I used to be opposed to the electoral college, until I realized that without it, candidates would spend all their time campaigning in high population places like CA and NY. The rest of the country would be ignored.

Just make it properly proportional. Strip away the 100 electors (two per state) that skew the balance.

Each state will be left with one elector per congressional district.

(Fun fact: if this had been in effect, Bush would not have won in either 2000, nor -- I believe -- in 2004.)

AntiNorm: The rest of the country would be ignored.

As it should

"I think that the candidate who gets the most votes should win the office."

No shiat Sherlock.

Every four years with this debate and still common sense and democracy haven't won?

Sheesh!

AntiNorm: The rest of the country would be ignored.
You say that like it's a bad thing...

quatchi: Every four years with this debate and still common sense and democracy haven't won?

Sheesh!

Last time I checked, our Republican form of government trumped Democracy every time.

AntiNorm: I used to be opposed to the electoral college, until I realized that without it, candidates would spend all their time campaigning in high population places like CA and NY. The rest of the country would be ignored.

I was thinking the exact opposite. Evidence:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/2004CampaignAttention.png

(fark won't let me link)

The rest of the country IS ignored.

AntiNorm: I used to be opposed to the electoral college, until I realized that without it, candidates would spend all their time campaigning in high population places like CA and NY

As opposed to campaigning in battleground/contested states like Ohio and Florida.

Actually, Hildabeast is getting spanked because she spent so much time in major states and ignored the little ones. Those little ones can add up very quick.


/Single Transferable Vote
//vote for your favorite lunatic first
///vote for your safe candidate second

Is it just me or does it seem with the technolgy age it really does not matter TO much where the politian goes to, in order to campaign anyways? Seems most their Rallys and politcal points are broadcast everywhere anyway. Just becase Guliani would have won floarda in that case. Just wondering other farkers thoughts.

I think if this happens, it wouldn't mean ignoring just small states, but basically any low population density area. The candidates would just canvas the same 15-25 largest cities over and over again. Which sounds somewhat similar to what they do now, except they would ignore smaller cities in battleground states, and start paying attention to larger cities in non-battleground states. But like I was saying, it would move urban political issues into the foreground even more.

Don't get rid of it, but change one important factor: Stop going "all or nothing" with each state's electoral votes. For instance, I live in Kansas. We have six electoral votes. Typically anywhere from 25-40% of the popular vote in the state goes to the Democrat, but because that's still a minority of the popular vote, all six of our electoral votes go to the Republican. If the electoral vote more closely reflected the actual popular vote, Kansas would typically send four votes to any given Republican and the other two to any given Democrat.

Doing that would change the entire system for the better, IMHO.

You'd think there'd be enough units to transfer to Electoral University by now...

/Electoral U has hotter chicks
//sick in bed :(

quatchi: "I think that the candidate who gets the most votes should win the office."

No shiat Sherlock.

Every four years with this debate and still common sense and democracy haven't won?

Sheeshiathe Electoral College is a check on the power of the people. I know after this last president, Checks and Balances are out of style, but hear me out.

Imagine if the popular vote was won by a person promising money to everyone who voted for them? I mean a cash payment. Bill Gates, let's say, 250$ for every vote he gets.Or let's say a fascist totalitarian gets the vote based on a 9/11-ish fear swing.

The electoral college, as reasonable, smaller, less-influence-able people who would be much less likely to be given a voting status. Remember, we're a Republic, not a Democracy. We use Democracy as a sale word because it sounds better. But we're a Republic, and we always have smaller groups voting for bigger groups.

Now, thankfully, this scenario has never happened in US history. So we can be thankful that it hasn't been needed. Still, Checks and Balances work best when everyone is checked and everyone is balanced. Including the people.

"Global village" anyone. This system is obsolete, and I can't understand why it didn't evolve. shiat's just straight up undemocratic.

FTA; I think that the candidate who gets the most votes should win the office."

Allowing people to directly elect their own government, if this ever catches on every one might start voting.

The Electoral College is no longer needed. We have vast communication and transportation routes in this country, and EVERY SINGLE VOTER has relatively easy access to voting.

When you have a horse and buggy, and you need to go 30 miles in a storm to vote... at a few miles per hour... that's when the Electoral College matters. When you have climate-controlled vehicles that can make it those 30 miles in less than an hour... each vote should count.

If you're literally so far away from a voting location, and you have no option to travel to town to vote (and you don't live in a vote-by-mail state), your vote should still be heard, and we should work to make sure these votes are counted.

AntiNorm: I used to be opposed to the electoral college, until I realized that without it, candidates would spend all their time campaigning in high population places like CA and NY. The rest of the country would be ignored.

So you think that your vote should count anywhere from 2 to 20 times as much as mine, just because you live in a rural state?

Interesting. Demented and sad, but interesting.

saintstryfe: Imagine if the popular vote was won by a person promising money to everyone who voted for them? I mean a cash payment. Bill Gates, let's say, 250$ for every vote he gets.Or let's say a fascist totalitarian gets the vote based on a 9/11-ish fear swing.

... Have you paid any attention to any election in the HISTORY of the United States?

inTheJungle: So you think that your vote should count anywhere from 2 to 20 times as much as mine, just because you live in a rural state?

His vote would count exactly the same as yours. Exactly. Each of you would receive 1.0 votes. Going by the rural v. urban population in this nation, things would be somewhat equal, especially considering it IS somewhat easier for those in urban areas to vote.
I'm sorry you live in a more populated state, but in a Presidential Election, every citizen's vote should count equally. F*ck California.

carmody: Don't get rid of it, but change one important factor: Stop going "all or nothing" with each state's electoral votes. For instance, I live in Kansas.

That would also be a nice change. If the Electoral College was treated proportionally (read: fairly), I'd hate it much less.

puffy999: His vote would count exactly the same as yours. Exactly. Each of you would receive 1.0 votes. Going by the rural v. urban population in this nation, things would be somewhat equal, especially considering it IS somewhat easier for those in urban areas to vote.
I'm sorry you live in a more populated state, but in a Presidential Election, every citizen's vote should count equally. F*ck California.

This.The electoral college should be abolished.

Of course that would still create issues with some votes (especially in small states) simply not counting for anything. A state like Wyoming, you essentially have to win 100-0 to obtain all of the EC representatives (assuming the system was proportioned).

We have a bicameral congress for a reason. A states population is important, but the each state should also be equally represented. The real problem with the electoral college is how the votes are alloted in most states. The winner takes all system is severly screwed up. 2 votes should go to the overall winner, and then the rest of the states votes should go to whoever wins each individual district. Of course this will never happen because if just one state changes it makes itself much less important.

They can do whatever they want to Electoral College, but if they ever even THINK about doing away with Bovine University, there will be blood. Oh yes, there will be blood.
/ Stomp Aberdeen

And as stated by others, it would be interesting to see if more of the population would turn out if, in fact, all of their votes counted.

Oobleck: We have a bicameral congress for a reason.

Yes, and a main reason this system was created is no longer "a reason".

puffy999: inTheJungle: So you think that your vote should count anywhere from 2 to 20 times as much as mine, just because you live in a rural state?

His vote would count exactly the same as yours. Exactly. Each of you would receive 1.0 votes. Going by the rural v. urban population in this nation, things would be somewhat equal, especially considering it IS somewhat easier for those in urban areas to vote.
I'm sorry you live in a more populated state, but in a Presidential Election, every citizen's vote should count equally. F*ck California.


That's my point. The electoral college should be abolished. That way, everyone's vote should count the same.

Actually, another reason is that it makes it virtually impossible for a third (or fourth, fifth, etc) candidate to win in today's political climate, not only because they have major issues with getting on ballots in the first place, but because even if a nice percentage of a population votes for them, they will still have no chance to win the state, much less the general election.

inTheJungle: That's my point. The electoral college should be abolished. That way, everyone's vote should count the same.

Oh, well then, we agree. I guess my sarcastometer isn't working. ;)

(my f*ck California comment still stands, regardless of your location... I just wanted to say that because a) they voted for Hillary, and b) because California sucks)

Support the electoral college!

Because the hard-working farmers of Wilmington, Delaware deserve a greater say than those big-city lawyers in Cooperstown, New York!!

puffy999:
I'm sorry you live in a more populated state, but in a Presidential Election, every citizen's vote should count equally. F*ck California.

Umm.. You do realize of all the states in the US, a voter in California has the least amount of voting power. I.e. you got it backwards, california votes are worth far less then anywhere else in the US.

maotig: Umm.. You do realize of all the states in the US, a voter in California has the least amount of voting power. I.e. you got it backwards, california votes are worth far less then anywhere else in the US.



puffy999 ain't exactly the smartest knife in the tool shed.

It is high time this country was converted from a constitutional republic into a democracy! The founding fathers had it all wrong. You notice they refused to use the word "democracy" in the constitution.

This is causing the masses to loose their right to vote for the president. (look in the constitution - you will find your right to vote for the president in there!)

I agree that the electoral college is anachronistic, but I think that going to a pure popular vote system would be worse for two reasons: near-ties and fraud.

Near-ties: Remember back in 2000 when everything was on a razor's edge in Florida? All sorts of conflicting recounts, protests, judicial rulings, etc.? There was some legitimate concern that the place was going to tear itself apart. And if Gore hadn't accepted the outcome, there might have been a true constitutional crisis. Now, imagine if there was a pure nationwide popular vote system, and the result was a near-tie. We'd see those same sorts of shenanigans going on everywhere. It would be really, really, really messy. Possibly a civil-war variety of "messy."

Fraud: Suppose you're a (party X) official in a state where (party X) is dominant. Currently, there's little if no incentive to stoop to any sort of fraud in the presidential election, because in a winner-take-all state party X is going to get all the electoral votes anyway, and even in a proportional-representation state you'd usually have to stoop to pretty blatant levels of fraud to alter the electoral-vote allocation. But in a true popular-vote election, where the outcome is expected to be close, well, a few thousand fraudulent votes here and there might actually make the difference.

I love these threads, people without clue as to why there is an Electoral College to start with, expressing an ignorant opinion as to why it should be gone.

You guys are a perfect example of why the Founding Fathers did not set it up as a majority vote.

maotig: Umm.. You do realize of all the states in the US, a voter in California has the least amount of voting power. I.e. you got it backwards, california votes are worth far less then anywhere else in the US.

First, that's actually incorrect information. Second, I'm curious if you read what I actually wrote. Here, I shall break it down:

His vote would count exactly the same as yours. Exactly. Each of you would receive 1.0 votes. Going by the rural v. urban population in this nation, things would be somewhat equal, especially considering it IS somewhat easier for those in urban areas to vote.

Every vote should count the same, do you disagree?

I'm sorry you live in a more populated state, but in a Presidential Election, every citizen's vote should count equally. F*ck California.

Every vote should count, and f*ck California.

Now, let's disregard the number of registered voters (which you base your numbers off of), and imagine that there is a natural disaster in CA. California has 55 EC representatives, no matter how many people come out and vote. California could have a 1% turnout, and have just as much power as they'd have if there were a 99% turnout. Either way, that's farked.

Not sure why this keeps coming up, but simply put, you have to amend the constitution to get "rid" of the EC. To do that you need a super majority of states to agree to it. Since the EC benefits smaller states, and there are more small states then big, the likely hood is slim to nil that it will ever happen.

Apportionment, can only be done at the state level if option one is out. This however is a game of chicken. For example if one large state like CA or Texas does it, but no other equally reliable red or blue state respectively do it, it basically will swing the next election. For example, assuming your goal is that the person that gets the most votes should win, if CA was the only one that did it, Bushes EC margin of victory would have been about 40 more points. I bring it up cause this is exactly what the Guliani campaign was trying to do in California before the general. Now you can add all kinds of trigger laws in to the apportionment plan, but ultimately its just a band aide, and fails to address the vote value issue.

The right answer is, work in your own state to make your EC votes go to who ever won the popular vote. This essentially nullifies the EC, can be done on a state by state basis, with out fearing that you will swing an election in an undesirable way.

The actual best part of doing it this way, you only need to get the states with a total of 271 EC votes to do it, which if my math is correct, like 11 states, if you do it in each of the most populated. Once that threshold is met, at least until the votes are redistributed via the next census, the winner of the most popular votes will always win the presidency.

Wraithbane: I love these threads, people without clue as to why there is an Electoral College to start with, expressing an ignorant opinion as to why it should be gone.

You guys are a perfect example of why the Founding Fathers did not set it up as a majority vote.

I, too, wish that only property-owning white males could vote. Best to preserve the Founders' intentions on this one.

For all of you morans who think the President should be elected by the "popular" vote....wtf are you smoking?

If you think candidates ignore sparsely populated regions now, wait until you repeal the Electoral College.

However, one tough though perhaps unintended consequence of the Electoral College is that it creates another entry barrier for 3rd parties.

FTR: California has a higher than average percentage of the population under 18 (higher than the national average... not as high as Texas, but higher than Florida).

If you want to include California's "questionably legal" population, there may be some differences. The population in the state has grown, but the current # of electorates is based off of prior data.

Wraithbane: I love these threads, people without clue as to why there is an Electoral College to start with, expressing an ignorant opinion as to why it should be gone.

You guys are a perfect example of why the Founding Fathers did not set it up as a majority vote.

Even if not abolished, without question it needs to be changed. Heck, even the primaries do a better job of fairly accounting for votes throughout most states. If district-by-district accounting was done, this would be acceptable.

To be fair, fraud is the big reason why I'd be hesitant to count each vote equally, but IMO fraud already occurs, and the political system in this nation needs to be fixed in such a way so that fraud is nearly impossible.

Also, the founding fathers didn't get everything right.

puffy999: The Electoral College is no longer needed. We have vast communication and transportation routes in this country, and EVERY SINGLE VOTER has relatively easy access to voting.

When you have a horse and buggy, and you need to go 30 miles in a storm to vote... at a few miles per hour... that's when the Electoral College matters. When you have climate-controlled vehicles that can make it those 30 miles in less than an hour... each vote should count.

If you're literally so far away from a voting location, and you have no option to travel to town to vote (and you don't live in a vote-by-mail state), your vote should still be heard, and we should work to make sure these votes are counted.

But that isn't why we have the Electoral College.

The Electoral College gives the individual vote more power. In a popular-only vote, there is very little chance that a single vote could overturn an election. Therefore it gives voters less incentive to vote.

With an Electoral College, the individual voter has more weight due to the fact that one vote could swing an entire election to the other candidate.

We saw this first hand in 2000 when Bush won the election by winning Florida by just 500 votes.

Heck, why not base the number of electoral votes awarded on the number of people that ACTUALLY vote? I mean, it wouldn't get us the fastest results in the world, but it would give incentive to those who care enough to actually step out and vote.

/ideas are bad in the US
//obey
///your thirst

Sarcastic Otter: The Electoral College gives the individual vote more power. In a popular-only vote, there is very little chance that a single vote could overturn an election. Therefore it gives voters less incentive to vote.

Granted, it can give an individual vote more power, if states vote to their averages. If there's a candidate who gets a huge boost of voters in particular states, their votes will count for less than they would have had a popular vote won the election outright. Arguments like this can be made until the cows come home.

And actually, one vote didn't win that election... apparently, 500 votes did. You know, just like what could happen if a general election is used. Of course, if you LIKE the fact that a couple hundred voters exclusively in Florida made the election... well, okay then.

If baby steps need to be made, again, a representative EC vote, based on districts AND state votes, would be better than what we have. The system we have right now can flat-out disregard the votes nearly 50% of a state's voting population in a particular election. And you think that's right?

Dinjiin: Single Transferable Vote

Not really relevant, unless we get rid of the primary elections.

I would be in favor of Instant Runoff Voting if both parties scrapped primary elections. Let any Joe Public run for President, and then have multiple rounds of voting until someone gets a majority.

carmody: Don't get rid of it, but change one important factor: Stop going "all or nothing" with each state's electoral votes. For instance, I live in Kansas. We have six electoral votes. Typically anywhere from 25-40% of the popular vote in the state goes to the Democrat, but because that's still a minority of the popular vote, all six of our electoral votes go to the Republican. If the electoral vote more closely reflected the actual popular vote, Kansas would typically send four votes to any given Republican and the other two to any given Democrat.

Doing that would change the entire system for the better, IMHO.

No, it would just make some sparsely populated and narrowly divided states less important in elections. Take a state like Colorado as an example: it has 9 electoral votes. In the case of a close election, the potential exists for both sides to each get 4 electoral votes with the winner receiving one extra vote. This might essentially make the state worth only 1 electoral vote. In the case of states that have an even number of electoral votes, a narrow victory by one candidate means nothing because the votes are split evenly to the candidates - meaning that there is essentially zero votes to be won unless the margin of victory surpasses a certain proportion of the electorate so as to transfer one electoral vote into the winner's category.


The Electoral College is the best option with what we have in the USA. It ensures that a candidate cannot just campaign in densely populated base areas, and also gives heavier weight to less populated states. Indeed it does make some states irrelevant in the overall election, but this is better than running just a popular vote which would make a HUGE area of the USA (outside large cities) irrelevant.

HansensDisease: Support the electoral college!

Because the hard-working farmers of Wilmington, Delaware deserve a greater say than those big-city lawyers in Cooperstown, New York!!

You jackass. The farmers are in SUSSEX county. New Castle County, where Wilmington is located, is full of credit card companies and banks.

/former Blue Hen native

puffy999:
Granted, it can give an individual vote more power, if states vote to their averages. If there's a candidate who gets a huge boost of voters in particular states, their votes will count for less than they would have had a popular vote won the election outright. Arguments like this can be made until the cows come home.

That doesn't follow. "If states vote to their averages." The Electoral College should encourage those running for election to motivate their supporters to go out and vote. If they don't go to the Poll and vote then their preferred candidate loses. End of discussion.


And actually, one vote didn't win that election... apparently, 500 votes did. You know, just like what could happen if a general election is used.

I guess you could technically say that the election was decided by a single vote. If Gore had motivated just 501 more people to vote, he'd have won. The odds of a general election hinging on 1 vote or even 500 votes is exceeding unlikely. Thus the concept that -every vote counts- and you -really- have to go vote if you want a candidate in office instead of just sitting on your ass and saying, "let someone else do it."

If you're upset that all the other votes are virtually meaningless once the candidate gets all of the EC votes, then I guess you should work harder to get people to vote for your preferred candidate.

For what it's worth, nice valid arguments such as the likelihood of fraud having more direct impact on an election based exclusively off of the direct vote, or some votes counting more for an EC system (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, depending on the circumstances... some races have been closer in the popular vote than the EC vote).

I can't help but admit that part of my dislike of the Electoral College is the way it makes it a bit difficult to jump in for the election. I believe voter apathy would significantly decrease if elections would actually be fair, and it is a lot harder with an Electoral College and the status quo in politics. Of course, it's also a lot harder with lobbyists controlling Washington...

Wraithbane: You guys are a perfect example of why the Founding Fathers did not set it up as a majority vote.

Yeah, because the Founding Fathers were right about everything. All men are created equal, except for Indians, Negros, and Women, right?