33 replies to this topic

[rodeo]

Or a electoral college reform... Maybe X vote % in a state gets certain amount of the electoral votes for that state... or award the electoral votes by US representative districts then give the other 2 electoral votes to the winner of the states popular vote.

That's silly overcomplication. The electoral college is a holdover from when we didn't have good enough communication to count every vote and report them in a timely way.

We do now, so there's absolutely no need for the electoral college in any way whatsoever.

[FurdTurgason]

What sucks is that if we voted nationally on whether to keep the electoral college or not, the electoral college could simply give all the electoral votes to "yay" and keep itself in power. Damn electoral college.

[FurdTurgason]

I would be in favor of this. Too much control in certain areas of the map.

Yeah. Who died and made Ohio king? Even when those bastards retire to Florida, they still can control the election.

[Inimicus]

TIL that NC did not participate in electing George Washington as the 1st POTUS.

[theyhateme45]

That's silly overcomplication. The electoral college is a holdover from when we didn't have good enough communication to count every vote and report them in a timely way.

We do now, so there's absolutely no need for the electoral college in any way whatsoever.

I could be wrong, but I thought part of the reasoning for the electoral college was to appease some of the smaller less populated states. Going to a straight popular vote I think would diminish the importance of votes in less populated states...

I'm no political expert, so take my words as just a frustrated citizen trying to be objective for new reasonable solutions.

[Floppin]

I could be wrong, but I thought part of the reasoning for the electoral college was to appease some of the smaller less populated states. Going to a straight popular vote I think would diminish the importance of votes in less populated states...

I'm no political expert, so take my words as just a frustrated citizen trying to be objective for new reasonable solutions.

The president was originally designed to be nothing but an executive of a federation of independent states. According to various constitutional theory, this is counter balanced by the popular vote derived congress.

The original idea was that the president would be elected expressly by congress with no actual citizen voter input. This was eventually morphed into the current electoral college because of a fear of the populace being distrustful of a president elected by a relatively small group of people who meet together on a regular basis.....IE corruption, and the divisive issue of suffrage rights and the slave population.

While you were correct, somewhat, in that smaller states supported the idea because of them viewing it as a way to maintain a fair shake in the process counter to their smaller population - it was not the primary reason for it's inception.

[mmmbeans]

I could be wrong, but I thought part of the reasoning for the electoral college was to appease some of the smaller less populated states. Going to a straight popular vote I think would diminish the importance of votes in less populated states...

how?

[Floppin]

how?

At the time, regional issues were more important. State specific issues were more important, in the presidential election, for a state's populace. A straight popular vote would have nullified an entire state's votes, such as Montana for instance, who were voting in a uniform fashion because of a local issue, because their small population numbers would have become lost in the shuffle. An electoral vote that was equal to their representation in congress gave them a bigger voice.

Today this isn't really the case, with mass communication and the growth of nations infrastructure, localized issues have become second to "bigger" issues like the national economy and foreign policy and, unfortunately, social issues like abortion and the like.

[mmmbeans]

At the time, regional issues were more important. State specific issues were more important, in the presidential election, for a states populace. A straight popular vote would have nullified entire states votes, such as Montana for instance, who were voting in a uniform fashion because of a local issue, because their small population numbers would have lost int he shuffle. An electoral vote that was equal to their representation in congress gave them a bigger voice.

Today this isn't really the case, with mass communication and the growth of nations infrastructure, localized issues have become second to "bigger" issues like the national economy and foreign policy and, unfortunately, social issues like abortion and the like.

right, I meant "how would that happen now?" but very nice explanation.

[rodeo]

I could be wrong, but I thought part of the reasoning for the electoral college was to appease some of the smaller less populated states. Going to a straight popular vote I think would diminish the importance of votes in less populated states...

I'm no political expert, so take my words as just a frustrated citizen trying to be objective for new reasonable solutions.

Well that's what evolved out of it, but was never the actual intent. That argument falls apart when you ask the question why we should appease people in smaller states by making their vote count more than a person in a populous state.

Land shouldn't have a vote, people should. 1 person = 1 vote, that's my opinion on it.

There are 5,000,000 people in California whose vote simply don't count because they voted for Romney. That's just not right to me.

After 2000 it was impossible to get this point across to the right because the EC worked in their favor. Now that they had a close glimpse of the possibility of the same situation, maybe we can actually get something done.

[Zaximus]

I agree, we need to go to the popular vote. If you are a republican and are voting in Cali like you said, or NY, why even vote? No one in the country should feel like their vote doesn't count. In a popular vote, we may have more people showing up. Same thing with democrats in Texas or whatever. I think I seen only like 60% or something of people vote, that's absurd, but maybe the electoral college IS to blame for a large % of that.

[theyhateme45]

how?

My thinking in that statement was that Politicians would start to tailor their agenda to benefit the bigger cities/more populated areas while for example farming policy or other lower population issues would be neglected.

I lurk on this sub-forum quite often but I understand I am not as political savvy as most of you in here, so if I've made in accurate assumptions in my speculations I would understand.

[theyhateme45]

The president was originally designed to be nothing but an executive of a federation of independent states. According to various constitutional theory, this is counter balanced by the popular vote derived congress.

The original idea was that the president would be elected expressly by congress with no actual citizen voter input. This was eventually morphed into the current electoral college because of a fear of the populace being distrustful of a president elected by a relatively small group of people who meet together on a regular basis.....IE corruption, and the divisive issue of suffrage rights and the slave population.

While you were correct, somewhat, in that smaller states supported the idea because of them viewing it as a way to maintain a fair shake in the process counter to their smaller population - it was not the primary reason for it's inception.

Thanks... makes sense.

[mmmbeans]

My thinking in that statement was that Politicians would start to tailor their agenda to benefit the bigger cities/more populated areas while for example farming policy or other lower population issues would be neglected.

I lurk on this sub-forum quite often but I understand I am not as political savvy as most of you in here, so if I've made in accurate assumptions in my speculations I would understand.

no, you're correct in how it used to be... but the as floppin explained, the structure of government has changed... i wasn't sure if you were talking about the past or I was missing how this would be an effect in modern day gov.

[Davidson Deac II]

That's silly overcomplication. The electoral college is a holdover from when we didn't have good enough communication to count every vote and report them in a timely way.

We do now, so there's absolutely no need for the electoral college in any way whatsoever.

Communication had little to do with it. Originally, the president wasn't sworn in until 6 months or so after the election, so time to count votes wasn't really an issue.

Its a holdover from the founding fathers not trusting the people. In many ways they were right. Voters on both sides still make choices for incredibly stupid reasons. Obama is going to pay my mortgage or Romney is going to keep the democrats from taking my guns come to mind.

Floppin is right, the original plan called for Congress to elect the president, similar to european parliamentary style elections for prime minister. It would be interesting to see how that would work out. Of course, at that time, the president had much less power than he does now.