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Eliminate the EC. I want MY vote to count, not my state's vote.
Do you know why the U.S. is structured as a collection of States? Have you read any of the Founding Documents? Do you want another USSR? Because that is where we are going.
The concept was that YOUR STATE had the most authority as it was easier for you to get to your STATE CAPITAL and hold your representatives, and Governor ACCOUNTABLE for being STUPID. Harder to get to Washington D.C. unless you live in Northern Virginia, or Maryland isn't it? Do you really just want to be beholden to a bunch of distant, insulated politicians that only care about you at election time, and for your vote?
Now people want GLOBALISM, and to cede power to bureaucrats even FARTHER away than Washington DC. Do you really want to have to go to Brussels to protest them? The LEFT are mentally ill.
so are you saying you want thousands of house of representatives?? its hard enough to get 435 people to pass legislature
Yes - I'm all for expanding the house to at least be closer to representing a similar number of people for each house member. Ideally, we have 1 representative for every 300-500k people. IMHO, the number shouldn't be capped. It should just be an additional rep won or lost based on the state's population. It's easily the most fair way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilot1
Do you want MOB RULE? We are NOT a Democracy, we are a Constitutional Representative Republic. Why should power be based solely in Population Centers? We are a collection of individual STATES, not the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
You want MOB RULE too -- just at the state level for 48 of the states
You can't go by counties, in Nevada for example, the two counties that voted for Clinton (Washoe and Clark) have 92% of Nevada's population, so it's really 23/25 blue, not 2/17
Yes, let the people who live in places with dookey and needles all over the sidewalks rule over the rest of us.
No. This would only affect the President and the Vice Presidential elections; they don't "rule" over us, at all. Congress will still be representative.
I think it's a good idea but it's just a fantasy, like getting rid of Gerrymandering.
Vote allocation is not done similarly. And really is a very easy fix that would go a long way towards making the EC vote totals more aligned with what the people voted.
No offense, but it is an antiquated and unnecessarily (and arbitrarily) complicated system. I know it's not going away, but realistically I think we can do a lot to make it a lot more fair. Vote allocation is a great place to start.
"Winner take all" needs to die in a fire.
So you want winner take all on a federal level because it's "fair" but you're against winner take all on a state level?
The fairest mechanism for dealing with this issue, while still remaining true to our nation's structure as a federal republic, would be to award the electoral votes within each state according to the winner in each congressional district (since the House of Representatives represent people) and award the two senatorial electoral votes according to the overall statewide winner (since the Senate represents states).
In California, Hillary Clinton won 46 of the state's 53 congressional districts, as well as the overall statewide vote. Thus, she should have received 48 of the state's 55 electoral votes while Trump should have received the remaining 7.
In Texas, Donald Trump won 22 of the state's 36 congressional districts, as well as the overall statewide vote. Thus, he should have received 24 of the state's 38 electoral votes while Clinton should have received the remaining 14.
On a nationwide basis, Trump won 230 congressional districts to Clinton's 205. Trump won 30 states while Clinton won 20 (plus the District of Columbia with its 3 electoral votes). Thus, under the proportional system I've outlined, Trump would have won 290 electoral votes while Clinton would have won 248. The final result (i.e. Trump becoming President) would have been the same.
(Oh, and to those who complain that the only reason Trump won as many districts as he did was because of gerrymandering, I totally agree with you. Gerrymandering should be made illegal nationwide.)
Tweaking the Electoral College in this way would give voice to political minorities within each state while still giving an edge to the overall statewide winner. And as shown above, it would still protect the nation as a whole from dominance by a single state or by a few urban areas.
As for the popular vote, counting only the votes for Clinton and Trump, Clinton would have won, with 65.85 million to 62.98 million. However, if you subtract out California, you're left with 57.10 million for Clinton versus 58.50 million for Trump. In other words, Trump won the overall popular vote if California isn't counted. My point is not that California shouldn't have a say, but rather that it shouldn't be the deciding factor. The Electoral College saved the nation from the tyranny of a single state's votes, just as it was intended to do. And just as it should do, in a federal republic such as the United States of America.
You're proposing what Maine and Nebraska already do. The Electoral College only dictates that each state gets one vote for every congressional representative. How they're allocated is up to each state. Any state could adopt that method. The problem is that the popular votes in any given state generally matches with the party in power at the state level, so you'd be asking state legislators to purposely give votes to the opposing party's presidential candidate.
538 Electoral votes, 137.5M voted in 2016 election.
Electoral College Vote (Present System) % of Total
CA - 10.2%
TX - 7.0%
FL - 5.4%
NY - 5.4%
OH - 3.3%
NC - 2.7%
Popular Vote (Proposed System) % of Total
CA - 10.3%
TX - 6.5%
FL - 6.9%
NY - 5.6%
OH - 4.0%
NC - 3.5%
Lots of unintended consequences. Popular votes system benefits some of the smaller states much more than the larger one. Of course FL would then have more influence than TX.
I'm guessing that once it's done. The Democrats will cry about that too.
Twice in recent history, the EC caused us to elect a president who received fewer votes than another candidate. To me, that is reason enough to eliminate it.
1820 The United States presidential election of 1820 was the ninth quadrennial presidential election. It was held from Wednesday, November 1, to Wednesday, December 6, 1820. Taking place at the height of the Era of Good Feelings, the election saw incumbent Democratic-RepublicanPresidentJames Monroewin re-election without a major opponent. It was the third and last United States presidential election in which a presidential candidate ran effectively unopposed. It was also the last election of a president from the Revolutionary generation.
So you want winner take all on a federal level because it's "fair" but you're against winner take all on a state level?
I'm confused on what you mean.
Care to elaborate?
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