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Actually, many of your cons are actually pros. In fact, with all due respect, none of them make sense to me.
They were pretty straight forward, couldn't have made it any clearer (sorry).
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLAZER PROPHET
One of the main reasons for the electoral college is a check & balance to guard against a “favorite son” candidate(s) from a particular state or region piling up popular votes in an unusual manner and thereby not actually representing the country as a majority throughout the entirety of the nation. It also ensures that a potential president reaches out to all people, and not just a focused area.
Not sure I understand what point you are trying to make in your first statement. Potential presidents do not cater to everyone, they focus only on population centers. Electoral College or not, the big cities are what matters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLAZER PROPHET
For example, let’s say a political ticket consists of a popular person from the deep south and one from New York or California and the other ticket has people from Alaska & Wyoming. The one ticket from the popular areas may be so numerous in a skewed way that it overwhelms the votes from the rest of the country. In other words, 6 or 7 states could literally carry the entire nation.
6 or 7 states can already carry the entire nation. That is one of the problems with the EC. An example would be the election on Tuesday, even though Illinois was obviously going to go for Obama, the divide was still only ~60% in his favor. Under the current system, the other 40% of votes do not matter one bit.
In further regard to that, the election turned out with 340+ to 140+ while the popular vote was only off by about ~6%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLAZER PROPHET
I will grant you that throughout our history the electoral college has only occasionally been appropriate, but it is nonetheless a valuable check & balance that was wisely set up by our founding fathers and could potentially come into play even in these days.
As of now, if a candidate wins California, New York, and another state such as Florida or Virginia they are guaranteed a win, regardless of the other states. I don't see how making Popular Vote the law of the land could change this in any way except for the better.
They were pretty straight forward, couldn't have made it any clearer (sorry).
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Not sure I understand what point you are trying to make in your first statement. Potential presidents do not cater to everyone, they focus only on population centers. Electoral College or not, the big cities are what matters.
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6 or 7 states can already carry the entire nation. That is one of the problems with the EC. An example would be the election on Tuesday, even though Illinois was obviously going to go for Obama, the divide was still only ~60% in his favor. Under the current system, the other 40% of votes do not matter one bit.
In further regard to that, the election turned out with 340+ to 140+ while the popular vote was only off by about ~6%.
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As of now, if a candidate wins California, New York, and another state such as Florida or Virginia they are guaranteed a win, regardless of the other states. I don't see how making Popular Vote the law of the land could change this in any way except for the better.
Well, we could beat this up pretty well, but I think my points were clear and should present the case for the original intent of the electoral college and why it's an acceptable check & balance. It's an issue that people have always disagreed about and while I may disagree, I respect the notion of popular vote only. It's just that it's subject to some incidents our founding fathers felt were not in the best interest of all the people.
The Founding Fathers created the Electral College to provide a way for a coalition pf small or big states to win the Presidency. It also helps to prevent our partoes from becoming too numerous and leading to to instability like is seen in some European countries like Italy or the Netherlands. Canada has four national parties it also has a minority government. The Electoral college has a bias towards the Red states
because the Senate weights California the same as Wyoming or Alaska.
I don't think it matters since most cities will vote Democrat 100% of the time regardless of the candidate. The obvious exception was 1980 but I won't get into that. People will vote strictly on party lines under electoral college. A lot of voters (myself included) won't vote because it doesn't matter who we vote for, our vote does not matter. You make the election based on popular vote, and more people would be encouraged to vote.
Candidates already focus on cities and most populous states, so I don't really know how going by the popular vote would change anything. I just believe popular vote is a much more accurate representation of how Americans feel.
The process isn't about the candidates. It's about the people. It's about giving citizens the opportunity to tell their potential leaders what's important to them. The electoral college gives a slight incentive to bring candidates to rural areas to hear what's important to the people who live in rural areas. If it's just a straight popular vote, who will care what Joe the Farmer thinks and wants? Who will even know what Joe the Farmer thinks and wants, because no one will be listening? So Joe the Farmer won't have any reason to vote, what he wants won't even be on the table. Straight popular vote disenfranches the people who don't live in dense population areas.
I like the electoral college. Why? Because without it, it becomes possible for candidates to pitch to only the heavy-populated urban areas of the United States--to the detriment of the rest of the country. I think the founding fathers knew what they were doing.
In the state of Oregon, more than half the voters live in the Portland area. It’s about 8-1 democrats. The rest of the state (coast, Willamette Valley, southern Oregon, and the 2/3 of the state lands east of the Cascades) are about 6 or 7-1 republicans (this is a generality, but after 50 years in the state, a close one). As a result, we have a liberal governor, liberal majority in the state legislator, two liberal US senators and every US Representative except the one from eastern Oregon is a liberal. Candidates and ballot initiatives all go thru Portland. What Portland wants, the state lives with. As a further result, people in over 90% of the states lands have no representation within the state and only a bare marginal amount in DC. They are shut out, ignored and abused by the dominant liberal policies of Portland (inside the state it’s referred to as The People’s Republic of Portland).
Here is one typical example of how this works to the detriment of the people and it illustrates why we have the electoral college.
About 15 years ago Portlanders wondered why their tax dollars (via property taxes) should support Portland mass transit. So, they created a ballot initiative that forced the rest of the state to pay for Portland’s mass transit system (at least, pay the vast majority of it). It passed 25-1 in Portland, and 25-1 outside of Portland. But, because Portland has more voters, it passed. In the eastern Oregon county I lived in at the time, we had to drop 80% of the library system, and laid off 22 of our 26 sheriff deputies. Care to guess what happened to the crime rate? Care to guess if Portland cared?
The founding fathers were wise enough to see situations like this and build in a system to deter this from happening to people.
In the state of Oregon, more than half the voters live in the Portland area. It’s about 8-1 democrats. The rest of the state (coast, Willamette Valley, southern Oregon, and the 2/3 of the state lands east of the Cascades) are about 6 or 7-1 republicans (this is a generality, but after 50 years in the state, a close one). As a result, we have a liberal governor, liberal majority in the state legislator, two liberal US senators and every US Representative except the one from eastern Oregon is a liberal. Candidates and ballot initiatives all go thru Portland. What Portland wants, the state lives with. As a further result, people in over 90% of the states lands have no representation within the state and only a bare marginal amount in DC. They are shut out, ignored and abused by the dominant liberal policies of Portland (inside the state it’s referred to as The People’s Republic of Portland).
Here is one typical example of how this works to the detriment of the people and it illustrates why we have the electoral college.
About 15 years ago Portlanders wondered why their tax dollars (via property taxes) should support Portland mass transit. So, they created a ballot initiative that forced the rest of the state to pay for Portland’s mass transit system (at least, pay the vast majority of it). It passed 25-1 in Portland, and 25-1 outside of Portland. But, because Portland has more voters, it passed. In the eastern Oregon county I lived in at the time, we had to drop 80% of the library system, and laid off 22 of our 26 sheriff deputies. Care to guess what happened to the crime rate? Care to guess if Portland cared?
The founding fathers were wise enough to see situations like this and build in a system to deter this from happening to people.
But the system doesn't actually protect against it, it makes it worse. It's a winner take all system, not proportional, so what that city decides for president is who the state's electoral votes go to. Multiply that by all the states that have a big city skewing the results and a significant number of voters' votes don't count. Even in a basic national popular vote the rest of the state's residents' votes would actually count towards the final results of the national election. In a proportional system of representation everyone would be represented to at least some degree, an improvement over no representation.
That case of Portland and Oregon, though, is downright troubling, and does show what can happen within a state when popular vote is used.
Rather than eliminate the EC vote, we need to improve the system and increase the protection for votes of rural and small population States.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frankie117
As of now, if a candidate wins California, New York, and another state such as Florida or Virginia they are guaranteed a win, regardless of the other states. I don't see how making Popular Vote the law of the land could change this in any way except for the better.
I'm not sure where you learned your math but the electoral votes of CA NY and Fl add up to 113; 270 are required to win the election. If the other states were to vote en mass for the other candidate, the candidate winning CA NY and Fl loses the election.
For a list of number of votes by state Electoral Votes Per State : Distribution of Electoral Votes, 1981-2010
The problem isn't the EC system but rather how the votes are allocated within each state. If the EC tally actually tracked the popular vote by voting district within the state, you could win an election without carrying the entirety of any State. ie The 31 electoral votes of NY could be divided among multiple candidates if the vote was distributed by majority vote within each district. This is a State issue, each State decides how to allocate EC Votes.
DC understands this issue:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge
You want it to better reflect popular vote? Ask your state to change the rules. Nebraska and Maine can divide electors between candidates. So can all the other states. The states decide how to select electors, and whether to compel the electors to vote with the state majority or not. State laws, not federal ones.
It would also increase the weighting factor of the EC votes cast by the lessor populated States as well as dividing the influence of each state between the city and rural areas. Another interesting effect would be a potential increase of influence for third party candidates- since they can take votes away from the Rep & Dem candidates.
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