But you are talking about the EC in its current form. Were talking about what if the EC was made country wide proportional. That changes everything and at the same time makes it redundant.
The EC fills the roll it has always done. To provide a buffer between the population for elections and to provide smaller states with a greater voice in the election. That's why it was put in place, that's the roll it fills today.
But you are talking about the EC in its current form. Were talking about what if the EC was made country wide proportional. That changes everything and at the same time makes it redundant.
Not at all. While states distributing their own EC votes would be proportional, each state would still retain their individual importance. In CA with 55 votes, each EC vote represents around 680K citizens. Each of NH's 4 Votes represent about 330K citizens. This is done to ensure that smaller states have a louder voice than their respective populations can allow. It's is the reasoning behind the apportionment of the House of Representitives.
With or without states dividing EC votes proportionally, it is still a buffered vote for the state, while maintaining the increased importance of the smaller stares. Eliminating the EC would remove these benefits, thus, they are not redundant.
Sorry, that is what I meant to say, The Senate is used to give smaller states a bit of a boost. I was thinking of how the house of reps and Electoral Votes are tallied in a similar way.This is incorrect.
The apportionment of the House of Representatives is explicitly done based on percentage of the population. The only reason some states have representatives that encompass more or less than the average number is that each state is required to have at least one and you have some rounding. Were we to have a greater number of representatives, the rules governing apportionment would actually eventually make the number of people represented by a House member exactly equal.
The Senate was made to give the smaller states more clout, but the House most certainly was not. In our current electoral college system though, the true problem is that small states and big states are both equally ignored, with a handful of arbitrarily selected states getting the vast majority of the presidential attention. The electoral college wasn't a good idea when it started out, and has only become more useless with time.
Can you tell me why that would be any different than straight popular voting? If CA for example has 70% pupular votes for Dems and they give the Dems 70% of the EC points. How is that any different? Basically you can get rid of the middle man (EC) since it doesnt really fill a specific roll anymore.
I think it should be left up to each state, as it currently is.
And the abolition of the Electoral College in favor of a popular vote is one of the few things that would get me out on the street in armed insurrection.
Because it would immediately drop about 25 more electoral votes into the Republicans pockets. I'd also like to see New York go to proportional votes, but then i'm a partisan Republican and what's more i'm honest about it.
Unlike these partisan Democrats that lie about why they want things to change.
Rather, it's important that less populous states be treated fairly and protected. If the President were to be elected just by popular vote, less populous states would be swamped by high population states. Those high population states would also be much more motivated to commit vote fraud. With little say in running the country, those states would have little reason to remain in the union and much reason to leave it.I've never understood the rabid support the Electoral College enjoys from some folks. I get the arguments behind it to some extent, but at the end of the day I don't see a big problem with the President being the person supported by the largest number of voters. Does it really matter all that much where those people live? A vote in San Francisco seems fundamentally the same as a vote in rural North Dakota...is it REALLY important that we treat them differently?
Rather, it's important that less populous states be treated fairly and protected. If the President were to be elected just by popular vote, less populous states would be swamped by high population states. Those high population states would also be much more motivated to commit vote fraud. With little say in running the country, those states would have little reason to remain in the union and much reason to leave it.
Our forefathers created an amazing system and I don't like screwing with it. In some cases I can see the justification - for instance, although we clearly say that all men are created equal, it took damned near two hundred years to make that happen. But in most cases, I think we diminish our country for political advantage.
We need fewer partisan hacks, not more people being honest about it. That kind of "go team!" attitude is a large part of what's wrong with our country in general and politics in particular. Nobody should feel proud of embracing it.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes do not protect small states. They ensure small states are ignored.Rather, it's important that less populous states be treated fairly and protected. If the President were to be elected just by popular vote, less populous states would be swamped by high population states. Those high population states would also be much more motivated to commit vote fraud. With little say in running the country, those states would have little reason to remain in the union and much reason to leave it.
Our forefathers created an amazing system and I don't like screwing with it. In some cases I can see the justification - for instance, although we clearly say that all men are created equal, it took damned near two hundred years to make that happen. But in most cases, I think we diminish our country for political advantage.
high population states would also be much more motivated to commit vote fraud.
Our forefathers created an amazing system and I don't like screwing with it.
Like this guy, he only shows up for these discussions about electoral votes, doesn't answer questions, but posts all sorts of pro- popular vote stuff. My bet is it's a rapid response bot or a guy that's getting paid to spam political forums. No transparency, no accountability, just spam.
The majority of what he posts is direct cut and pastes from from articles on other websites and/or publications. Some of his posts are mixtures of things that you can and can't find elsewhere through google. I'm pretty sure we are not allowed to spam this discussion board.
This is clearly a case where an account should be perma-banned. I feel silly for asking, but how do you report a post to the mods here?
You click the little red edged triangle at the bottom left of their post. Then you explain your problem with the post.