

What about breaking up the electoral college votes within a state by percentage?

 

Small state's votes are still worth more, but it's closer to the popular vote