From the political science's point of view an abolition of the electoral college would probably bring a big change to the whole political system. I think I heard it could be possible to change the EC without a constitution amendment by changing the electoral law of each and every state towards a proportional election of the electors. Depending on whether you keep the EC just with a overall independent majority or proportional voting system or maybe even a mixed-member system in the EC, or if you do popular vote (also depending on the voting system you chose) two rounds of voting like they do in France. The EC secures and favors a 2-party-system as other candidates may run for presidency but de-facto have no chance to ever win. In a semi-presidential system like the French that's not the case anymore as it about total numbers, not EC votes. In France it created a two-and-a-half party system with a radical-right party often around 10%. Not that they might ever occupy presidency - but it shifted the whole political spectrum to the right(before Holland the conservatives have been in power for 17 years). As right about now there is no left party in the US - I dont wanna think that a possible US counterpart could be the tea party.
Well, you have to get to the ceiling first. Turnout is such that there's plenty of growth before we get there. And if we do? We'll probably end up with the same battleground states we do now. But chances are, it's arguable that moderate Republican in Massachusetts is easier to convert than a centrist in Mississippi. Here's the thing though - Starbucks doesn't have to tell folks in India to stop drinking all that chai. Vinny in Brooklyn doesn't have to stop watching Yankees in the afternoon to watch Juventus in the morning. Voting is (forgetting turnout for a moment), a zero-sum game. Of course, I could very wrong about all of this. In fact, there's a very good chance my ignorance would be exposed if a popular vote election takes place in our lifetime. But the argument for electoral college is pretty simple. It's not enough to squeezing out a few more votes in a state where you've already won; you have to squeeze out a few more votes where you're not guaranteed to win. 3,000 votes for a Democrat in Ohio should count more than 3,000 votes in Maryland. Likewise, 3,000 votes for Romney in Wisconsin should matter more than 3,000 votes in Alabama. In both cases, capturing the former requires broader appeal than the latter. Now, I could get down with proportional EC votes, where we have something like they do for Nebraska and Maine. But that seems like a solution in need of a problem.
Doesn't the EC already allocate votes by state population? We see the number of Reps in the house change depending on the population and the EC is based on Reps and two each for the senators, correct?
Proportional votes within a state. For example, Nebraska gives you two votes for winning the state, and one for winning each congressional district. In 2008, McCain and Obama split the state 3-1, with Obama winning NE-2, which is essentially Omaha. Maine has a similar system but I don't think the votes there have ever been split.
A voter in Wyoming has 3 times more power than a voter in California when it comes to electing the president.
So, would you rather Wyoming have one fewer senator or no house reps? What about Vermont? Oh, that's a state that goes your way? Or DC? Looking at that map, Ohio gets screwed as well.
Is it possible that I wasn't making a partisan point and actually have an issue with the fact that different Americans' votes matter more than others?
Um. Yes you would. Direct election would, by definition, make every vote worth the same. It's entirely because voting is filtered through the Electoral College that this phenomenon happens.
No, you wouldn't. Basing the election on popular vote would effectively eliminate the need for any of the candidates to give two sh*ts about anything that ever happened outside of a densely populated area and would give unprecedented bias toward left-leaning candidates. You would be electing people that had no interest in representing the vast majority of the country.
That's already happening today (just with a different skew toward 7 or 8 very specific states). It has nothing to do with everyone's vote counting the same or not. The current system MASSIVELY skews our politics to the right. I don't see you bitching about that. Instead, you're bitching about how unfair it would be to change the system so everyone had an equal vote in electing their president. Sorry, that makes no sense at all.
I'm not sure I get this. How is it that going to popular vote would somehow prevent a candidate who wants to represent "the vast majority of the country" from winning -- couldn't someone go appeal to that vast majority and win easily?
While I agree with you in principle, that Middle America would get the shaft, democratically speaking if a candidate gets the majority (plurality) of the vote, then technically he does represent the majority (plurality) of the country. Now if we were just 1 country I would say the Electoral College needs to go, but since we are a Union of States then I understand why we keep the EC, even if it can be seen as unfair to heavy populated states.
Representing 51% of the popular vote would essentially mean representing the majority of America ... right? Am I missing something? Or are we arguing that a person's political clout should be directly tied to the population density of the place he lives in. BTW it wouldn't hurt conservatives to adopt politics that would appeal to densely populated parts of the country.
What I meant to say was the vast majority of the landmass of the country. You could run a campaign without leaving the Eastern seaboard except to fly to California.
I agree. The office is President of the United States (not President of the United People). The constitution sets up a government by representation (not a democracy). States are sovereign and elect the president. How each state decides to determine the votes for the president is the state's business. The EC is the representation.
Well Stranger could argue that not really, since not of all of America votes (U-18) so can you represent them if they did not vote for you? also many registered voters do not vote be if lazy or just do not like the 2 Party system what ever, that is about 30-40% of the population, so even if a candidate wins 51% if the actual vote in reality less than 30% of Actual Americans voted for him. Obviously this is the same in the current system (EC) than would be under the 1 National vote system. So his original point would still be full of shit.
Check mate. Maybe we should just have the "rugged individualist" tax exemption for these people so they can shut up and leave the rest of us to design a government of the people and for the people.
In our Federated system they do represent the people with in boundaries in that dirt. Love it or hate it until we change the constitution we are still a Union of States. I mean I would imagine that people that have issues with the EC must have bigger issues with the Senate.
Actually the senate is exactly the representation of states in the union. If they became proportional to population, wouldn't that make them redundant to the house of representatives? So if the states have the senate, why must they also have the executive? States already have their internal autonomies/governments. The current system gives states power over senate, executive (judicial) and the actual state governments. That leaves only the house of representatives as purely proportional to the people and even that's questionable with some of these gerrymandered districts. Now that I think of it the people have no pure and unfiltered control over any of the branches of government. It would be nice if they we could at least have the executive.
The people are the States. So arguably (even if not in reality) the people of the states do control all branches of the government. Remember is in the name, "United States" maybe it would be better if we were "United People of America", but we need to take that up with the founding fathers.
Well then give my state total autonomy (I'm saying this to the founding fathers). If you want my state to hand over some of its autonomy to the federal govt, then you need to give me at least one branch in that federal govt where my representation is equal to that of some guy in Wyoming.
Well you got half (Senate), and even that came with a fucked up compromise regarding how much of a person black people (slaves) were going to be counted as. Ah you mean representation by voter/person, well technically that is the house.