APP - The Electoral College is ripe for reform

ZenMode said:
I love how you continually delete the things I write that are inconvenient to your argument, like the fact that an Electoral vote in Wyoming counts double that in CA. I'm sure that's fine with you, being that you are pro-Trump, pro-conservative and scared of Democrats, but does that seem democratic or fair to you? Why should one person's vote count more than mine?

The primary reason for not allowing people to directly elect a president was because the founding fathers were concerned about them being able to make an informed decision, especially those in rural areas because, again, information was not readily available. That is not an issue any more. The electors have no more access to info on candidates than the average.

Each vote should count equally.
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no.

each sovereign state has an equal say, regardless of population.
 
IBDaMann said:
False. You often ask the same stupid question that has been corrected for you; twenty times is nowhere near too many for you.


All of my answers are straightforward and direct. You simply don't appreciate the fact that they clearly reveal your sheer ignorance on the matter. You blame me for the ignorance you insist on retaining, despite my best efforts to teach you.
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"All of my answers are straightforward and direct."

A response isn't the same thing as an answer. Yes, you will respond indefinitely, apparently. You will not answer a question.
 
ZenMode said:
"All of my answers are straightforward and direct."

A response isn't the same thing as an answer. Yes, you will respond indefinitely, apparently. You will not answer a question.
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I have answered all of your questions. You ask "What is 3 + 7?" believing the correct answer is "blue" and that you "got me this time!" ... and then you cry like a baby when I try to explain that the correct answer is not any color, but is the number 10. You're a moron who asks completely invalid questions thinking you've got a GOTCHA! You insist on trying to prove Global Warming and you don't even know what heat is. If I try to teach you what you need to know, you retreat into other stupid GOTCHA! attempts. I try and try and try to help you but you will have none of it. You are logically inept. I wouldn't have any confidence that you could figure out how to make Jell-O.
 
IBDaMann said:
I have answered all of your questions. You ask "What is 3 + 7?" believing the correct answer is "blue" and that you "got me this time!" ... and then you cry like a baby when I try to explain that the correct answer is not any color, but is the number 10. You're a moron who asks completely invalid questions thinking you've got a GOTCHA! You insist on trying to prove Global Warming and you don't even know what heat is. If I try to teach you what you need to know, you retreat into other stupid GOTCHA! attempts. I try and try and try to help you but you will have none of it. You are logically inept. I wouldn't have any confidence that you could figure out how to make Jell-O.
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Nope. Especially when it comes to global warming, you respond but don't answer. Hence my unwillingness to play your game with other topics.
 
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CIA TOTALITARIANISM said:
these were agreed upon items to justfy our union in the first place.
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Right and there were a variety of reasons for the Electoral College. A concern about the availability of information was one of those reasons. That concern is no longer valid.

There really is no practical need for the EC. Conservatives like it because they believe it helps them win.
 
Publius said:
The Electoral College was a great compromise between the balance of power between large and small states. It was negotiated at the ratification convention in 1787 and is now in the constitution. So, without an amendment, we have to live with it. What the framers were unable to foresee, was the emergence of two political spectrums, how they would congregate in rural versus urban and the eventual tendency for the electoral college, with greater frequency, allow the minority vote to win the presidency. I assure you, having a minority rule was never the intent of the framers (more on this below), They believed that the vote and the EC would coincide, and in fact it did, for many years to follow and even then, only once from 1788 until 1999 there was a disparity. Given this fact, clearly majority on both sides (EC and actual vote count) was the intent. But, in the last 2 decades, it's occurred twice. Writ large, the electoral system is ripe for reform.

Wikipedia on Federalist 10:

Madison's nationalist position shifted the debate increasingly away from a position of pure state sovereignty, and toward the compromise.[8] In a debate on June 26, he said that government ought to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" and that unchecked, democratic communities were subject to "the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions".[9]

"Protect against' does not equal 'minority control'. Because, if that were true, then flip argument is just as valid, 'the government ought to protect the majority of the opulent against the minority'. IF one is true, then why not the other? "Why not the other' is far more relevant and applicable today when we are talking about voting blocks of some 65 million or so, as they exist today, but did not exist in the late 18th century.

In essence, the EC was a compromise between the idea of absolute state sovereignty and overreaching federal power. Please note that there is nothing sacred nor reverent about any compromise, as they are, in a sense, necessary and inescapable undesirables where both sides widely disagree on a policy. What "Publius" feared the most were unruly factions with narrow agendas in the electorate taking control. This is the 'mob rule' Republicans famously fear. The right seems to argue that 'mob rule' equals the majority, but that idea does not actually exist anywhere in the Federalist papers. There is NO INTENT nor mention by the framers that the minority, the smaller vote, is supposed to be victorious. The opposite is actually true.

Thing is, today, given the size of the electorate, many many millions more than existed when the Constitution was ratified, each party's vote tally in the neighborhood of some 65 million or so, each, so, if one is honest and looks at the current situation as it really is, both sides, dems and repubs, are a consortium of factions, or 'mobs', if you will. In short, mobs are all we have today, they cannot be avoided, EC or otherwise, so any argument for the EC which says 'the EC solves mob rule problem' is a moot argument.

That can't be valid argument for 3 reasons: 1. The framers never claimed 'mob rule' was minority rule. 2. EC was a way to bolster the voice of smaller states. "Bolster' doesn't equal 'dominance', it just means, made stronger against the bigger states, to diminish the larger states tendency to dominate. 3. Today 'making the voice of small states stronger' is a moot point given that the larger states are 20 times the size of smaller states, who, even after 'making their voices stronger' has little effect given the disparity of size differences compared to the size differences, which were much less, at the time the constitution was ratified. Moot. Capiche? As it it no longer works the way it was intended due to the tremendous size differences and the emergence of right v left politics and the shifting demographics between large and small states comparing now to yesteryear

I think the confusion on the right stems from their misinterpreting what the framers meant by their fear of the 'tyranny of the majority'. What they never did, was seek minority rule, but what they actually did was TEMPER what they believed were the excesses of majority rule. They did this by establishing, in the constitution, a bicameral legislature--a senate and a house of representatives, the electoral college and requiring that the states model their governments similarly. Tempering, which is to say, smoothing out the excesses of majority rule does NOT equal 'favoring minority rule'. Especially when the minority and the majority are now in excess of 65 million people, which means that all we have now are factions, each side is a consortium of factions. Factions are now inescapable.

Another thing, when I make this argument, which is clear, makes sense, I'll present it to Republicans and many on the right who will, or appear to, totally ignore what I just wrote, and continue to spew their nonsense about 'mob rule'. completely misrepresenting what 'Publius' actually wrote, and they will totally ignore the point I just made, won't even comment on it. This happens every time I bring this argument up. They refuse to see what is in front of them. And if you are on the right and are about to make the same blunder, may a suggest that you either engage with me and debate the argument actually made herein, or ignore this post.

Republicans (a number of them, at least) cling to the false idea that the framers were okay with a minority winning, that the only figure that is important is the elector count, ignoring the fact that the popular vote has been tracked in every vote in history. so, if what they were saying is true, that the actual vote count (aka 'popular vote') didn't matter, why in hell has it been tracked in every election since the first election? Why in hell would Hamilton, say this in Federalist 22?

...[a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail

In Federalist No. 22, Alexander Hamilton was arguing against the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and advocating for a stronger central government under the new Constitution. The quote, "[a] fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail," refers to the principle that in a republican form of government, the majority's will should guide decision-making processes.

Hamilton was concerned that the Articles of Confederation allowed a minority of states to block important legislation, leading to gridlock and inefficiency. By emphasizing the need for the majority to prevail, Hamilton was arguing for a more effective and functional government where the decisions of the majority, rather than a small minority, could drive national policy. This idea was foundational to his support for a new Constitution that balanced federal power while ensuring that majority rule was respected in the legislative process.

And when did Republicans and those on the right start making this argument, that the framers created the EC to prevent 'mob rule' as an argument to justify losing the popular vote? Interestingly enough, I started noticing it not long after a decade of them losing the popular vote for the president. Suddenly, they no longer care about the popular vote. So, they concocted this cocamamy argument so that they could feel better about losing the popular vote. But this is a specious argument, because the minority vote does not equal 'the will of the people',, and that it is a fundamental principle of a republican form of government (i.e., a representative democracy) that the sense of the majority should prevail. IF that is wrong, why in hell did Hamilton say it?

The fact that the electoral vote count occurring as a disparity of the actual vote count resulting in a situation where the elected president does not have will of the people, is occurring too often, where, historically speaking, it only occurred once in over a century. It has occurred twice in a couple of decades. Clearly, the framers could not foresee the demographic shift of the nation which has occurred twe centuries later, that this has resulted in this tendency of EC v popular vote disparity, and thus the electoral college is ripe for reform, the sole point of this thread.

This takes me to discuss the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC).
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For more info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...-vote-plan-replace-electoral-college-n1247159
www.michiganpublic.org

Bill to join National Popular Vote pact sent to Michigan House floor

Michigan’s 15 electoral votes in presidential elections would always go to the winner of the national popular vote under a bill that cleared a state House committee Tuesday.
www.michiganpublic.org www.michiganpublic.org

Yes, Repubs, I know you hate this compact, but, rather than try and win by gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, and resting on the laurels on the designs of an antiquated system, i.e., rely on the unavoidable lack of foresight of the framers, where the only way you can win elections is by systemic advantage, may I suggest that you guys try winning by selling something that most people actually want, and win by winning the hearts and minds of the people? Sound like a reasonable idea? I do. You should, too.

In a sense, this compact will force Repubs and 'conservatives' to do just that, and we'll all be the winners, dems and repubs vying equally for the hearts and minds of the electorate, and not being propped up by artifice out of weakness, and thus the compact will result in our eventual becoming more unified.

Isn't that what we all want?
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Some good points, but a nearly impossible task to get a Constitutional amendment through both Congress and ratified by the States in today's environment.

Better, IMO, is to focus on the doable, not the impossible. Ranked voting and grassroots efforts to push through individual states to divide up their EC votes like Nebraska are two examples of doable efforts.
 
IBDaMann said:
Nope. Historical revisionism.
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Nope, though you'll stick to that position indefinitely. I can post link after link talking about information availability being one of the reasons for the EC, but you won't acknowledge it because, you know, confirmation bias.
 
ZenMode said:
Right and there were a variety of reasons for the Electoral College. A concern about the availability of information was one of those reasons. That concern is no longer valid.

There really is no practical need for the EC. Conservatives like it because they believe it helps them win.
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that's not it.

its to keep a balance of power for rural areas and less populous areas.

its not about "information".

that's a made up dumbass mason reason.
 
ZenMode said:
Lol....more word games.
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LOL. More denial on your part. The States elect the President.

ZenMode said:
We both know over 150 million voted for President in the last election.
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Nope. We both know that the DNC pumped millions of votes into the counts of various swing States for Biden, over the weeks following the election, until they had successfully stolen Trump's record victory.

Why do you insist on playing dumb?
 
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