Hypothesis: everything wrong with America that didn't originate from slavery can be attributed to geographic size or having been founded by religious zealots.
She's going to win the popular vote, you know.
The Trump campaign's repeated playing of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" at campaign events never made sense to me. Until now.
Slavery's expansion, Civil War, etc. There are counterfactuals where the geographic region that became the US instead became a number of different states that could have had better outcomes for humanity, although I guess there's no getting around the fact that there was no plausible way any decisions made by Americans in 1787 would have ended slavery where slaveowners were thriving.
It seems at times that the electoral college system should be dumped, certainly. The principal argument I've seen against it came from some guy on PBS Newshour recently (I'm sure he's not the only one forwarding it). If the proposed alternative is to go to a direct popular vote: that counts, obviously, only those who vote. It does not reflect any representation of those who cannot vote: children, felons. The electoral college, on the other hand, is based on sheer state population, which does count those people.
So I remember his argument.
That's a stupid argument only a political commentator or political scientist could make.
repeated playing of "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
I read that and thought, "by Joe Jackson"? But I see that his song is titled, "You Can't Get What You Want."
My preferred counterfactual: Lincoln doesn't get shot, Andrew Johnson doesn't become President, Reconstruction doesn't get half-assed. By the time 2016 rolls around in that timeline, racial animus would be lower and a lot more minor political reforms would have been made here and there in American government. Abolishing the Electoral College relatively easily some time in the 1950s in that timeline would be plausible but not necessary.
There was someone in the thread of a red state friend of mine saying that the electoral vote is a good thing because it gives voice to people in flyover states. I'm not clear on why a voice from a flyover state is implicitly worth more than a voice from a coastal city.
5: How so? I mean, I can imagine counter-arguments. Chief among them would just be, um: dude, only those who actually vote should be represented. (Tough argument to make?)
Also I was a bit unclear: the guy's argument was against dumping the EC. As should be clear from context.
The argument that I've seen for the electoral college is that it makes things more difficult for a party who's appeal is primarily regional -- you can't win the national election by winning 70% of the vote in the South and Southwest and 40% everywhere else.
We live in an era of ideological division, rather than regional divisions, so that doesn't feel compelling at the moment, but it makes sense as a historical argument.
We live in an era of regional divisions, it's just that the regions aren't states.
10.1 seems reasonable. I betcha there are hybrid proposals out there! Neither current EC arrangement nor flat national popular vote.
How so?
Electoral votes are apportioned on the basis of those who actually do vote, not those who don't vote, much less those who can't vote, so the argument doesn't even make sense.
We live in an era of regional divisions, it's just that the regions aren't states.
Yes, if "urban" and "rural" count as a regional division.
Personally the argument I would make in favor of flat national popular vote is that it gives everyone reason to vote (and campaigns reason to go after voters in every state). I'd take that over the current system.
Yes, if "urban" and "rural" count as a regional division.
This is what makes the electoral college seem untenable in the future. Urbanisation is a long-term trend that isn't going to end anytime soon. At some point, the disparity between urban and rural voting preferences and number has to become so obviously anti-democratic that it's unsustainable.
Urbanisation is a long-term trend that isn't going to end anytime soon.
I'm betting the last 4,500 years are a fluke.
13: I thought electoral college votes were assigned to states based on the number of Congressional representatives they were assigned, which is based on population (not actual voters).
I'm terribly sorry if I had this wrong. Clearly I go to look this up now.
Wikipedia seems to confirm this. What am I missing?
Neb's not understanding what you're saying. He's saying EVs are apportioned based on the votes of people who do vote which is true, but he's missing the point that the number of EVs is apportioned accounting for total population including noneligibles.
Imagine a state with all kids and one big daddy, has 3EVs. The 3EVs in theory represent the interests of daddy and all the kids, but daddy alone has the power to decide which candidate gets them.
Electoral votes are apportioned on the basis of those who actually do vote, not those who don't vote, much less those who can't vote, so the argument doesn't even make sense.
WTF are you talking about? Congressional delegations and electoral votes are apportioned on the basis of total population. That was the entire reason for the three-fifths compromise.
Inasmuch as Clinton won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College, that was due to Yankee states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and yes, Wisconsin (where the first major anti-slavery party was founded.)
The compromise that created the Electoral College was chiefly the fault of tiny states like Rhode Island and Delaware, both Clinton strongholds
(If you want to blame slavery, it may be relevant that slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies in 1776)
(Yes, I am drunk, mostly from despair)
80 proof despair or did you go straight to Despair151?
I suspect that the effect of eligible vs. not eligible votes is swamped by the relatively arbitrary population cutoffs for additional congressional districts. Like, Montana has less than 100,000 more people than Delaware, but Montana has 4 votes and Delaware only 3. By virtue of having .03% more of the national population, that's one more EV for Trump and one less for Hillary.
20- Alternate uses of the word "apportioned." Neb is saying apportioned to the candidates in an election, Parsi is saying number apportioned among the states. The later is of course correct, Mr. language pedant should be saying "awarded."
4: Several problems with this come to mind.
1. Neb has a point, despite 19-20. There should be some representation to citizens not eligible to vote, but the EC isn't it currently. EC votes go the way voters in those states want them to without consulting those who didn't or couldn't vote.
2. Presumably people who aren't eligible or registered to vote, aren't eligible for a reason. So why should we want them represented in the EC? I don't agree with felon disenfranchisement, but whatever argument exists for it would apply equally well to the presidency as for any other office. Minors aren't allowed to vote for more justifiable reason, but presumably their parents vote for them, and they aren't a part of government in many other ways as well.
3. Presumably if the EC is good because it represents states with a lot of people ineligible to vote, the US would be a fairer place to people like that than other countries are. It isn't.
I have some Despair151 in the liquor cabinet, but I mostly use that for celebratory pyrotechnics.
This is a day for un-distilled hopelessness.
One important element of a real reparations policy would be 89 years during which white male votes only count for 3/5ths of anyone else's vote.
Winner take all electoral college vote assignment: also bad.
Presumably people who aren't eligible or registered to vote, aren't eligible for a reason. So why should we want them represented in the EC?
What is the word "registered" doing in that sentence?
The EC is way, way down on the list of things I'm furious about. How about having a media that reports with integrity. How about having people who aren't racist and sexist shitheads. I'm more on board with trying to accomplish 7 than I am trying to abolish the EC.
Agh, what I am doing letting myself get into these arguments? It's actually served as a kind of escapism for a few minutes, but I really don't want to fight with any of you.
If the electoral college is so good and fair, why don't we implement it at the state level for governor and Senate races? Why not at the precinct level for representatives? Why are we denying this democratic innovation, part of the genius of the framers, to those who desperately need relief from the tyranny of simple representation and one person, one vote?
Maybe it's because no one would defend and few propose it if it hadn't already been our inheritance from the past.
I guess would feel better about working on a time machine to go back and save Lincoln than I would about going back and time and killing baby Hitler. Though, honestly, I was going to kill his parents before he was born to avoid having to shoot a baby.
Also, the EC isn't apportioned on the basis of population. EC votes are apportioned on the basis of population down to a minimum of one regardless of how small the population of the state is (so already overcounting small-population states) plus two votes more for every state (which really overcounts small states). Systematically overcounting low-population states is seriously undemocratic.
She will win the Popular vote somewhat handily -- I'm pretty sure more than 1.5M and maybe even 2M. I tracked this in 2012. I think Obama was up about 2.8 on election day and it got to 5.0M in the very end. (California is the driver.)
33: Let's not propose hypothetical arguments that might suggest to rural America that they should re-try Baker v. Carr with whoever Trump puts into the Supreme Court.
I thought electoral college votes were assigned to states based on the number of Congressional representatives they were assigned, which is based on population (not actual voters).
Not the number of votes each state has, but the disposition of those votes in an election.
20.last, but directly to 4. Those lucky disenfranchised felons, surely they appreciate having their share of the vote handled by the average voter in their state. Surely the EC doesn't encourage state officials to disenfranchise people that are unlike them even more than they already would.
Jared was disenfranchised by Subway for pedophilia.
31: I don't disagree, but Republicans have shown you can make a lot of gains by focusing on rules and rulemaking authorities while failing to achieve huge gains on popular issues.
39: Ah, whoops... in my recollection, Montana was the smallest state to have 4, but its actually the largest state to have 3. The next one up is Rhode Island, with 4 votes and about 35K people more than Montana. So my point about tiny differences around an arbitrary cutoff stands, but in this case it actually benefited Hillary, not Trump.
It would have been better if slaves counted for 0 rather than 3/5. It wasn't like they could vote anyway.
Yes. That argument was raised at the time.
34: I suppose you could just kill one of the parents, but hey, you have to guess that they both deserved it.
going back and time and killing baby Hitler.
So, idle intellectual thought experiment entirely unrelated to current events. Everyone agrees that with 20/20 hindsight we should go back in time and kill Hitler, obviously. Or, as a more realistic corollary, that someone at the time should have done so if they had the opportunity. That judgment is easy with 20/20 hindsight. But exactly when in Hitler's reign were the facts available at the time sufficient to unambiguously support this conclusion? To make assassination of the chancellor a morally brave decision and not just... assassination? Only after it was far too late, and much damage done? Or did this conclusion become unmistakable at some point earlier?
48: I'd be afraid the other would remarry and make a different fascist.
"If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.""
The overweighting of big states in the EC was irrelevant this time. DJT still wins 248-190 if you remove 2 EV from each state.
The EC should still be abolished, though. And it would have helped in 2000.
16: I'm betting you do actually recognise a difference between urbanisation over the last 4,500 years and the last 50.
49: I think it's less about when it got so bad that killing was justifiable than when it was clear that he was dangerous and people with claims to decency couldn't support him. And yeah, we blew by that a while ago.
Probably the broader problem than the overweighting is the affect of the winner-take-all situation. You win a state by a few thousand votes, you get all the marbles. That's stupid.
Agreed. But weighting by CD is equally stupid. And weighting by vote percentage is also stupid, because it means that every 3 EV state breaks 2:1 every time. Bottom line is the EC is stupid.
Agreed. But weighting by CD is equally stupid.
I don't think equally stupid. I would say "still stupid, but finer grained, at least."
Yeah, weighting by CD is a semi-reasonable half-measure. Probably not worth pushing for versus just getting rid of the whole EC, but somewhat better than how most states do it.
Electoral college really protected the US from regional separation in 1860.
15 last is the same wishful thinking that brought us here. No quantity of outrages against democracy will alienate the supporters of the outrageous. They are loyal to their tribe, not your values.
49 can be resolved handily by executing him for treason after he committed treason, in 1923.
that counts, obviously, only those who vote. It does not reflect any representation of those who cannot vote: children, felons. The electoral college, on the other hand, is based on sheer state population, which does count those people.
This is, almost word for word, the argument used by the British government in the 1770s about why the slogan "no taxation without representation" was wrong. The American colonists were represented in Westminster, the argument went; the members of Parliament represented the whole population of the Empire, not just their voters. Poor people, women, children, colonials, everyone. It's just that not everyone they represented actually got to vote.
And, really, is there a difference between saying "your Senator represents you even though you didn't vote for him" and "your Senator represents you even though you couldn't vote for him"?
61: I think you have misunderstood me. I don't expect outraged defences of democratic principles to be useful political pressure, but rather the outrage of the urban majority who are tired of having to live under rules set by overrepresentation of rural voters.
Or maybe there is no level of outrage that will do the job until the heartlands have literally emptied out into the cities and all the farms are run by robots and all the voters are urban voters. Sucks if that's what we have to wait for.
64: I did misunderstand, but I think my point still holds. The system is outrageously rigged against urban voters, and has been for decades. The party of those voters has done nothing about this until now you have a dictatorship* which will certainly use its powers to entrench and deepen the rigging. How exactly are you going to overturn this? 'Do better in the next election' is essentially what you've been saying for all those decades, and it manifestly isn't working.
*I don't think that's hyperbolic at all, the R congressmen have proved themselves utterly craven.
I don't understand how you expect to change the system without doing better on elections first. The threshold for winning a presidential election is much, much lower than what would be required to alter the electoral college.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the EC is a red herring. Turnout is already higher in states that facilitate turnout. You unlock Texas and mobilize them, and who knows what proportions show up. Maybe it works for us on the whole, but maybe not.
Just accepting the electoral college is never going to get it changed no matter how you do in any election. In an evenly divided country we're going to see more popular vote losers and a continuation of Republican we don't need to be popular, just eek out swing state strategies. But sure, flip Texas red and do nothing about the electoral college.
The EC isn't a red herring because you shouldn't try to change it. It's a red herring because if you could change it, you'd have already gotten all the goals you wanted to change it for and you're just institutionalizing your win.
(It's possible that looking at apportioning EC votes by congressional district is different, especially if you can pick the right states.)
It's a moot point because no one will do anything. I'd join an effort and if I had millions to burn try to get some kind of reform on people's agendas. Improving things isn't Constitutional amendment or nothing.
Red herrings aren't actual problems. This is, just hard to fix.
Electoral vote interstate compact. Currently impossible because Democrats have decided to concede all state and local races to Republicans, but it's an easy way to fix the EC without constitutional amendment.
But Moby is dead right that those things will never get changed until state legislatures get changed.
The Democrats haven't decided to concede local and state races. I'm in a city with a Democratic mayor (the more liberal of the two Democrats in the primary) and a state with a Democratic governor, attorney general, and treasurer. The difficulty is, as you put it, the legislature. Those elections are held on odd years and thus very low turnout.
If you're requiring campaigns that win only if they avoid a single misstep, not a single unpredictable tactical move by either an enemy or by an incompetent bureaucrat, that are less horse races than Swiss-built watches, you're lighting matches to find gas leaks. You cannot have short, civil, intensely rule-constrained elections (which a few countries actually have!) without first winning elections in the system and culture you actually have.
Democrats won some elections in the existing system. Republicans, though, are the party that's done the most policy work on changing how American elections work. By making voting harder.
In NYC, we've got a Quisling problem. Voters have voted for Democratic control of the state legislature, but we have nominal Democrats caucusing with the Republicans, like Marison Alacantara, who just won for my district. She was supported by Charlie Rangel's replacement in the House of Representatives, Adriano Espaillat, who should therefore be understood as also a Quisling (that is, willing to sell out his party to hand over power to Republicans for individual gain). And don't get me started about the governor.
I really hate the idea of getting involved in local politics, and my personal drama this year was enough that I really didn't do jack before the election. But I really should, and maybe I'll follow Moby's example and do it.
Great. More pressure to do something.
I just want to tell you good luck. We're all counting on you.
I really, really am sick about losing Rangel, who I adored (yes, small scale tax evasion. No, I don't give a damn), for that traitor. I voted Green for the House of Representatives and State Senate.
Why even bother with small-scale tax evasion?
Voters have voted for Democratic control of the state legislature, but we have nominal Democrats caucusing with the Republicans
We have this problem too. This year the state Democratic Party targeted two of them by supporting primary challengers who agreed to only caucus with the Democrats. Both challengers won, and the Dems went on to pick up enough seats in the general to take the House. This is a hugely positive development because the Republican-led majority caucuses in both chambers did nothing to address our massive budget crisis last session, and this coming session is really the last chance to get it right before things become utterly catastrophic.
So, yeah, I strongly encourage people to get involved in local politics. You can really accomplish a lot if you work at it.
WA has a traitor caucus too. It keeps getting slowly whittled away, iirc, it's down to just one "D" turncoat, but still enough to basically stop things from happening.
This year the state Democratic Party targeted two of them by supporting primary challengers who agreed to only caucus with the Democrats. Both challengers won, and the Dems went on to pick up enough seats in the general to take the House.
This is not happening in NYS, I believe because that horrible excuse for a human being Cuomo, may he spend the rest of his life eating his girlfriend's cooking, has more power in a system where the legislature is split, and he controls the Democratic party apparatus. If the party would crush the traitors like the insects they are (or, more moderately, would support primary challengers) we could get back control.
Maybe if you ate more food made with Cool Whip, you'd understand.
Well, sure. Each state is different, and the state parties work in different ways. But the only way to change that sort of thing is to get involved in the party.
I hate New York State politics so much. It's so opaque. Espaillat has been my state senator for years, and did not caucus with the Republicans -- I didn't know anything specifically good about him, but also nothing particularly bad. I didn't vote for him in the primary to replace Rangel, but I wasn't particularly devastated when he won.
Then he endorsed Alcantara to replace him in the state senate, despite her announcement that she was going to caucus with the Republicans. So now I know they're both worthless and untrustworthy, but I don't know how I should have known that beforehand.
I have deliberately not gotten involved with the party here because we're not even purple and so of course they'll get my vote, but actually working within the Democratic system would feel like complicity toward a group that doesn't represent my interests. It's entirely possible that this is ridiculous and nonsensical, but the head of the Young Democrats (and I might be too old for them anyway, just ran into him hanging out with my friend the community organizer) knew exactly what I was talking about and feels kind of discouraged that he moved here and took that job. Maybe what I should be doing is more of that rather than more local non-partisan involvement. I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, I'm really lucky that I happen to live in a state where the state Democratic party is pretty good and transparent about its operations, and is run by people who seem to be fundamentally decent. I know there are lots of states where that's not the case, especially where there's a long history of corruption and machine politics.
Local non-partisan involvement is good too!
The corruption and machine politics were what was used to buy the votes of the racist whites here.
I am hoping so hard for a defeat for racist whites if the Tensing verdict (officer who shot Sam DuBose) does come out in the next hour or so like it might. I have no idea what I'll do if this fails. I'm incredibly anxious right now.
I could handle a certain amount of corruption and machine politics if it were organized and comprehensible -- like, if people whose politics I largely agreed with were also lining their pockets, I wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't feel lost and enraged the way I do.
I've been trying to get involved in local politics here, but the language/feeling-like-a-clueless-outsider thing makes it exhausting sometimes.
The more progressive candidate, somewhat to my surprise, could win my Assembly district and I might try to get involved. The other Democratic candidate (top two primary, both candidates are D) seems like a charter school/school "reformer" and has Chamber of Commerce backing. I'm surprised she hasn't won, but they're still counting.
The person I really wanted to lose the school board vote not only did lose but lost to someone who'd withdrawn from the race because (I learned after; it maybe wasn't widely known) he'd appeared in adult films of some sort.
Adult films are often concerned with student-faculty behaviors. Or so I'm given to understand.
I can honestly say I don't plan to do any more research on this particular instance, fa, especially because the guy lives a few doors down from me. It was pointed out that this was not going to help his chances and he eventually decided to step out of the race. But by then the baseball game they were watching had gone into overtime and so he stuck around to watch the rest of it with a bunch of people who wanted him to leave so they could gossip more. I do now regret not attending that fundraiser.