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Why can't rural voters can't do those things that you listed
They can. But they are grossly outnumbered by urban voters. The electoral college, by its slight weighting, provides an incentive for candidates to listen to rural voters, rather than excluding them from the conversation.
They can. But they are grossly outnumbered by urban voters. The electoral college, by its slight weighting, provides an incentive for candidates to listen to rural voters, rather than excluding them from the conversation.
Candidates spend time and money in swing states where their presence might make a difference. There is NO benefit in a candidate driving around rural Alabama to secure votes- the Democratic candidate knows it's a lost cause and the Republican candidate knows they have those votes in the bag. If you think I'm wrong, then explain to me why during the 2016 campaign, neither candidate visited Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii. How did the EC help those rural voters participate in the election and make their concerns known to the candidate? Hint: the same way I did -by tweeting, emailing, contributing, doing volunteer work, watching TV and following the campaign online.
The House represents the people proportionately and the Senate represents the States equally. It is a thing of beauty balancing the interests of the people as a whole and the States.
That's great but it has nothing to do with the Electoral College in the 21st century. The EC was obsolete generations ago and is a vestige of 18th century problem-solving for a problem that no longer exists. If the states were truly sovereign as some claim then there would be no federal aid for disasters or any other federal investment or aid. Do you think that one state would willingly fork over millions of dollars because another state, 1,000 miles away, had a bad day? We would be a jumble of Balkanized fiefdoms with each one fumbling around in the dark. We have a Federal system but that should not mean the puny states, that contribute so little to the national wealth and strength, get to dictate how the majority lives or the national leadership and policy direction. They generally are not carrying their weight and are most often takers rather than contributors.
Trying to argue that the candidates won't visit my puny state unless we have the Electoral College is ridiculous. Most of those visits are contrived and designed as media events to the extent that the candidate's cadre of photogenic bystanders is hand-picked. Turn on your TV if you want to see that. The candidates are not taking away any knowledge of your state or its problems because they visited for two hours. They live and operate in a bubble. The logistics of getting a candidate to visit East Podunk for two hours along with the Secret Service and the full campaign entourage contributes to the skyrocketing cost of running for office.
Candidates spend time and money in swing states where their presence might make a difference. There is NO benefit in a candidate driving around rural Alabama to secure votes- the Democratic candidate knows it's a lost cause and the Republican candidate knows they have those votes in the bag. If you think I'm wrong, then explain to me why during the 2016 campaign, neither candidate visited Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii. How did the EC help those rural voters participate in the election and make their concerns known to the candidate? Hint: the same way I did -by tweeting, emailing, contributing, doing volunteer work, watching TV and following the campaign online.
The electoral college is a slight incentive. And the participation you describe is you using your voice. The incentive is for the candidate to use his ears. Trump won. Who were his constituents? Were rural voters his constituents? Do you think Trump or Clinton did the better job of listening?
When electing the Principal leader of our country, I believe it should be an individual person’s vote that counts. An aggregate opinion of the whole country and not of easily lobbied state election colleges. If your candidate has made their case as to why they should be the President, then it should follow that the best person was elected. Our leader needs to be elected by all us, and not just 538 electors who don’t neccesarily represent the voice of all of their own state, let alone our country.
When electing the Principal leader of our country, I believe it should be an individual person’s vote that counts. An aggregate opinion of the whole country and not of easily lobbied state election colleges. If your candidate has made their case as to why they should be the President, then it should follow that the best person was elected. Our leader needs to be elected by all us, and not just 538 electors who don’t neccesarily represent the voice of all of their own state, let alone our country.
Not at all though, not under our system, maybe a parliamentary system it would work.
Having just a popular vote would make it where three or four cities would determine the election each and every time, and holding power would just be a matter of crafting policies for those cities in an effort to hold power, then we become nothing more than some other countries where a city or two wield unbelievable amount of power, at the expense of the rest of the country.
Because their advantage is so overwhelming that rural areas would have hardly any voice. The number of states that are rural is what keeps them relevant today. But as we become more and more urban, that is going to change.
Why is it important that people who are grossly outnumbered have a voice? Well, that would be the exact reason why the American Revolution happened. The English Parliament was passing laws and taxes on colonists who were outnumbered by English constituencies, and the colonists representation was so minimal that they felt silenced.
The South felt that threat when Lincoln was elected. Lincoln wasn't on a single ballot in the Southern states, he was elected totally on the votes in the North.
A lot of Trump supporters are rural voters who feel threatened that their concerns and priorities weren't represented in the federal government under the Obama administration.
If we are going to promote democracy as a feasible system of government, then we have to have in place strategies that include all the people in this nation, not just the people in urban areas. The Senate, with its two senators from each state is one such strategy. The electoral college, which by design had a very slight weighting for rural areas, is another such strategy.
Rural citizens have different priorities and concerns than urban areas. For instance, urban areas have completely different issues regarding transportation than rural areas. For urban residents, public transportation is a pressing issue, and how to fund public transportation. Relieving traffic congestion is a concern for urban residents. Rural residents have a different perspective. And the approach to solving urban problems (for instance increasing taxes on fuel and cars) can have negative impacts on rural residents. But how do candidates know the depth and range of those impacts, if they have no incentive to listen to rural residents?
I understand all of that, but I just don't buy it.
You're still at the end of day telling an urban dweller that their vote is worth less than a rural one. If you want democracy to thrive, this is something you should pay attention to.
We have other mechanisms to ensure that less populated states still have representation. The house and the Senate have built in mechanisms for that.
We still also have the Constitution that protects individual rights and freedoms, thereby reducing the risks of the tyranny of the majority.
The EC is simply not fair. And people can say they're ok with that... But often they try to spew a bunch of malarkey that makes it sound not equitable when it is not at all.
My last point is that the EC doesn't make politicians campaign in rural areas. It just shifts the battle to key swing states.
Future Presidential candidates aren't going to base their platforms on what Arizona and Georgia want. They are going to base their platforms on what the urban centers in this country want. Because urban voters will steadily come to dominate each state. NYC pretty much dominates New York. The urban centers in Massachusetts dominate Massachusetts. The urban centers in California are increasingly outweighing the non-urban centers in the state. Urban voters outnumber rural voters. And urban centers are growing.
They already base things on urban areas, just in swing states.
Where do most of the votes come from in swing states...???
Smoke and mirrors. Eliminate the electoral college, and candidates will spend their time and money trying to win urban voters. Because that's the best use of their money and urban voters outnumber rural voters.
Not necessarily so. Urban voters tend to cancel out each other when you look metro wide. The fight for real votes will indeed shift to areas with smaller populations.
Lots of unintended consequences. And if the new system is adopted, the first time a Democrat loses, all of you will be lining up to talk about how it was a right wing/russian plot to eliminate the electoral college.
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