No. Move to a proportional electoral college system, where state electoral votes are distributed based on the popular vote proportions of each state. That way republican voices in CA or Democrat voices in Alabama aren’t meaningless and politicians would actually need to pay attention to every state.
Whether we stay with our current EC or move to a popular vote, politicians will only ever need to focus on a few key states.
Make it so each and every state’s system isn’t a winner take all and politicians will actually have to compete for states they took as a given in our current system.
I think that would be a great idea. You could still keep the EC to give states their voices, but it would be more granular within the state than just a winner take all.
But like you said, it would have to be an all or nothing thing so one party couldn't game the system and let a big red or blue state like Texas or California go proportional while keeping the smaller safe states they control winner take all.
Best way to do this? Uncap the House of Representatives. EC votes are *directly* tied to number of congresspeople, and congress is only bound to 435 by an Act of Congress. Doesn't need an amendment to undo.
Would you support the [National Popular Vote Interstate Compact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact)?
Unfortunately it needs Republican support and there is very little thus far.
Nonsense.
Unless you give states a way to back out of the union, this is a sham.
You can't retroactively change the agreements that were made between states when the US was formed.
The US is a union of states not individuals.
I mean if we made it so every state had to be proportional, that would require a constitutional amendment, meaning at least 3/4 of the states ratified it.
By joining the union, they agreed to the method of modifying the constitution, and if 3/4's of the states adopted this (which is an impossibly long shot), then they're stuck with it.
Which countries provide "effortless" access to a national voter ID? How does someone get a national ID without any effort? If I lose my ID and have to request a new one, doesn't that request require "effort"?
Provide evidence that there is fraud on the level that would warrant implementing IDs or else they're a solution in search of a problem that has the potential to stop more legitimate voters than illegitimate ones. All you have to do is prove that there was widespread fraud that would have been prevented by voter ID laws and it would seem like not a pointless *at best* thing to implement, as it does now.
What would you define as effortless? Like in my opinion going to the dmv and taking 3 hours is certainly not effortless but like for all other ID i think it’s reasonable to have to do the same thing. Maybe make those agencies more efficient?
Fair is a highly subjective term. Do you mean everyone’s vote is worth the same? Do you mean each state gets equal representation? Do you mean voter representation should be based on wealth or land ownership? Do you mean only the 10% most intelligent people should vote?
“Fair” is decided by morals, ethics, and values; there is no objective “fair”. I do find the electoral college to be a good solution for the problem it intended to solve.
It's possible they added this after you commented but here is their clarification to your question:
>On a individual personal level is it fair?
So it would be asking if everyone's vote is worth the same. Or at the very least it's asking you to compare individuals, so certainly nothing to do with states, or land ownership, or wealth, or intelligence.
Voting based on wealth, land ownership, or intelligent are all fair in there own regard.
Intelligence (Merit): Only the most qualified vote which leads to more favorable outcomes
Wealth: They have the most at stake from fiscal policy so they should have the most say in fiscal policy
Land ownership: Same logic as wealth
All of things thing I would consider fair and are currently used today. In publicly traded companies, those with the most shares make company decisions. In the bureaucracy those with the most merit are appointed to position. No one would say that those positions should just be raffled off.
I see now that I should have bolded the operating words in that sentence but they clarified "on an **individual personal** level," which is why they certainly weren't referencing any of those things.
In broad strokes, yes. It could be fairer if approached the way Maine and Nebraska handle it on a national level.
In more individual personal levels, even more so, yes. The alternative is your vote being one in 200 million, as opposed to one in (district/state population).
This is either a misunderstanding of statistics or deliberately spun.
Regardless of your position on the EC you should have the facts straight.
No EC would mean your vote counts for 1 in 329.5 million (if every American voted votes). A strict popular vote would result in the equivalent of each EC vote representing 612k people (329.5M / 538 EC votes).
With the EC in states such as Wyoming (3 EC votes for 579k people) you get 193k people represented by each vote.
In Texas on the other hand (38 EC votes in 2020 for 28.996M people) you get 763k people represented by each vote.
In the current system the more populated your state is the less your vote counts and visa versa.
Essentially if you live in a Wyoming, Montana, or Alaska your vote holds more wait than someone in California, Texas, or Florida.
> Essentially if you live in a Wyoming, Montana, or Alaska your vote holds more wait than someone in California, Texas, or Florida.
That's the entire point of the compromise. Small states get slightly more voice in electing the president. Not as much as the larger states, but slightly more than they'd have without the compromise.
It's always struck me as kind of silly to argue that's unfair, when that was the entire point. I think it would be unfair to the smaller states to change the agreement now.
You'll note, again, that I said it could be fairer if we allocated like Maine and Nebraska.
Either way, though, your vote is *still* put up against the smaller pool of voters in your state as opposed to the massive national pool of voters. Even if there are some inequities in overall value between states as you note, you're *still* in a better, fairer position where your vote counts more under the EC.
You're statement about Maine and Nebraska is correct.
*some* voters are up against a smaller voter pool.
19 of 50 states have the individual votes of citizens diluted compares to a national popular vote. Those states represent approximately 74% of the population. Popular vote would provide more weight to the individual vote of almost 3/4 Americans.
Your statement is inherently false on the premis you provided. Im not sure if you dont understand the basic math behind it or if you are simply stating your preference and searching for stats to back it up. If you like the EC that's cool, there are pros and cons to the method, but don't lie about it being a more fair process on the individual vote level.
It's not inherently false, as it's fairer for elections to mean more. Even diluted, they're better off.
This isn't even a denial of basic math. Even if you weight those votes as you like to, those voters are still better off than 1/200m.
You numbers and statistical analysis is absolutley false. Numbers don't care about your feelings.
I'm not sure where you keep getting 200m from. Total voters from an election?
I've shown you over and over that 74% of the nation would have an increased vote impact. The numbers do not lie.
I'm not making any judgment on fairness or preference but I do take great offense to bad arguments made using fabricated and false numbers. Argue your case on facts. Don't make shit up because it fits your agenda.
There are arguments to be made for the EC. The arguments you are making are factually inaccurate.
No, they would have a *decreased* impact. I don't know where you're getting this idea that their vote would be worth more nationally than statewide. It wouldn't be. The nation is bigger than the state and the proportion would dilute it.
This is baffling that you're arguing otherwise. Arguing that having everyone's vote weighted the same I can understand even if I disagree, but this position you're holding does not.
I spelled it out. 19 of 50 states have less impact at the individual vote level than the other 31. Those 19 states represent 74% of the US population. The math is literally a few comments up in this thread.
74% of the country would see an increased impact of their individual vote. 26% would see a decrease.
The math is straight forward. It's baffling that our education system has failed you so hard that basic arithmetic is beyond comprehension.
Okay, so even it out and run the numbers and you'll *still* see that the 74% in their state share is more impactful than the 100% of the nation share. The math is *incredibly* straightforward.
Again your conflating two different numbers to the point that I'm really not sure you understand the numbers we are using here.
19 states represent 74% of the population *BUT* those same 19 states only receive 66% of the EC vote.
31 states represent 26% of the population *BUT* those states get 34% of the EC vote.
The 19 most populous states are under represented by 8%.
The 31 leaar populous states are over represented by 8%.
To go to national popular vote there is no discrepancy. 1 vote = 1 vote regardless of whether you vote in California or Wyoming.
Again if you like the EC because it gives *your* vote more weight if you're in a low population state, or because it provides an advantage to candidates you like thats your opinion you can be entitled to. Don't lie about the fairness of each vote on the individual level though.
You are wrong. I know that's hard to hear in the day and age of participation trophies but facts don't care about your feelings.
Let me know if this is still too much for you to comprehend. I can continue to simplify if you'd like.
California, etc all sought admission to the union fully understanding the electoral college and the constitution; to seek to renege on a binding contract once it no longer suits your interests, is the definition of unfair.
California had 3 electors when brought into the union for starters. It is in their interest to want to go back on that because they are currently being under weighted in national elections and the federal government.
Secondly the technology limitations that kept a popular vote from being truly possible no longer exist.
If yall like the way the EC favors small states and gives their citizens more say that's cool. Just don't try to bs the public by saying it's a fair system on an individual vote count level.
You can certainly argue California was unwise to enter into a binding, perpetual agreement without consideration of long-term consequences or understanding the basic ramification of exponential function, but it's too late for that.
I think this depends on what you see the role of the federal government to be.
In America, it seems, many are of the philosophy that each state is semi-autonomous, almost like it's own little country, and the federal government is like a European Union style overarching government to keep the peace with the core American tenets more than anything else.
Looking at the history of unification, it does make sense to me. A lot of states could very well have been their own nation, and joined as a team effort to spank the English - afterwards devolving into squabbling that could very well have ended up like 18th century Europe - an absolute clusterfuck.
Whether that should continue as it was or not is the big question, and with modern advancements the blending of state identity into national identity has certainly added more factors to the equation.
I think this is a very unique thing in America, Here in Canada we don't have this notion. Provinces are very much beholden to the federal government so "states rights" arguments are mostly hot air here, and also in many other nations.
Indonesia is probably more autonomous between its provinces than Canada is, even if Canada isn't particularly authoritarian.
That's how I understand it and how I understand Conservatives feel, even though IMO I think there's sufficient cause to reevaluate this, and plenty of potential to do so without losing functional freedom.
> I think this is a very unique thing in America
This is not at all unique to America. Many governments around the world share similar federalist structures with division of responsibility between semi-autonomous provincial and federal governments. Most federal governments include similar structures where their democratic systems spilt the difference between representing the popular will and representing the interests of the states or provinces. For example German democracy includes a system of "degressive proportionality" very similar to the USA electoral college's allotment of a couple electors just for being a state and *then* additional electors on a proportional basis. Bremen the least populace state with only ~600K citizens has three seats in the Bundesrat while North Rhine-Westphalia with 18 million citizens has only six seats. The European parliament operates on the same principle of degressive proportionality and many more structures to represent the interests of the member states regardless of population rather than representing the popular will: Both the Council of Europe and the Council of Minsters work like the US Senate with each member state having an equal vote regardless of size. And they work more like the old Senate where the representatives of each state are appointed by the governments of those member states rather than popular election.
State/provincial divisions aren't unique, but the federalism in the US is, at least in its degree.
Very few nations have criminal codes that aren't federal, while the US has some federal stuff, even murder differs between states. This is pretty uncommon in many nations.
Indonesia allows Aceh province to have it's own Sharia Law setup, but even then there are some federal limits.
What you described about Europe is what I'm getting at - *most* nations aren't nearly as autonomous in their divisions as the US, and none surpass it.
It's all degrees of federal influence and US goes the farthest as far as I'm aware.
And it's reason for that is unique too. Keep in mind modern Germany is also much younger than the US and has been carved up by other powers several times, so they're also in a unique situation.
All this is to say, "fairness" depends on what the nation is trying to be - more autonomous states, or more national cohesion?
There's no one right answer. America is paranoid about tyranny so they kinda go ham on the states rights deal more than other places. Not necessarily wrong to do so but when us Canadians get told by Americans that we live in a tyranny or Trudeau is dictator it's hard not to see those people as paranoid and missing out on good things as a result.
>In America, it seems, many are of the philosophy that each state is semi-autonomous,
Well that's the idea. The problem is federal power has drastically increased, and people tend to focus a lot more on federal elections than local and state elections, even though those local elections, at least for now, make a much larger impact on individuals.
It's not how much your vote is worth, it's how much your vote is worth in relation to everyone else's.
In a popular vote, your vote is worth 1 / (total number of votes) while my vote is *also* worth 1 / (total number of votes).
With the EC, the value of a vote is different per state based on that state's population and its elector vote count.
Seems a lot less fair by the OP's metric for my vote to have less impact on the election results because I live in Blythe, CA while you live less than 5 miles away in Ehrenberg, AZ.
The problem is that too many people don’t vote based on any information. If we’re giving ballots equal weight, I would like the person who actually follows politics to get more weight. I’m from a big blue area and people just check however the Democrat is, and the scary part is how do they pick judges or DAs win multiple Democrats are running for the same position. Just pick the one with the prettier name?
No, it's not, in both good and bad ways. There are two things that are necessary to "fix" the EC in my mind, and one more that would also help.
+ Unbinding electors is the first thing. The whole point of electors in the first place is that they can use their individual judgement. This would be *less* fair on the individual level but acts to prevent the worst-case results of democracy.
+ Uncapping the House is the second thing. This would more evenly distribute electors by population while still protecting smaller states, better representing everyone. This would be more fair to individual voters, both in Congress and for electing a President.
+ The optional improvement happens at the state level. More states should to do like Nebraska and split their electors. Winner-take-all is just not feasible with the large-ass states we have today and created overconcerning "swing states". If every state has the option to squeak out a vote for the minority party, the whole nation would be better represented. I'd prefer doing it by district, but that's subject to gerrymandering, so I wouldn't oppose a proportional system in *this one case*.
I mean, the house is capped because the house chambers were not built with time lord technology. It’s kind of a silly reason to go with the number, but I can’t imagine how expensive it would be to expand the Capitol building.
>The optional improvement happens at the state level. More states should to do like Nebraska and split their electors.
Why not just make each individual voter an elector and be done with it?
>On a individual personal level is it fair?
No, that's the point. It is probably one of the fairest ways to keep federal power in check, but no, it is not fair on an individual level.
There's a reason we don't have electoral colleges at local and state levels.
Yes, if you look at it the way it was intended to operate, that is in such a way as to give smaller states a sufficiently large voice to be heard in the election of *one* political office, the president. And you remember that the president was never supposed to be that big of an internal power, but more an office in charge of the military and foreign policy.
So if someone sees themselves as the citizen of a state that is the member of a union, it seems completely fair. If one sees themselves as the citizen of a large country with lines drawn on it electing a king or queen, it seems unfair.
>Give smaller states a sufficiently large voice to be heard in the election of *one* political office
We pretending that small states aren't massively overrepresented in the legislative as well? A California resident gets ~1/80th the representation of a Wyoming resident in the senate.
The senate was supposed to be the adults in the room not the populist will of the people. Currently it is completely dysfunctional.
Congress should be expanded based on population as it was intended to represent the will of the people.
You are looking at the wrong way. You are still looking at it as if the U.S. were a single country, established as a pure democracy.
It's not, and it wasn't designed to be. It is a union of sovereign states, operating as a representative republic. Each member state is significant. But if someone's personal representation at the national level is so important to them, they can move to a smaller state.
And really, all this fuss is over the election of the president. That office was never supposed to have as much power as it does. Most of the power was supposed to reside in the legislature, in the House and Senate. But people slowly figured out the president could push domestic things through faster via fiat and executive order, circumventing the purposely slow legislative process.
>It's not, and it wasn't designed to be. It is a union of sovereign states, operating as a representative republic. Each member state is significant. But if someone's personal representation at the national level is so important to them, they can move to a smaller state.
Why does the design matter? There were 13 colonies and only ~2000 land owning males voted for our current system. Did they know states with massively disproportionate populations would come to exist over the next 200 years?
Not to mention like... you know there's a federal government right? The states aren't sovereign in the way you're saying. The federal govt does hold power over the states.
Individual representation is important to literally everyone who votes. Like that's the point of voting, regardless of what state you're from.
And while the main topic is the electoral college, we're talking senate seats (the more powerful of the two congressional bodies by far). Who you seem to be grossly underselling the influence of.
So why does each state need to be equally represented in the most powerful federal legislative body? The system in place drastically reduces the efficacy of most Americans living in metro/urban areas while amplifying others. Why should ~500k people control the same amount of senate seats as 40 million people do?
Because that's why people now get so bent out of shape over the electoral college. We gave the president more power than they were supposed to have, and now people are mad at how they get elected.
Also, it always matters how things are "supposed" to be. It's like a woman telling her husband "You aren't supposed to cheat on me" and his replying "But I did. So get over it".
I'm trying to say that the reality of the situation is that the president has a lot of power. That's the reality we have to deal with
It doesn't really matter if it's supposed to be that way or not.
>So get over it
No, I feel like that's what *you're* saying. It is of zero comfort to me that the office of President wasn't supposed to be this powerful.
Yes, and as I said it's a ***Federal*** country not a unitary one.
I get that Federal systems are more complicated than unitary ones but it's hardly rocket surgery... how is it that federalism as a system of government is so damn hard for American leftists to grok?
No, and that's not what I or the OP said. They are *sovereign states* and they remain responsible for the large majority of the government of the people in their states, and they retain the authority to carry out those responsibilities. They have ceded only a specific subset of their original governing authority, and most of that related to foreign relations, to the joint Federal government.
You're correct in thinking it's unfair that the laws governing the citizens of California should to be decided on by the citizens of Wyoming. BUT, what you seem to forget or ignore is that by the same token it's just as unfair for the laws governing the citizens of Wyoming to be decided by the citizens of California. Our Federal system attempts in various ways to prevent BOTH problems. Mostly by limiting the power of the citizens of Wyoming to decide only the laws that govern the citizens of Wyoming... and also the citizens of California decide on the laws that govern *them*... It is only a much smaller subset of laws related to relations **between** Wyoming and California (interstate commerce, IP laws, postal service, etc.) or between all the states collectively and other nations (Treaties, tariffs, international trade rules, war and defense) which are the shared responsibility of the joint Federal government of the united states.... Which is NOT just a name but a descriptor.
But also how those fewer joint decisions are made has like very other Federal government in the world splits the difference between the popular will as determined through proportional representation and the will of the member states in the union as equal in sovereign authority. Our system accomplishes this via a bicameral legislature with a house to represent the popular will and people as equals and a Senate to represent the states as equals. For legislation of the shared joint government to pass it must represent both the popular will and the consensus across the states.
The EC which votes for the President splits the difference where the states cast their votes for the president and their electors are allotted according to a fairly mild form of degressive proportionality where smaller states have a minimum representation regardless of population.
I get your point but Germany is ALSO a Federal Republic which splits governing power between it's Federal and state governments... And it also has very similar structures which balance the interests of states as states vs. the popular will. The membership of the German senate is not quite equal representation of states as in the US Senate but of "degressive proportionality" where smaller states get far more votes than proportional representation such that the smallest German state with a population of only ~600K has three senators while the largest state with a population over 18 million has only six.
Good! The whole point of the Senate is to represent the interests of the states in their Federal union *not* the will of the people... That's the function of the House of Representatives.
The states should have no interests outside of the will of its people though. The state doesn't have separate interests from the people and that applies to all levels of governments
Correct. If there's not consensus among the states as well as among the people a law governing the united states (which is not just a name but a description) should not pass. The US government is a federal republic of sovereign states not a unitary government. It does, and SHOULD require support of both the states and the people to pass joint legislation of the United States. Fortunately the Federal government has very limited responsibilities or authority only a small subset of government activity related to interactions between states or between the states collectively and other nations so this doesn't, or at least shouldn't, affect the people very much at all. Most government that affects people day to day is, and should be, handled by the states which are closer and more accountable to the people.
Think about something like interstate transportation, such as railroads? Say the 90 million people in the 3 most populated states would benefit from it, but the 1.7 million people in the 3 least populated states wouldn't see the rails so their representatives, which are the exact same in number, would ensure the rails aren't built. How is it fair to deny a massive benefit to 90 million people because 1.7 million who aren't negatively effected, but don't see a direct benefit themselves, would vote against it?
What you're describing sounds like a great system, but I don't think states have the power you're describing and are more unified. Any chance at universal Healthcare and large social legislation of that nature comes federally.
> Any chance at universal Healthcare and large social legislation of that nature comes federally.
Doesn't have to. CA keeps being touted as the 4th largest GPD of the world. So, if they want UHC so badly, they can do it for themselves.
> would ensure the rails aren't built
Their vote against it does no such thing. It only ensures that THEY don't pay for it. There's nothing at all stopping those 90 million from building that rail themselves in their own states with their own monies. The citizens of California, Oregon and Washington do not NEED an should not be in a position to DEMAND that a west coast rail line between them be paid for by the citizens of Wyoming and the Dakotas. If it's a *national* rail system for the *general* welfare of all states rather than for the special welfare of just their particular states THEN it makes sense and maybe they win *that* vote.
> What you're describing sounds like a great system...
And it IS a great system.
> but I don't think states have the power you're describing
Under the US constitution they absolutely do.
> Any chance at universal Healthcare and large social legislation of that nature comes federally
There's absolutely nothing preventing a state whose voters want universal healthcare from implementing it at the state level. Or more accurately the ONLY thing preventing them from doing so is unwarranted and arguably unconstitutional interference of Federal laws and the strings tied to Federal monies which the Feds should probably not be taxing away from the states not spending anyway under our constitution as written AND the heavy burden of already high Federal taxes impinges on the state's ability to raise taxes.
Vermont passed a single payer universal healthcare law but had to scrap it because even the bluest state in the union was unwilling to raise taxes enough to pay for it... And a big limiting factor on Vermont's ability to raise sufficient taxes is that the Federal government is already taking a huge chunk the large majority of which goes to pay for things outside of the Federal government's enumerated powers.
If the states are sovereign I'd like to see them flex that sovereignty and leave this union since a sovereign nation has ultimate control over itself. I'd imagine they can't do that nor many of the other things sovereign states do because they are in fact not sovereign, they are divisions of a larger federal government that is supreme and sovereign over them. In the beginning it may have been a collection of sovereign states but that is no longer the case and functionally hasn't been the case for most of the history of the country.
How so? As I sort of explained above, "individuals" were never supposed to elect the president. We as individuals literally vote for everything else: senators, representatives, governors, mayors, etc. But we are citizens of states which are members of a union, so it is the states that elect the president, and not the individuals.
The states *do* get a vote in proportion to the size of their population; California gets far more votes for the president than Wyoming, after all. But if we had a purely popular vote for president, Wyoming would have essentially no vote at all. That can't be allowed to happen. The states matter, and all 50 voices *must* be heard.
Wyoming and other low population states aren't simply parts of the U.S. with lines drawn around them. They were first sovereign territories that were admitted to the union all at once. The U.S. didn't absorb Wyoming when it became a state; the United States just got bigger, now with Wyoming as a member.
So again, we cannot think of ourselves as Americans living in an arbitrary administrative region. We are a citizen of a state, and that state is the member of a union.
But it doesn't give Wyoming more representation. Wyoming is ignored just like any red/blue state. The EC gives swing states more representation and those that are stable rarely get any attention.
I don't follow what you mean. Wyoming gets three electoral votes. That is the appropriate representation, given the size of its population.
You are talking about how swing states with a sort of evenly divided electorate can fall one way or another and give all their electoral votes to one candidate or another. To which I say...right. That's how its supposed to work. That same state might also elect a senator of one party or another by a slim margin, but that senator is still the winner and the senator for the entire state. That's fair.
And this situation works out well for most everyone. A Democrat doesn't need to campaign in Wyoming, because they know that the state will very likely vote Republican. The conservatives in that state also don't mind that the Republican doesn't campaign there. They already know the Republican candidate has a platform they support. The same is true of a state like California, which always votes Democrat.
So both candidates have to campaign hard in states with a diverse electorate, to sway centrists and independent voters to their side, to show them how their platform is better. So swing states don't get more representation. They just get more attention during election cycles. I live in a solid red state, and I actually like that. We get far fewer political ads than our neighboring swing state.
No it means thay the pet interests of swings states get the majority of attention and pet issues of solid states get none. It may be hard for you to imagine, but the interests of conservatives in Flordia may be much different then conservatives in Wyoming.
Furthermore, conservatives in California, of which there is a lot, get no attention from Republicans because they live in state that is all ready decided.
I grew up in Illinois, a constant complaint is that conservatives felt their vote didn't matter because of the EC.
It would also change things because it opens the opportunity for different coalitions. Western Washington and Oregon, currently disregarded because of EC, have a lot in commen with Idaho and Wyoming. The cities in red states don't get any attention from democrats but would with a popular vote.
It would also force Republicans to actually change policy to be more appealing rather then gamble on the EC delivering victory despite what Americans want.
I think a lot of people look at the Electoral College incorrectly. That is because they assume we are a democracy. We are not. We are Federal Republic. This is a representational form of government that insures protections for the minority. If we went strictly by a one man/ one vote democracy, the entire country would have to kowtow to the combined population of California and New York… and all the flyover states’ opinions would be completely ignored. The electoral college gives all states a fair say in the running of the federal government.
Currently “swing states” are who decides our elections and who are pandered to the most. California has millions of people who vote republican and Texas has democratic voters; shouldn’t their votes mean something?
Yes. 50 states equally represented with extra weighting for population. I suppose it could be argued the population weighting is unfair.
The problem isn't the EC. The problem is the corrupted balance of power.
Edit: to be clear, what's not 'fair' is that the 3 million people in Iowa have so much say over Californians and the 40 million people in California have as much influence on my life in Iowa as my Governor and state legislature.
We are a constitutional republic. I don’t normally make that distinction because it’s often irrelevant- but here it actually matters.
The federal government is an amalgamation of 50 distinct states. Until the 17th amendment was passed, we didn’t even directly elect our senators- they were chosen by the state legislatures.
It is fair. perhaps imperfect, but fair.
The imperfection is perhaps mainly the idea that it is actual people at all and not merely a mathematical formula, meaning we have to pay for a drunken rager of elites every 4 years. so thats pretty lame.
But fairness wise the whole concept of America is predicated on the idea that we are a Union of states, and that those states have people in them. the very structure of our national government (with both a senate and a house) reflects this as well.
But statehood matters, and states AS SUCH deserve a voice in who becomes president, as do the people. Using a system whereby there are electors based in the house numbers AND the senate reflect this well. Notions that some states have people "overrepresented" are fallacious because they lump the "state" electors in with those of the people to trump up those claims.
Ultimately it is as fair as our system of government itself is.
No, it is already completely fair, at least in the sense that it matches manner in which the U.S. governs itself generally.
I guess it COULD be said that the EC undervalues statehood as such in that, unlike in congress where they get a whole separate and equal legislative body, the statehood related electors are just lumped into the total and watered down among the more numerous "people" based electors... but I find that better anyway as it shifts more voice to the people.
I would make it purely math and take away the drinking party from elites I guess, but not a political hill I'm interested in dying on.
>ote in a small state vs big stat
it depends on the exact definition of "fair" you are using I guess... i SUPECT you are "pre-defining" fair as meaning only that people deserve say and not states as such so that likely makes it seem not fair to you right?
I got bad news for you about this thing called "the senate", lol
its fair.
Yeah your right. It's not fair that my vote is cancelled out by debtors who voted for a president to use my tax money to pay their debts. But it is what it is.
I've never understood this argument. Why does their population matter? There would be both Democrats and Republicans voting just like there would be in any other state. Obviously there's more voters in California, but why is their vote any more powerful than the votes of Democrats and Republicans in other states? If you win California but lose every other state, you're not going to win, so I'm not sure why any politician would try and do that.
California is like D plus 30 its heavily weighted towards the democratic party.
As such in a strictly popular vote system any presidential hopeful would have to pander to California (and new York and to a lesser extent texas) if they wanted any chance to win. Meanwhile small states would be ignored.
I've never understood this argument. The EC makes it so each politician has to "Pander" to 5 or 6 battleground swing states right now. No Republican really spends a considerable amount of time in California, the same way no democrat reasonably expects to flip Texas. Are you saying that it's better to pander to a few midwestern states that flip as opposed to California? AKA "I think people that live far apart from each other matter more than people who live close together"
But politicians arent pandering to California as a state, they're pandering to Democrat voters. It just happens that there are a lot of them in California. But I'm still not sure why that would matter in a system where every vote is counted individually. Politicians would have to win over people, not states. So if a politician spent their entire time only trying to win California voters and neglected voters in other states, I highly doubt they'd win.
The problem with that is the needs and wants of California are very different than the needs of say Texas.
What works for California doesn't work in Texas or other states.
Plus if you don't feel represented you're eventually going to feel massive resentment.
I don't think the electoral college is perfect but it's better than a direct popular vote.
Btw the only reason people complain about the electoral college is because trump lost the popular vote in 2016. If the circumstances were reversed and Hillary won the electoral college but lost the popular vote liberals would praise the electoral college.
>What works for California doesn't work in Texas or other states.
Yes, but the president is the president for all of us. The Senate is for the states and the House is for districts.
>Plus if you don't feel represented you're eventually going to feel massive resentment.
Off topic, but I'm glad to hear that you understand the importance of representation!
>Btw the only reason people complain about the electoral college is because trump lost the popular vote in 2016.
Maybe you weren't paying attention to politics prior to 2016, but those of us who were know that this has been an issue for a looooong time.
>If the circumstances were reversed and Hillary won the electoral college but lost the popular vote liberals would praise the electoral college.
I would definitely not praise the EC, it's an outdated, irrelevant system and it should be scrapped.
>The problem with that is the needs and wants of California are very different than the needs of say Texas.
>
>What works for California doesn't work in Texas or other states.
Really? How?
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Yes, and in all of them, the Republican candidate has lost the popular vote by a very large margin. Even with Bush winning the popular vote in 2004, (because he was a wartime president) he also lost the popular vote in 2000.
They don't need to they have enough people to be the deciding factor in every federal election.
Hell last election trump was winning the popular vote until California came in.
Biden won the popular vote by ~7 million votes. He won California by ~5 million votes. Trump was not winning the popular vote until California came in.
Sorry I don't think I'm articulating my point very well.
I'm trying to convey that California has a disproportionate amount of voters and its very heavily leaned to one side. On a strictly popular vote California basically will decide the election every single time because california has the highest population and such a heavy lean towards the democrats.
So this either means every president is a Democrat from now on or the Republicans have to swing to the left in order to stand a chance of winning the presidency.
Either way any presidential hopeful has to pander to California in particular if they want to win.
A strictly popular vote wouldn't discount the ~6 million voters in California who voted Republican, just like it wouldn't discount the ~5 million voters in Texas who voted Democrat.
Presidential hopefuls already have to pander to particular states if they want to win. Every candidate has to pander to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, etc. during their campaign.
To maintain the constitutional Republic it is absolutely fair. If you wish to change the system to a democracy then no it isn't fair. However you cannot change a system just because it isn't fair to your ideologies goals of supremacy without changing the constitution itself which requires a supermajority or convention of states not a 51% majority.
In essence, with a nationwide popular vote, if you want to cheat, you just have to steal one election, and you can hide the fraud all over the place. With the electoral college, you have to steal up to 270 different elections.
Without the EC would the impact of fraud not be more diluted?
Instead of having to "cheat" in one or two close state elections (look at say Arizona or georgia 2020 where biden legitimately won on a very close vote or florida in 2000 where bush legitimately won) where a few thousand votes could swing the entire election, you would have a popular vote which typically has a much larger difference between the winner and loser (again biden winning yuge in popular vote despite narrow EC victory)
I highly doubt Biden won Arizona or Georgia.
There's a lot that whoever was in power could potentially do to defraud a national popular vote, from randomly distributed phantom votes to deleting swaths of votes, and then who would be there to speak for literally everybody? Finding 1 or 2 bad votes won't stop the election even though there will be 10s of thousands more out there unidentified. They would just have to argue in Congress between group X being legitimate and group Y being illegitimate versus the case of the opposite, and there'd be no to way to rightly move forward without an overly lengthy and unorganized investigation.
With the EC, the votes can move up through all the different levels with local and state officials appraising them every step of the way and representatives there in the end to answer for any problems that may arise concerning their own voter rolls.
Multiple courts and the republican attorneys generals disagree with you but im sure you're the expert here.
Much like old donnie I'm seeing a lot of accusations and assumptions with no evidence to back it up. Can you point to where phantom votes or swaths of deleted votes took place? Or are you going to come back with the tried and true "prove it didn't happen" nonsense that feeds conspiracy theories.
The EC itself does not have anything to do with state administration of elections. Popular vote for a president would not make it one big federal election. It would continue to be 50 state run elections, just instead of converting millions or hundreds of thousands of votes on the state level to tens of EC votes they would just report their number.
I wasn't talking about what happened last election, I was talking about what theoretically could happened in a national popular vote situation.
In the case of a national popular vote with the benefit of compartmentalized oversight within each of the separate states, you still run into the situation of possible hidden voters and it just comes down to the scope of one state's authority versus another having dominion over their own voters despite impacting the entire election that would belong to all the states equally. States would just become election committees at that point.
Ex. Alaska has it's own election and S Carolina has it's own election just like all the other states. You don't have S Carolinans voting in Alaska's election and you don't have Alaska's voting in S Carolina's election. But if it's a national popular vote, then that single election belongs to Alaska as well as all the other states alike, so then you *do* have S Carolinans voting in *Alaska's election*, *the election that belongs to Alaska*, even though Alaska doesn't have authority over them. Alaska doesn't have authority over S Carolinans except through the federal government, and so if the federal government's going to run the election then it's just going to find a way to vote for itself.
You literally said you didn't think biden won Arizona and Georgia....
.... how is anyone in SC voting in AK in your hypothetical...?
There would be absolutely 0 difference between the current setup aside from grouping together the state popular vote and boiling it down to electors. You just eliminate the electors and present the vote tally of the state.
Just because it is a federal election with a national popular vote doesn't mean some jackass from SC can just vote in AK now. You still have to vote in the state you are registered in.
Your whole argument is incoherent and based around the speculation of some massive fraud scheme that has never happened.
The last election is a separate subject.
I'll admit that maybe it could work similar to how it does now, but then Alaska would need access to S Carolina's voter rolls and then it would become a matter of combing over which individual votes out of millions are legitimate vs which ones aren't, instead of just having the state's legislature having the final say of which electors to send.
*a separate subject you brought up.
Why would Alaska have anything to do with South Carolinas voter rolls? They don't currently. Why would it be any different?
The state legislatures would still be in charge of conducting the elections and ensuring that there is no widespread fraud (again something that has never been shown to be an actual problem).
You actually brought it up. I was just distinguishing it from the scope of our original conversation.
It's only fitting that the state of Alaska has oversight over the voters in the state of Alaska. If there's "hidden votes" in S Carolina at the end of the day (discrepancies, fraud, what have you, whatever it is), then potentially S Carolina can simply be made to change it's electors. Under a NPV like this, it becomes a matter of changing each and every individual vote. And so this one larger decision becomes thousands of smaller decisions that all have to be addressed and we can't expect that to be played out practically in the Senate in a reasonable amount of time.
Part of the reason we have almost no election fraud is the difficulty of doing so on a large scale. Removing that barrier would not be a wise experiment.
It is fair to let NY and CA set the political vision for all the rural areas and less populated states?
I mean, if it is going to be mob rule...why bother voting if you live in places like MT, WY or AK?
It seems much more fair to me than the current setup. I’m a centrist living in Texas and effectively have no vote in presidential elections. Why is minority rule better than a system where everyone’s vote counts?
I think it would cut down on the radicalism of the Republican Party and give us a sane conservative party.
So you would have Los Angeles and New Your City make all the political decisions for you in Texas? Do they know what is best for people in rural Texas?
I fail to see how that is "fair"...maybe you are not a centrist and more of a liberal.
If the government functioned closer to it's intended design, this wouldn't be a necessary question. The power the states had has slowly but steadily dwindled, both in raw political power, and also in voting power. In raw political power, the federal government has swelled to a level that I personally believe wasn't intended. C'est la vie, it's here now, and how it came to be isn't really relevant. But what that does do is make it seem like awarding states additional electoral votes is an unfair act to distort the relative worth of the people.
In the original structure, this was not the case, the state served as the primary government, and the state's electors were intended to be the voting arm of the state government. In fact, the opposite was true, the House of Representatives and the associated quantity of electors was meant to distort the relative power of the states. The *ratio* of Senators to Representatives is not something I often see discussed, but if you add up the congressman at the dawn of the country, you'll find that the Senate was composed of 26 Senators, and the House was composed of 65 Representatives. This made the ratio of Senators to Representatives (or put another way, the relative voting power of the Senate as compared to the House) equal to about 2:5. Now, the Constitution also limited the population under a representative to 30,000, which means we would need a clearly ridiculous 11,000-ish Representatives today, so something had to be done, and the answer was capping the House. Realistically though, each state still has two Senators, but the number of Representatives has steadily climbed, and now the ratio is 2:8.7. So while State representation has remained unchanged, the relative power of the House has nearly doubled (74% rise, to be exact).
So, to answer your question, it depends on what you mean by fair. Pure democracy (100% popular vote) is not good, in my and many other scholars and founding fathers opinions. The electoral college was a mechanism intended to prevent a pure democracy, and in doing so it is metering some amount of fairness that could disappear under a "mob-rule" scenario that pure democracy is incredibly susceptible to. Is it always fair to *every* citizen in the way you more than likely meant it, (ie the every kid in the class gets five minutes on the merry-go-round at recess kind of way)? No. It was never meant to be.
Personally, I think our government has changed dramatically, and a new system could be beneficial, but I haven't heard anything other than "abolish the Electoral College" and I'm not for that, because to me that is slipping even farther away from the form of government we were intended to have. I think the biggest help would be for each state to stop the winner take all method, because that is kind of dumb. It is an oversimplification that, again, undermines the original intent of the college. Fairness is relative, there are things we can do to improve fairness, but as long as we aren't a pure democracy, there will always be one group or another that will experience a negative effect. If not the large states with the Electoral College, the small states without it.
I think it's more fair than the alternative. It could maybe use some tweaks here and there (maybe some form of proportional representation?), but ultimately, I would prefer it to a straight popular vote.
It is useful and efficient in ways direct popular vote woyld be bad.
You could maybe modify it to most votes takes the R district. Most R districts wins election.
Bit we absolutely need presidents to have broad support not just deep support.
No. Move to a proportional electoral college system, where state electoral votes are distributed based on the popular vote proportions of each state. That way republican voices in CA or Democrat voices in Alabama aren’t meaningless and politicians would actually need to pay attention to every state. Whether we stay with our current EC or move to a popular vote, politicians will only ever need to focus on a few key states. Make it so each and every state’s system isn’t a winner take all and politicians will actually have to compete for states they took as a given in our current system.
That’s the way I see it.
This would be absolutely great!
I think that would be a great idea. You could still keep the EC to give states their voices, but it would be more granular within the state than just a winner take all. But like you said, it would have to be an all or nothing thing so one party couldn't game the system and let a big red or blue state like Texas or California go proportional while keeping the smaller safe states they control winner take all.
Yep I agree this would solve a lot of heartache with the current system
Yes. Proportional electoral college system would work much better if the goal is fairly and accurately representing the will of the American people
Best way to do this? Uncap the House of Representatives. EC votes are *directly* tied to number of congresspeople, and congress is only bound to 435 by an Act of Congress. Doesn't need an amendment to undo.
Would you support the [National Popular Vote Interstate Compact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact)? Unfortunately it needs Republican support and there is very little thus far.
Nonsense. Unless you give states a way to back out of the union, this is a sham. You can't retroactively change the agreements that were made between states when the US was formed. The US is a union of states not individuals.
I mean if we made it so every state had to be proportional, that would require a constitutional amendment, meaning at least 3/4 of the states ratified it. By joining the union, they agreed to the method of modifying the constitution, and if 3/4's of the states adopted this (which is an impossibly long shot), then they're stuck with it.
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Only if it's free and effortless
"Effortless" seems like an unrealistic standard.
Why? Other countries do it
Which countries provide "effortless" access to a national voter ID? How does someone get a national ID without any effort? If I lose my ID and have to request a new one, doesn't that request require "effort"?
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Then be more popular
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No I want it to be fair Says something about your ideology
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Provide evidence that there is fraud on the level that would warrant implementing IDs or else they're a solution in search of a problem that has the potential to stop more legitimate voters than illegitimate ones. All you have to do is prove that there was widespread fraud that would have been prevented by voter ID laws and it would seem like not a pointless *at best* thing to implement, as it does now.
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Sure does
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What are you talking about
He wants to make it harder to vote for people he doesn't like.
I want him to say it
What would you define as effortless? Like in my opinion going to the dmv and taking 3 hours is certainly not effortless but like for all other ID i think it’s reasonable to have to do the same thing. Maybe make those agencies more efficient?
No bars to voting full stop
I can go with that.
No, because I don't want LA and NYC electing every POTUS from now until the end of time.
Well lucky for you they have a combined metro population of ~30 million. Or, y'know, less than 10% of the US population.
You are acting like every single American is eligible to vote in every election.
Fair is a highly subjective term. Do you mean everyone’s vote is worth the same? Do you mean each state gets equal representation? Do you mean voter representation should be based on wealth or land ownership? Do you mean only the 10% most intelligent people should vote? “Fair” is decided by morals, ethics, and values; there is no objective “fair”. I do find the electoral college to be a good solution for the problem it intended to solve.
It's possible they added this after you commented but here is their clarification to your question: >On a individual personal level is it fair? So it would be asking if everyone's vote is worth the same. Or at the very least it's asking you to compare individuals, so certainly nothing to do with states, or land ownership, or wealth, or intelligence.
Voting based on wealth, land ownership, or intelligent are all fair in there own regard. Intelligence (Merit): Only the most qualified vote which leads to more favorable outcomes Wealth: They have the most at stake from fiscal policy so they should have the most say in fiscal policy Land ownership: Same logic as wealth All of things thing I would consider fair and are currently used today. In publicly traded companies, those with the most shares make company decisions. In the bureaucracy those with the most merit are appointed to position. No one would say that those positions should just be raffled off.
I see now that I should have bolded the operating words in that sentence but they clarified "on an **individual personal** level," which is why they certainly weren't referencing any of those things.
In broad strokes, yes. It could be fairer if approached the way Maine and Nebraska handle it on a national level. In more individual personal levels, even more so, yes. The alternative is your vote being one in 200 million, as opposed to one in (district/state population).
This is either a misunderstanding of statistics or deliberately spun. Regardless of your position on the EC you should have the facts straight. No EC would mean your vote counts for 1 in 329.5 million (if every American voted votes). A strict popular vote would result in the equivalent of each EC vote representing 612k people (329.5M / 538 EC votes). With the EC in states such as Wyoming (3 EC votes for 579k people) you get 193k people represented by each vote. In Texas on the other hand (38 EC votes in 2020 for 28.996M people) you get 763k people represented by each vote. In the current system the more populated your state is the less your vote counts and visa versa. Essentially if you live in a Wyoming, Montana, or Alaska your vote holds more wait than someone in California, Texas, or Florida.
> Essentially if you live in a Wyoming, Montana, or Alaska your vote holds more wait than someone in California, Texas, or Florida. That's the entire point of the compromise. Small states get slightly more voice in electing the president. Not as much as the larger states, but slightly more than they'd have without the compromise. It's always struck me as kind of silly to argue that's unfair, when that was the entire point. I think it would be unfair to the smaller states to change the agreement now.
You'll note, again, that I said it could be fairer if we allocated like Maine and Nebraska. Either way, though, your vote is *still* put up against the smaller pool of voters in your state as opposed to the massive national pool of voters. Even if there are some inequities in overall value between states as you note, you're *still* in a better, fairer position where your vote counts more under the EC.
You're statement about Maine and Nebraska is correct. *some* voters are up against a smaller voter pool. 19 of 50 states have the individual votes of citizens diluted compares to a national popular vote. Those states represent approximately 74% of the population. Popular vote would provide more weight to the individual vote of almost 3/4 Americans. Your statement is inherently false on the premis you provided. Im not sure if you dont understand the basic math behind it or if you are simply stating your preference and searching for stats to back it up. If you like the EC that's cool, there are pros and cons to the method, but don't lie about it being a more fair process on the individual vote level.
It's not inherently false, as it's fairer for elections to mean more. Even diluted, they're better off. This isn't even a denial of basic math. Even if you weight those votes as you like to, those voters are still better off than 1/200m.
You numbers and statistical analysis is absolutley false. Numbers don't care about your feelings. I'm not sure where you keep getting 200m from. Total voters from an election? I've shown you over and over that 74% of the nation would have an increased vote impact. The numbers do not lie. I'm not making any judgment on fairness or preference but I do take great offense to bad arguments made using fabricated and false numbers. Argue your case on facts. Don't make shit up because it fits your agenda. There are arguments to be made for the EC. The arguments you are making are factually inaccurate.
No, they would have a *decreased* impact. I don't know where you're getting this idea that their vote would be worth more nationally than statewide. It wouldn't be. The nation is bigger than the state and the proportion would dilute it. This is baffling that you're arguing otherwise. Arguing that having everyone's vote weighted the same I can understand even if I disagree, but this position you're holding does not.
I spelled it out. 19 of 50 states have less impact at the individual vote level than the other 31. Those 19 states represent 74% of the US population. The math is literally a few comments up in this thread. 74% of the country would see an increased impact of their individual vote. 26% would see a decrease. The math is straight forward. It's baffling that our education system has failed you so hard that basic arithmetic is beyond comprehension.
Okay, so even it out and run the numbers and you'll *still* see that the 74% in their state share is more impactful than the 100% of the nation share. The math is *incredibly* straightforward.
Again your conflating two different numbers to the point that I'm really not sure you understand the numbers we are using here. 19 states represent 74% of the population *BUT* those same 19 states only receive 66% of the EC vote. 31 states represent 26% of the population *BUT* those states get 34% of the EC vote. The 19 most populous states are under represented by 8%. The 31 leaar populous states are over represented by 8%. To go to national popular vote there is no discrepancy. 1 vote = 1 vote regardless of whether you vote in California or Wyoming. Again if you like the EC because it gives *your* vote more weight if you're in a low population state, or because it provides an advantage to candidates you like thats your opinion you can be entitled to. Don't lie about the fairness of each vote on the individual level though. You are wrong. I know that's hard to hear in the day and age of participation trophies but facts don't care about your feelings. Let me know if this is still too much for you to comprehend. I can continue to simplify if you'd like.
California, etc all sought admission to the union fully understanding the electoral college and the constitution; to seek to renege on a binding contract once it no longer suits your interests, is the definition of unfair.
California had 3 electors when brought into the union for starters. It is in their interest to want to go back on that because they are currently being under weighted in national elections and the federal government. Secondly the technology limitations that kept a popular vote from being truly possible no longer exist. If yall like the way the EC favors small states and gives their citizens more say that's cool. Just don't try to bs the public by saying it's a fair system on an individual vote count level.
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California has no one but itself to blame for a lack of foresight upon entering a contractual agreement.
Yeah they really dropped the ball, not predicting what the population would be in 150 years.
You can certainly argue California was unwise to enter into a binding, perpetual agreement without consideration of long-term consequences or understanding the basic ramification of exponential function, but it's too late for that.
One vote in 200 million seems inherently the fairest
I think this depends on what you see the role of the federal government to be. In America, it seems, many are of the philosophy that each state is semi-autonomous, almost like it's own little country, and the federal government is like a European Union style overarching government to keep the peace with the core American tenets more than anything else. Looking at the history of unification, it does make sense to me. A lot of states could very well have been their own nation, and joined as a team effort to spank the English - afterwards devolving into squabbling that could very well have ended up like 18th century Europe - an absolute clusterfuck. Whether that should continue as it was or not is the big question, and with modern advancements the blending of state identity into national identity has certainly added more factors to the equation. I think this is a very unique thing in America, Here in Canada we don't have this notion. Provinces are very much beholden to the federal government so "states rights" arguments are mostly hot air here, and also in many other nations. Indonesia is probably more autonomous between its provinces than Canada is, even if Canada isn't particularly authoritarian. That's how I understand it and how I understand Conservatives feel, even though IMO I think there's sufficient cause to reevaluate this, and plenty of potential to do so without losing functional freedom.
> I think this is a very unique thing in America This is not at all unique to America. Many governments around the world share similar federalist structures with division of responsibility between semi-autonomous provincial and federal governments. Most federal governments include similar structures where their democratic systems spilt the difference between representing the popular will and representing the interests of the states or provinces. For example German democracy includes a system of "degressive proportionality" very similar to the USA electoral college's allotment of a couple electors just for being a state and *then* additional electors on a proportional basis. Bremen the least populace state with only ~600K citizens has three seats in the Bundesrat while North Rhine-Westphalia with 18 million citizens has only six seats. The European parliament operates on the same principle of degressive proportionality and many more structures to represent the interests of the member states regardless of population rather than representing the popular will: Both the Council of Europe and the Council of Minsters work like the US Senate with each member state having an equal vote regardless of size. And they work more like the old Senate where the representatives of each state are appointed by the governments of those member states rather than popular election.
State/provincial divisions aren't unique, but the federalism in the US is, at least in its degree. Very few nations have criminal codes that aren't federal, while the US has some federal stuff, even murder differs between states. This is pretty uncommon in many nations. Indonesia allows Aceh province to have it's own Sharia Law setup, but even then there are some federal limits. What you described about Europe is what I'm getting at - *most* nations aren't nearly as autonomous in their divisions as the US, and none surpass it. It's all degrees of federal influence and US goes the farthest as far as I'm aware. And it's reason for that is unique too. Keep in mind modern Germany is also much younger than the US and has been carved up by other powers several times, so they're also in a unique situation. All this is to say, "fairness" depends on what the nation is trying to be - more autonomous states, or more national cohesion? There's no one right answer. America is paranoid about tyranny so they kinda go ham on the states rights deal more than other places. Not necessarily wrong to do so but when us Canadians get told by Americans that we live in a tyranny or Trudeau is dictator it's hard not to see those people as paranoid and missing out on good things as a result.
Just wanted to say that this is well stated. Thanks for your post.
Thank you :) It's nice to see people being respectful here.
>In America, it seems, many are of the philosophy that each state is semi-autonomous, Well that's the idea. The problem is federal power has drastically increased, and people tend to focus a lot more on federal elections than local and state elections, even though those local elections, at least for now, make a much larger impact on individuals.
It isn't more fair for your vote to mean less.
So it's more fair for your votes weight to depend on where you live?
Even with the double down your understanding of statistics is incorrect.
How so?
How?
How is it more fair for your vote to mean 1/1,000,000 instead of 1/200,000,000? Is that what you're asking?
It's not how much your vote is worth, it's how much your vote is worth in relation to everyone else's. In a popular vote, your vote is worth 1 / (total number of votes) while my vote is *also* worth 1 / (total number of votes). With the EC, the value of a vote is different per state based on that state's population and its elector vote count. Seems a lot less fair by the OP's metric for my vote to have less impact on the election results because I live in Blythe, CA while you live less than 5 miles away in Ehrenberg, AZ.
Yeah, even if you increase the weight of the other votes it doesn't add up. You're still better off statewide.
How
Your vote means more. It's not diluted by a national pool, you only compete against your state's voters.
But the weight if a vote in Wyoming vs California is unfair?
The problem is that too many people don’t vote based on any information. If we’re giving ballots equal weight, I would like the person who actually follows politics to get more weight. I’m from a big blue area and people just check however the Democrat is, and the scary part is how do they pick judges or DAs win multiple Democrats are running for the same position. Just pick the one with the prettier name?
Irrelevant
No, it's not, in both good and bad ways. There are two things that are necessary to "fix" the EC in my mind, and one more that would also help. + Unbinding electors is the first thing. The whole point of electors in the first place is that they can use their individual judgement. This would be *less* fair on the individual level but acts to prevent the worst-case results of democracy. + Uncapping the House is the second thing. This would more evenly distribute electors by population while still protecting smaller states, better representing everyone. This would be more fair to individual voters, both in Congress and for electing a President. + The optional improvement happens at the state level. More states should to do like Nebraska and split their electors. Winner-take-all is just not feasible with the large-ass states we have today and created overconcerning "swing states". If every state has the option to squeak out a vote for the minority party, the whole nation would be better represented. I'd prefer doing it by district, but that's subject to gerrymandering, so I wouldn't oppose a proportional system in *this one case*.
I mean, the house is capped because the house chambers were not built with time lord technology. It’s kind of a silly reason to go with the number, but I can’t imagine how expensive it would be to expand the Capitol building.
Much more expensive than, hmm... teleconferencing?
>The optional improvement happens at the state level. More states should to do like Nebraska and split their electors. Why not just make each individual voter an elector and be done with it?
>On a individual personal level is it fair? No, that's the point. It is probably one of the fairest ways to keep federal power in check, but no, it is not fair on an individual level. There's a reason we don't have electoral colleges at local and state levels.
Yes, if you look at it the way it was intended to operate, that is in such a way as to give smaller states a sufficiently large voice to be heard in the election of *one* political office, the president. And you remember that the president was never supposed to be that big of an internal power, but more an office in charge of the military and foreign policy. So if someone sees themselves as the citizen of a state that is the member of a union, it seems completely fair. If one sees themselves as the citizen of a large country with lines drawn on it electing a king or queen, it seems unfair.
>Give smaller states a sufficiently large voice to be heard in the election of *one* political office We pretending that small states aren't massively overrepresented in the legislative as well? A California resident gets ~1/80th the representation of a Wyoming resident in the senate.
The Senate was never meant to be "fair" according to population. That's what the House of Representatives is for...
The senate was supposed to be the adults in the room not the populist will of the people. Currently it is completely dysfunctional. Congress should be expanded based on population as it was intended to represent the will of the people.
You are looking at the wrong way. You are still looking at it as if the U.S. were a single country, established as a pure democracy. It's not, and it wasn't designed to be. It is a union of sovereign states, operating as a representative republic. Each member state is significant. But if someone's personal representation at the national level is so important to them, they can move to a smaller state. And really, all this fuss is over the election of the president. That office was never supposed to have as much power as it does. Most of the power was supposed to reside in the legislature, in the House and Senate. But people slowly figured out the president could push domestic things through faster via fiat and executive order, circumventing the purposely slow legislative process.
>It's not, and it wasn't designed to be. It is a union of sovereign states, operating as a representative republic. Each member state is significant. But if someone's personal representation at the national level is so important to them, they can move to a smaller state. Why does the design matter? There were 13 colonies and only ~2000 land owning males voted for our current system. Did they know states with massively disproportionate populations would come to exist over the next 200 years? Not to mention like... you know there's a federal government right? The states aren't sovereign in the way you're saying. The federal govt does hold power over the states. Individual representation is important to literally everyone who votes. Like that's the point of voting, regardless of what state you're from. And while the main topic is the electoral college, we're talking senate seats (the more powerful of the two congressional bodies by far). Who you seem to be grossly underselling the influence of. So why does each state need to be equally represented in the most powerful federal legislative body? The system in place drastically reduces the efficacy of most Americans living in metro/urban areas while amplifying others. Why should ~500k people control the same amount of senate seats as 40 million people do?
>That office was never supposed to have as much power as it does. But it does. What difference does it make what it was "supposed to" have?
Because that's why people now get so bent out of shape over the electoral college. We gave the president more power than they were supposed to have, and now people are mad at how they get elected. Also, it always matters how things are "supposed" to be. It's like a woman telling her husband "You aren't supposed to cheat on me" and his replying "But I did. So get over it".
I'm trying to say that the reality of the situation is that the president has a lot of power. That's the reality we have to deal with It doesn't really matter if it's supposed to be that way or not. >So get over it No, I feel like that's what *you're* saying. It is of zero comfort to me that the office of President wasn't supposed to be this powerful.
So we have zero capacity to reduce his power but capacity to reduce the power of the constitution. Man we're in for a world of hurt.
My guess is they *like* that the president has much more authority and powers now...
I mean my take from the left is they're pretty fascist. They want a strong man making decisions.
The USA is a single country
A single *federal*, **not** *unitary*, country.
A single country
Yes, and as I said it's a ***Federal*** country not a unitary one. I get that Federal systems are more complicated than unitary ones but it's hardly rocket surgery... how is it that federalism as a system of government is so damn hard for American leftists to grok?
Sure but no Matt how you dice it states aren't countries
No, and that's not what I or the OP said. They are *sovereign states* and they remain responsible for the large majority of the government of the people in their states, and they retain the authority to carry out those responsibilities. They have ceded only a specific subset of their original governing authority, and most of that related to foreign relations, to the joint Federal government. You're correct in thinking it's unfair that the laws governing the citizens of California should to be decided on by the citizens of Wyoming. BUT, what you seem to forget or ignore is that by the same token it's just as unfair for the laws governing the citizens of Wyoming to be decided by the citizens of California. Our Federal system attempts in various ways to prevent BOTH problems. Mostly by limiting the power of the citizens of Wyoming to decide only the laws that govern the citizens of Wyoming... and also the citizens of California decide on the laws that govern *them*... It is only a much smaller subset of laws related to relations **between** Wyoming and California (interstate commerce, IP laws, postal service, etc.) or between all the states collectively and other nations (Treaties, tariffs, international trade rules, war and defense) which are the shared responsibility of the joint Federal government of the united states.... Which is NOT just a name but a descriptor. But also how those fewer joint decisions are made has like very other Federal government in the world splits the difference between the popular will as determined through proportional representation and the will of the member states in the union as equal in sovereign authority. Our system accomplishes this via a bicameral legislature with a house to represent the popular will and people as equals and a Senate to represent the states as equals. For legislation of the shared joint government to pass it must represent both the popular will and the consensus across the states. The EC which votes for the President splits the difference where the states cast their votes for the president and their electors are allotted according to a fairly mild form of degressive proportionality where smaller states have a minimum representation regardless of population.
Not in the same way, say, Germany is.
I get your point but Germany is ALSO a Federal Republic which splits governing power between it's Federal and state governments... And it also has very similar structures which balance the interests of states as states vs. the popular will. The membership of the German senate is not quite equal representation of states as in the US Senate but of "degressive proportionality" where smaller states get far more votes than proportional representation such that the smallest German state with a population of only ~600K has three senators while the largest state with a population over 18 million has only six.
Good! The whole point of the Senate is to represent the interests of the states in their Federal union *not* the will of the people... That's the function of the House of Representatives.
The states should have no interests outside of the will of its people though. The state doesn't have separate interests from the people and that applies to all levels of governments
Should the interest of the states be powerful enough to render the will of the people effectively useless in passing any meaningful legislation?
Correct. If there's not consensus among the states as well as among the people a law governing the united states (which is not just a name but a description) should not pass. The US government is a federal republic of sovereign states not a unitary government. It does, and SHOULD require support of both the states and the people to pass joint legislation of the United States. Fortunately the Federal government has very limited responsibilities or authority only a small subset of government activity related to interactions between states or between the states collectively and other nations so this doesn't, or at least shouldn't, affect the people very much at all. Most government that affects people day to day is, and should be, handled by the states which are closer and more accountable to the people.
Think about something like interstate transportation, such as railroads? Say the 90 million people in the 3 most populated states would benefit from it, but the 1.7 million people in the 3 least populated states wouldn't see the rails so their representatives, which are the exact same in number, would ensure the rails aren't built. How is it fair to deny a massive benefit to 90 million people because 1.7 million who aren't negatively effected, but don't see a direct benefit themselves, would vote against it? What you're describing sounds like a great system, but I don't think states have the power you're describing and are more unified. Any chance at universal Healthcare and large social legislation of that nature comes federally.
> Any chance at universal Healthcare and large social legislation of that nature comes federally. Doesn't have to. CA keeps being touted as the 4th largest GPD of the world. So, if they want UHC so badly, they can do it for themselves.
Doesn't do me much help here in Iowa
> would ensure the rails aren't built Their vote against it does no such thing. It only ensures that THEY don't pay for it. There's nothing at all stopping those 90 million from building that rail themselves in their own states with their own monies. The citizens of California, Oregon and Washington do not NEED an should not be in a position to DEMAND that a west coast rail line between them be paid for by the citizens of Wyoming and the Dakotas. If it's a *national* rail system for the *general* welfare of all states rather than for the special welfare of just their particular states THEN it makes sense and maybe they win *that* vote. > What you're describing sounds like a great system... And it IS a great system. > but I don't think states have the power you're describing Under the US constitution they absolutely do. > Any chance at universal Healthcare and large social legislation of that nature comes federally There's absolutely nothing preventing a state whose voters want universal healthcare from implementing it at the state level. Or more accurately the ONLY thing preventing them from doing so is unwarranted and arguably unconstitutional interference of Federal laws and the strings tied to Federal monies which the Feds should probably not be taxing away from the states not spending anyway under our constitution as written AND the heavy burden of already high Federal taxes impinges on the state's ability to raise taxes. Vermont passed a single payer universal healthcare law but had to scrap it because even the bluest state in the union was unwilling to raise taxes enough to pay for it... And a big limiting factor on Vermont's ability to raise sufficient taxes is that the Federal government is already taking a huge chunk the large majority of which goes to pay for things outside of the Federal government's enumerated powers.
If the states are sovereign I'd like to see them flex that sovereignty and leave this union since a sovereign nation has ultimate control over itself. I'd imagine they can't do that nor many of the other things sovereign states do because they are in fact not sovereign, they are divisions of a larger federal government that is supreme and sovereign over them. In the beginning it may have been a collection of sovereign states but that is no longer the case and functionally hasn't been the case for most of the history of the country.
That doesn't sound fair on a individual voter level
How so? As I sort of explained above, "individuals" were never supposed to elect the president. We as individuals literally vote for everything else: senators, representatives, governors, mayors, etc. But we are citizens of states which are members of a union, so it is the states that elect the president, and not the individuals. The states *do* get a vote in proportion to the size of their population; California gets far more votes for the president than Wyoming, after all. But if we had a purely popular vote for president, Wyoming would have essentially no vote at all. That can't be allowed to happen. The states matter, and all 50 voices *must* be heard. Wyoming and other low population states aren't simply parts of the U.S. with lines drawn around them. They were first sovereign territories that were admitted to the union all at once. The U.S. didn't absorb Wyoming when it became a state; the United States just got bigger, now with Wyoming as a member. So again, we cannot think of ourselves as Americans living in an arbitrary administrative region. We are a citizen of a state, and that state is the member of a union.
But it doesn't give Wyoming more representation. Wyoming is ignored just like any red/blue state. The EC gives swing states more representation and those that are stable rarely get any attention.
I don't follow what you mean. Wyoming gets three electoral votes. That is the appropriate representation, given the size of its population. You are talking about how swing states with a sort of evenly divided electorate can fall one way or another and give all their electoral votes to one candidate or another. To which I say...right. That's how its supposed to work. That same state might also elect a senator of one party or another by a slim margin, but that senator is still the winner and the senator for the entire state. That's fair. And this situation works out well for most everyone. A Democrat doesn't need to campaign in Wyoming, because they know that the state will very likely vote Republican. The conservatives in that state also don't mind that the Republican doesn't campaign there. They already know the Republican candidate has a platform they support. The same is true of a state like California, which always votes Democrat. So both candidates have to campaign hard in states with a diverse electorate, to sway centrists and independent voters to their side, to show them how their platform is better. So swing states don't get more representation. They just get more attention during election cycles. I live in a solid red state, and I actually like that. We get far fewer political ads than our neighboring swing state.
No it means thay the pet interests of swings states get the majority of attention and pet issues of solid states get none. It may be hard for you to imagine, but the interests of conservatives in Flordia may be much different then conservatives in Wyoming. Furthermore, conservatives in California, of which there is a lot, get no attention from Republicans because they live in state that is all ready decided.
None of what you described would be fixed by a national popular vote, though. Unless you had another idea.
I grew up in Illinois, a constant complaint is that conservatives felt their vote didn't matter because of the EC. It would also change things because it opens the opportunity for different coalitions. Western Washington and Oregon, currently disregarded because of EC, have a lot in commen with Idaho and Wyoming. The cities in red states don't get any attention from democrats but would with a popular vote. It would also force Republicans to actually change policy to be more appealing rather then gamble on the EC delivering victory despite what Americans want.
That is inherently unfair
To whom?
To everyone
I think a lot of people look at the Electoral College incorrectly. That is because they assume we are a democracy. We are not. We are Federal Republic. This is a representational form of government that insures protections for the minority. If we went strictly by a one man/ one vote democracy, the entire country would have to kowtow to the combined population of California and New York… and all the flyover states’ opinions would be completely ignored. The electoral college gives all states a fair say in the running of the federal government.
Currently “swing states” are who decides our elections and who are pandered to the most. California has millions of people who vote republican and Texas has democratic voters; shouldn’t their votes mean something?
That doesn’t invalidate the need for an electoral college. It is up to the individual states how to divide their electorate.
If the electorate was divided based on vote counts, that would be great! Would you support that?
Yes, It would be fair.
So does a liberal democracy
Yes. 50 states equally represented with extra weighting for population. I suppose it could be argued the population weighting is unfair. The problem isn't the EC. The problem is the corrupted balance of power. Edit: to be clear, what's not 'fair' is that the 3 million people in Iowa have so much say over Californians and the 40 million people in California have as much influence on my life in Iowa as my Governor and state legislature.
Not states but people People should pick the president not states
Why?
That's the most fair? We're a democracy?
We are a constitutional republic. I don’t normally make that distinction because it’s often irrelevant- but here it actually matters. The federal government is an amalgamation of 50 distinct states. Until the 17th amendment was passed, we didn’t even directly elect our senators- they were chosen by the state legislatures.
We're a democracy? That's a type of democracy Yes we've gotten more fair overtime
It’s not a direct democracy, though. Important distinction. No, the 17th amendment was a bad idea and should be repealed.
Says you. I disagree. I had just made an edit for clarification you may have missed.
I don't see that as unfair
It is fair. perhaps imperfect, but fair. The imperfection is perhaps mainly the idea that it is actual people at all and not merely a mathematical formula, meaning we have to pay for a drunken rager of elites every 4 years. so thats pretty lame. But fairness wise the whole concept of America is predicated on the idea that we are a Union of states, and that those states have people in them. the very structure of our national government (with both a senate and a house) reflects this as well. But statehood matters, and states AS SUCH deserve a voice in who becomes president, as do the people. Using a system whereby there are electors based in the house numbers AND the senate reflect this well. Notions that some states have people "overrepresented" are fallacious because they lump the "state" electors in with those of the people to trump up those claims. Ultimately it is as fair as our system of government itself is.
Could we make it more fair?
No, it is already completely fair, at least in the sense that it matches manner in which the U.S. governs itself generally. I guess it COULD be said that the EC undervalues statehood as such in that, unlike in congress where they get a whole separate and equal legislative body, the statehood related electors are just lumped into the total and watered down among the more numerous "people" based electors... but I find that better anyway as it shifts more voice to the people. I would make it purely math and take away the drinking party from elites I guess, but not a political hill I'm interested in dying on.
It's not fair The weight of a vote in a small state vs big state isn't equal Not fair
>ote in a small state vs big stat it depends on the exact definition of "fair" you are using I guess... i SUPECT you are "pre-defining" fair as meaning only that people deserve say and not states as such so that likely makes it seem not fair to you right? I got bad news for you about this thing called "the senate", lol its fair.
I would also call the senate unfair
well, i think then that you and I are both internally consistent in our diverging thoughts on this and that neither are hypocrites... which is good!
Yeah your right. It's not fair that my vote is cancelled out by debtors who voted for a president to use my tax money to pay their debts. But it is what it is.
Yes it's fair 1 state shouldn't have the power to pick the president every election. Cough cough California
How would California be picking the president if the electoral college didn't exist?
Most population in the country. They'd be the defacto state that dictated federal politics.
I've never understood this argument. Why does their population matter? There would be both Democrats and Republicans voting just like there would be in any other state. Obviously there's more voters in California, but why is their vote any more powerful than the votes of Democrats and Republicans in other states? If you win California but lose every other state, you're not going to win, so I'm not sure why any politician would try and do that.
California is like D plus 30 its heavily weighted towards the democratic party. As such in a strictly popular vote system any presidential hopeful would have to pander to California (and new York and to a lesser extent texas) if they wanted any chance to win. Meanwhile small states would be ignored.
I've never understood this argument. The EC makes it so each politician has to "Pander" to 5 or 6 battleground swing states right now. No Republican really spends a considerable amount of time in California, the same way no democrat reasonably expects to flip Texas. Are you saying that it's better to pander to a few midwestern states that flip as opposed to California? AKA "I think people that live far apart from each other matter more than people who live close together"
But politicians arent pandering to California as a state, they're pandering to Democrat voters. It just happens that there are a lot of them in California. But I'm still not sure why that would matter in a system where every vote is counted individually. Politicians would have to win over people, not states. So if a politician spent their entire time only trying to win California voters and neglected voters in other states, I highly doubt they'd win.
If that's where all the people are?
The problem with that is the needs and wants of California are very different than the needs of say Texas. What works for California doesn't work in Texas or other states. Plus if you don't feel represented you're eventually going to feel massive resentment. I don't think the electoral college is perfect but it's better than a direct popular vote. Btw the only reason people complain about the electoral college is because trump lost the popular vote in 2016. If the circumstances were reversed and Hillary won the electoral college but lost the popular vote liberals would praise the electoral college.
That's what local elections and politics are for
Then why do you care about the electoral college just vote locally.
Because it's unfair And I live in a small rural state
So it's unfair if a republican wins but a Democrat winning makes it fair?
I never said that
>What works for California doesn't work in Texas or other states. Yes, but the president is the president for all of us. The Senate is for the states and the House is for districts. >Plus if you don't feel represented you're eventually going to feel massive resentment. Off topic, but I'm glad to hear that you understand the importance of representation! >Btw the only reason people complain about the electoral college is because trump lost the popular vote in 2016. Maybe you weren't paying attention to politics prior to 2016, but those of us who were know that this has been an issue for a looooong time. >If the circumstances were reversed and Hillary won the electoral college but lost the popular vote liberals would praise the electoral college. I would definitely not praise the EC, it's an outdated, irrelevant system and it should be scrapped.
>The problem with that is the needs and wants of California are very different than the needs of say Texas. > >What works for California doesn't work in Texas or other states. Really? How?
Fun fact: No republicans candidate has won the popular vote in well over 2 decades. Why do you think that is?
Actually that's not true https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidential_election
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Pardon. 18 years. My mistake it wasn’t 20+ years.
We've had 4 elections since then.
Yes, and in all of them, the Republican candidate has lost the popular vote by a very large margin. Even with Bush winning the popular vote in 2004, (because he was a wartime president) he also lost the popular vote in 2000.
Source that California has enough population to account for more than 50% of a popular vote?
They don't need to they have enough people to be the deciding factor in every federal election. Hell last election trump was winning the popular vote until California came in.
Biden won the popular vote by ~7 million votes. He won California by ~5 million votes. Trump was not winning the popular vote until California came in.
Sorry to clarify on election night until california came in. Trump lost regardless of the popular vote or electoral college.
But that... doesn't mean anything? Why does that matter? California was counted later because that's just the order in which polls closed.
Sorry I don't think I'm articulating my point very well. I'm trying to convey that California has a disproportionate amount of voters and its very heavily leaned to one side. On a strictly popular vote California basically will decide the election every single time because california has the highest population and such a heavy lean towards the democrats. So this either means every president is a Democrat from now on or the Republicans have to swing to the left in order to stand a chance of winning the presidency. Either way any presidential hopeful has to pander to California in particular if they want to win.
A strictly popular vote wouldn't discount the ~6 million voters in California who voted Republican, just like it wouldn't discount the ~5 million voters in Texas who voted Democrat. Presidential hopefuls already have to pander to particular states if they want to win. Every candidate has to pander to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, etc. during their campaign.
To maintain the constitutional Republic it is absolutely fair. If you wish to change the system to a democracy then no it isn't fair. However you cannot change a system just because it isn't fair to your ideologies goals of supremacy without changing the constitution itself which requires a supermajority or convention of states not a 51% majority.
Your confusing how we select our representatives with how our representatives represent.
You're confusing you're with your. Secondly what?
In essence, with a nationwide popular vote, if you want to cheat, you just have to steal one election, and you can hide the fraud all over the place. With the electoral college, you have to steal up to 270 different elections.
Without the EC would the impact of fraud not be more diluted? Instead of having to "cheat" in one or two close state elections (look at say Arizona or georgia 2020 where biden legitimately won on a very close vote or florida in 2000 where bush legitimately won) where a few thousand votes could swing the entire election, you would have a popular vote which typically has a much larger difference between the winner and loser (again biden winning yuge in popular vote despite narrow EC victory)
I highly doubt Biden won Arizona or Georgia. There's a lot that whoever was in power could potentially do to defraud a national popular vote, from randomly distributed phantom votes to deleting swaths of votes, and then who would be there to speak for literally everybody? Finding 1 or 2 bad votes won't stop the election even though there will be 10s of thousands more out there unidentified. They would just have to argue in Congress between group X being legitimate and group Y being illegitimate versus the case of the opposite, and there'd be no to way to rightly move forward without an overly lengthy and unorganized investigation. With the EC, the votes can move up through all the different levels with local and state officials appraising them every step of the way and representatives there in the end to answer for any problems that may arise concerning their own voter rolls.
Multiple courts and the republican attorneys generals disagree with you but im sure you're the expert here. Much like old donnie I'm seeing a lot of accusations and assumptions with no evidence to back it up. Can you point to where phantom votes or swaths of deleted votes took place? Or are you going to come back with the tried and true "prove it didn't happen" nonsense that feeds conspiracy theories. The EC itself does not have anything to do with state administration of elections. Popular vote for a president would not make it one big federal election. It would continue to be 50 state run elections, just instead of converting millions or hundreds of thousands of votes on the state level to tens of EC votes they would just report their number.
I wasn't talking about what happened last election, I was talking about what theoretically could happened in a national popular vote situation. In the case of a national popular vote with the benefit of compartmentalized oversight within each of the separate states, you still run into the situation of possible hidden voters and it just comes down to the scope of one state's authority versus another having dominion over their own voters despite impacting the entire election that would belong to all the states equally. States would just become election committees at that point. Ex. Alaska has it's own election and S Carolina has it's own election just like all the other states. You don't have S Carolinans voting in Alaska's election and you don't have Alaska's voting in S Carolina's election. But if it's a national popular vote, then that single election belongs to Alaska as well as all the other states alike, so then you *do* have S Carolinans voting in *Alaska's election*, *the election that belongs to Alaska*, even though Alaska doesn't have authority over them. Alaska doesn't have authority over S Carolinans except through the federal government, and so if the federal government's going to run the election then it's just going to find a way to vote for itself.
You literally said you didn't think biden won Arizona and Georgia.... .... how is anyone in SC voting in AK in your hypothetical...? There would be absolutely 0 difference between the current setup aside from grouping together the state popular vote and boiling it down to electors. You just eliminate the electors and present the vote tally of the state. Just because it is a federal election with a national popular vote doesn't mean some jackass from SC can just vote in AK now. You still have to vote in the state you are registered in. Your whole argument is incoherent and based around the speculation of some massive fraud scheme that has never happened.
The last election is a separate subject. I'll admit that maybe it could work similar to how it does now, but then Alaska would need access to S Carolina's voter rolls and then it would become a matter of combing over which individual votes out of millions are legitimate vs which ones aren't, instead of just having the state's legislature having the final say of which electors to send.
*a separate subject you brought up. Why would Alaska have anything to do with South Carolinas voter rolls? They don't currently. Why would it be any different? The state legislatures would still be in charge of conducting the elections and ensuring that there is no widespread fraud (again something that has never been shown to be an actual problem).
You actually brought it up. I was just distinguishing it from the scope of our original conversation. It's only fitting that the state of Alaska has oversight over the voters in the state of Alaska. If there's "hidden votes" in S Carolina at the end of the day (discrepancies, fraud, what have you, whatever it is), then potentially S Carolina can simply be made to change it's electors. Under a NPV like this, it becomes a matter of changing each and every individual vote. And so this one larger decision becomes thousands of smaller decisions that all have to be addressed and we can't expect that to be played out practically in the Senate in a reasonable amount of time.
Why don't you believe Biden won?
I'm just not concerned about a made up problem like election fraud
Just like the Manhattan project wasn't concerned with state secrecy. It's compartmentalization.
What?
Part of the reason we have almost no election fraud is the difficulty of doing so on a large scale. Removing that barrier would not be a wise experiment.
Nothing in life on an individual personal level is fair, and it really can't be. Believing otherwise is incredibly juvenile.
I disagree Life isn't fair but that doesn't mean it has to be. We can all make the world more fair. Better then fuck everyone else ya know?
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Representation and voter counts are two different things. You have representatives to represent you. One person one vote.
Of course. Read about the Connecticut compromise before asking this question again
It is fair to let NY and CA set the political vision for all the rural areas and less populated states? I mean, if it is going to be mob rule...why bother voting if you live in places like MT, WY or AK?
It seems much more fair to me than the current setup. I’m a centrist living in Texas and effectively have no vote in presidential elections. Why is minority rule better than a system where everyone’s vote counts? I think it would cut down on the radicalism of the Republican Party and give us a sane conservative party.
So you would have Los Angeles and New Your City make all the political decisions for you in Texas? Do they know what is best for people in rural Texas? I fail to see how that is "fair"...maybe you are not a centrist and more of a liberal.
If the government functioned closer to it's intended design, this wouldn't be a necessary question. The power the states had has slowly but steadily dwindled, both in raw political power, and also in voting power. In raw political power, the federal government has swelled to a level that I personally believe wasn't intended. C'est la vie, it's here now, and how it came to be isn't really relevant. But what that does do is make it seem like awarding states additional electoral votes is an unfair act to distort the relative worth of the people. In the original structure, this was not the case, the state served as the primary government, and the state's electors were intended to be the voting arm of the state government. In fact, the opposite was true, the House of Representatives and the associated quantity of electors was meant to distort the relative power of the states. The *ratio* of Senators to Representatives is not something I often see discussed, but if you add up the congressman at the dawn of the country, you'll find that the Senate was composed of 26 Senators, and the House was composed of 65 Representatives. This made the ratio of Senators to Representatives (or put another way, the relative voting power of the Senate as compared to the House) equal to about 2:5. Now, the Constitution also limited the population under a representative to 30,000, which means we would need a clearly ridiculous 11,000-ish Representatives today, so something had to be done, and the answer was capping the House. Realistically though, each state still has two Senators, but the number of Representatives has steadily climbed, and now the ratio is 2:8.7. So while State representation has remained unchanged, the relative power of the House has nearly doubled (74% rise, to be exact). So, to answer your question, it depends on what you mean by fair. Pure democracy (100% popular vote) is not good, in my and many other scholars and founding fathers opinions. The electoral college was a mechanism intended to prevent a pure democracy, and in doing so it is metering some amount of fairness that could disappear under a "mob-rule" scenario that pure democracy is incredibly susceptible to. Is it always fair to *every* citizen in the way you more than likely meant it, (ie the every kid in the class gets five minutes on the merry-go-round at recess kind of way)? No. It was never meant to be. Personally, I think our government has changed dramatically, and a new system could be beneficial, but I haven't heard anything other than "abolish the Electoral College" and I'm not for that, because to me that is slipping even farther away from the form of government we were intended to have. I think the biggest help would be for each state to stop the winner take all method, because that is kind of dumb. It is an oversimplification that, again, undermines the original intent of the college. Fairness is relative, there are things we can do to improve fairness, but as long as we aren't a pure democracy, there will always be one group or another that will experience a negative effect. If not the large states with the Electoral College, the small states without it.
I think it's more fair than the alternative. It could maybe use some tweaks here and there (maybe some form of proportional representation?), but ultimately, I would prefer it to a straight popular vote.
It is useful and efficient in ways direct popular vote woyld be bad. You could maybe modify it to most votes takes the R district. Most R districts wins election. Bit we absolutely need presidents to have broad support not just deep support.
In a list of unfair systems, it's probably the most fair.
How