OT: the electoral college

39 comments

• 4got2wipe

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  8 years ago

  I suppose it is too much to ask zipman68, Dougster, skibum609, et al. to lay off the trolling on this thread. How about this: if you troll, please make it funny! Or include links to naked sluts! Either would be brilliant!
• 3LeggedMan

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  8 years ago

  I second the call for naked sluts! Enough politics already!
• jackslash

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  8 years ago

  I don't like Trump or the swamp creatures surrounding him. But the electoral college has some good aspects. It gives power to the individual states in our federal system instead of concentrating more power at the federal level. It makes candidates consider the needs of middle America. And it keeps the presidential election from being completely a popularity vote.
• Mate27

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  8 years ago

  Naked sluts are a given. Eliminating the electoral college may start some severe anger. Their was a very good reason why the founding fathers created the electoral college, which was taught to us all in Civics 101. Yet the liberal hippies were too stoned and high to remember that, or their refusal to grow up predicates their bias for allowing that information to sink in their ideological minds. Always remember that liberals think with emotion and Idealogy first, before dealing with reason. Most of the land areawas Red in the election, the electoral college is designed to avoid abuses of power given to any one group of people. You will definitely be biased if there is a large concentration of people in large populous metropolitan areas on the coasts, who lean toward leftist thinking. Of course you will see it as an unfair and outdated system if you are on that side. Just think if everyone lives in an urban area. Who would make their Nike sneakers, grow their food, import their "ripple", and other fine amenities that they so take for granted? There is a reason why the term urban blight has popped up over the last few decades, because the education and economies suck really bad in this areas.
• ATACdawg

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  8 years ago

  The electoral college was originally set up to compensate for the lack of rapid communications in the early United States. Think horseback/carriage only. Flash forward to today, when voting totals could easily be sent within a half hour of the Polls closing. So, what is the purpose of this outdated concept? Why should a candidate get all of the electoral votes from a state if there is a 51-49 vote split? I think it should be abandoned. The problem is that it is a constitutional issue that has relevance only one night every four years.
• mrrock

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  8 years ago

  This explains the electoral college. [view link]
• dallas702

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  8 years ago

  Like other attempts to "change the results" for future elections (usually enacted after voters made a selection opposed by the leaders of state governments), the supposed "popular vote compact" is an attempt to compel Electors to vote according to the dictates of state party leaders. It simply will not work. The Electors (selected by their candidate's party) make a commitment to vote according to the dictates of their own state's majority voters, subject only to their own judgment. Were (for example) an Elector from a state who voted for the Republican candidate, ordered by Democrat state leaders to vote for the Democrat candidate, the Elector is unlikely to comply. NO state law can compel an Elector to vote as dictated by state leaders (read the constitution) and since the state election was to select Electors who committed to vote for a particular candidate, the "popular vote compact" cannot be binding, nor enforced. There have been only a few "faithless" (who did not vote for the candidate they were elected to support) Electors (179) in all of US history. Almost half of those "faithless" votes (71) happened when the candidate died before the Electoral College met (1872, 1912). Although 26 states do have laws against "faithless" Electors, it is very unlikely any of those laws will ever be enforced.
• rickdugan

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  8 years ago

  "I thought I'd point out that MrDeuce is wrong when he says abolishing the electoral college (no disrespect). There is actually a popular vote compact adopted by 10 states and DC that will take effect when states with >270 electoral votes approve it." We have about as much chance of getting a blow job from Selina Gomez than that thing has of getting over the 270 electoral vote threshold. It was adopted by 11 of the most liberal leaning jurisdictions in the country, some of which are also among the most populous. They obviously feel that this will convey some advantage to the left. Good luck finding any traditionally red state, or even a swing state, to adopt something that might cede control over its electoral votes to the likes of urbanites in NYC, California, Chicago and Boston, among others. That joke of a compact has been floating around for 9 years now and I suspect that it has obtained about all of the low hanging fruit that it is going to get. This election was a prime example of the continued need for the electoral college, an important part of which is to prevent tyranny of the majority by ensuring that states with much smaller populations still have a voice. It was the reason that the southern states insisted on it in the first place and it remains as necessary today as it was then. Hillary only won 20 states and, even in those states, often took a sharp minority of the counties. The electoral college system is all that stands between us and a Hunger Games scenario, where the populations of a handful of capital cities dictate policy for all of the districts. Anyone who wants to be President has to appeal to more than just urbanites and, simply put, Clinton failed in that.
• twentyfive

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  8 years ago

  I am not a big fan of the electoral college I think it has become more of an anachronism in our modern society, I believe that it contributes to the perceived bias in general, with that being said i don't think that this is the proper time to have this discussion. This discussion would be better received prior to a presidential election right now it seems to be more sour grapes than constructive conversation.
• RandomMember

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  8 years ago

  Haven't really thought through the electoral college question. However, overriding issue is that 46% of eligible voters (something like 50M people) didn't bother to vote. In that vacuum, we ended up with a thoroughly unqualified bigot.
• JimGassagain

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  8 years ago

  ^^^ Stop talking about Obama like that. He tried the best anyone could under his bipartisanship high horse. Rickyboy did some real good educating in his post above. Seems like many of the sour grapes have forgotten the basic Civics courses taught to them in high school. Well, some people grow up and some people have no brains.
• RandomMember

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  8 years ago

  @Gassagain- From what I remember, the historical reason for the electoral college is slavery: the south would have lost every single election b/c the South had such a huge population of slaves who could not vote. Ugly remnant of our past, dipshit.
• rickdugan

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  8 years ago

  Random, the reason why the South had far fewer votes to cast is irrelevant. The point was that the southern states were afraid that their interests would be overwhelmed by the states with far more voters, hence the electoral college was codified as a compromise. States with larger populations still get the lion's share, but even the states with the smallest voting blocks get at least a little influence. And if you look how the election map played out, you would see that the very same concerns about unequal population distribution still exist today.
• WetWilly

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  8 years ago

  Washington DC has no electoral votes, correct? So if I'm a registered voter in DC, and I walk into the polling place to vote, my vote for the President doesn't count at all, ever. Am I correct? Yes, I know the actual population of DC is small.
• WetWilly

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  8 years ago

  ETA my post above. DC voters have no voice in the US Congress, but they do have 3 electoral votes. Sorry.
• zipman68

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  8 years ago

  Doesn't matter. The Chinese will rescue us and institute Chinese democracy for us. Xie xie President Xi! Are you practicing Mandarin now? You should be!
• san_jose_guy

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  8 years ago

  Originally there was not any popular election for the Presidency. Electors were selected I believe by State Legislatures. So today it is an antiquated system. And it most certainly, because of the 3/5ths clause, gave southerners a huge advantage, so that besides controlling the Presidency, they were able to stack the federal courts. SJG
• san_jose_guy

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  8 years ago

  Here, explains about 3/5ths, the Electoral College, and stacking the courts, and how that was what pushed things to the breaking point. David Blight: Outstanding Course! [view link] "We, citizens of the United States, and the Oppressed People, who, by a recent decision of the Supreme Court are declared to have no rights which the White Man is bound to respect; together with all other people degraded by the laws thereof, Do, for the time being ordain and establish ourselves, the following Provisional Constitution and Ordinances, the better to protect our Persons, Property, Lives, and Liberties..." [view link] Today we don't have 3/5ths anymore, but we do have the +2 for Senators, giving a huge advantage to less populous states. And then as it is still winner take all in 48 states, there are only so many battleground states. They say that in 1960, Kennedy v Nixon, all 50 states were competitive. But in more recent times, with the 1968 unveiling Nixon's Southern Strategy, and through the efforts of the likes of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, only some states are competitive. There are precedents for ways that pressure could be mounted. " Civil rights leader Hamer led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation to the '64 Democratic Party convention demanding to be recognized - President Johnson called an"urgent" press conference so there would be no TV coverage of her statement " [view link] " The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenges the regular Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City. " selecting convention delegates [view link] SJG
• JimGassagain

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  8 years ago

  I don't like the electoral college either, but I like college girls and I elect them to suck my dick. Ooooohhh!!!
• skibum609

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  8 years ago

  The original post was good. The simple fact is that the electoral college was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson and was based on the idea that we are a group of states and states are equal (each one gets 2 Senators), but that population i.e. the people also deserve representation, which is why the House of Representatives is based on population and why Wyoming, Vermont and a few others get one and California gets the most with 53. It is pretty much the same for President due to the electoral college. Jefferson believed that farmers and rural people were more tied to the land than city dwellers who were more transient and thus more likely to care more about the future. The electoral college is unbiased, fair and keeps us together. Not our fault that progressives and their "republicans are doomed due to demographics" mantra would come true faster if the rules were changed after the game had been running for 212 years. At least we know Jefferson was a genius.
• Dougster

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  8 years ago

  RickyBoy: "an important part of which is to prevent tyranny of the majority by ensuring that states with much smaller populations still have a voice." So tyranny by the minority is better? You sure are one dumb fag! But we already knew that.
• twentyfive

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  8 years ago

  ^^^That one Dougster nailed, I was thinking the same thing, usually when Dugan posts I find myself baffled as to what he is thinking, if he's thinking or WTF, is he always on the wrong side.
• mikeya02

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  8 years ago

  Are you guys lumping in the KKK and neo-nazis with the right wing?
• twentyfive

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  8 years ago

  No mikeya that is a whole nuther thing entirely, there is a clear and difference between the right wingers and the Alt.Right.
• 4got2wipe

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  8 years ago

  This will probably be my last political post for a while (ever?) since I'm not sure how Trump will actually govern. I think that if Trump fails it will be because of his personality, not policy or ideology. I still think he'll fail and the Trump administration will be a clusterfuck. But I hope that I'm wrong. After all, the alternative is rooting for things with an impact on a lot of people to turn into a clusterfuck. I'm not going to root for that! My OP was simply an academic point that abolishing the electoral college wouldn't take an amendment. Regarding specific points: I'm shocked that both Dougster and rickdugan made actual points rather than just trolling each other. This whole "protecting the small states" argument strikes me as wrongheaded. The map of the presidential vote by county has convinced me that the people in a place like Charlotte or Atlanta have more interests in common with people in NYC or LA than the other North Carolinians or Georgians in suburbs and rural areas. The same is true for people upstate in NY. So people no longer divide up by state. But there are still two groups that strongly disagree about the country's direction. Don't both groups deserve to be represented? At the presidential level both are. Urban areas get 8 years then the tiny number of swing voters push it the other way. Each President tries to undo the other. I'm tempted to call that "non-brilliant" to follow my ongoing joke, but the issue is a bit sad so I don't really want to joke. The current congressional districting system clearly favors Republicans. I thought the electoral college favored Republicans too, and many Republicans may believe that too. Nate Silver's analysis convinced me otherwise. I think a shift to the popular vote would force presidential candidates to moderate. Both might have to lose by smaller margins in areas outside their traditional strongholds. They might do that by addressing the concerns of BOTH groups of Americans.
• 4got2wipe

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  8 years ago

  One more point. I'm not sure if skibum609 is trolling or just a little nuts. This "Jefferson devised the electoral college" thing seems a bit wrong historically. While Jefferson did favor the agrarian population he was in France during the drafting of the constitution. I did check dates to see if my memory of history classes regarding Jefferson's time in France were accurate. I think Madison simply used the electoral college because you couldn't integrate the 3/5ths compromise into the presidential election if you used a popular vote. Plus the states really were different at that time, unlike now where there are more disagreements within states than between states. If it's trolling I'll just say "ace trolling!" Much more subtle than the "China will become our overlords!" trolling. But still funny.
• rickdugan

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  8 years ago

  When you look at the electoral map by county, it is scary how concentrated the Hillary support really was. The vast majority of her voting block is the urban poor and their urbanite sympathizers. I cannot view Trump's win as any sort of tyrrany when he was able to capture such a broad swatch of the country, from farmers to miners to blue collar factory workers to evangelicals to....etc.,etc.,etc. He was even able to sway the fiercely independent, and lately left leaning, voters of Wisconsin. Frankly I like the fact that a President now has to sway more than one type of voter in order to win. In this instance, Trump was successful and Hillary was not. She got the base that will always vote Dem under almost any circumstances, but was unable to gain the support of almost any other voter block. Trump, on the other hand, cobbled together a myriad of different small voting blocks, spread over 30 states, in order to win (and handily at that). So the urbanites on this board can boo hoo all they want, but I am grateful for a system that is doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is to prevent group think voting blocks from tightly packed population centers from deciding elections for the entire country all by themselves.
• JimGassagain

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  8 years ago

  Could t have stated it better Mr Rick Dugan! Of course we are going to hear more of the boo hoo crowd that will say "but it's an antiquated system, just like the constitution!"
• twentyfive

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  8 years ago

  ^^^I guarantee that you would not be saying this if the election had gone the other way with Hillary Clinton getting the win in the electoral college and Donald Trump winning the popular vote. That is why I say lets have this discussion a year before the next presidential election.
• twentyfive

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  8 years ago

  Lets see what this country looks like going into a third year of a Donald Trump presidency. Then talk about how this all works out, Fair enough?
• Clubber

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  8 years ago

  Sorry to break my vow, but something needs saying, and I couldn't pass it up. To those that do not like the Constitutional way we elect our president, I suggest you refer to said United States Constitution. I know how much many love to flaunt it when they try to invent "rights". So here it is. Use that Constitution. It has your resolution contained in itself. Read Article 5. Or better yet, here it is: Article V The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. GO FOR IT!
• san_jose_guy

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  8 years ago

  The Constitution is extremely antiquated. When it was drafted there was no popular election for the Presidency, and the voter eligibility rules were extremely limited. Whereas the Declaration of Independence was based on popular sovereignty, the Constitution was written to defend property from popular sovereignty. Outstanding book deals with this: [view link] So our history is simply one of trying to realize the principles articulated in the Constitution, given that the ways in which this was envisioned is completely out of date. So as it stands now we have the Russians claiming that they were in weekly contact with the Trump Campaign. We have this FBI head trying to sink the Clinton Campaign. So, what did the President Elect know, and when did he know it? This is exactly the same situation as with Watergate. The guy will not last. So rather than put out nation through that, lets solve the problem now. One of the remarkable aspects of this is how many Republicans turned against Trump before the election. Completely unprecedented. And so this probably will result in large scale realignment of both parties. So with Republican leaders, military leaders, and career diplomats speaking out against Trump, lets solve this problem right now. All it would take is the President, the Democrats, and a little over a third of the Republicans. Lets amend the constitution, to eliminate this Electoral College, and applying to this election, and do it within the next 48 hours. We can ask the current 8 justices of the Supreme Court to write the amendment. A larger number of voters selected Hillary Clinton. The governance and future of the most powerful nation on earth is not anything like a sporting match. The ramifications are far greater, and so everyone has to be responsible for the consequences of their actions. SJG
• DoctorPhil

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  8 years ago

  @Clubber. i’m afraid you’re missing the whole point of his thread. zipperhead doesn’t want to do away with just the electoral college. he wants to turn the congress into a european parliament and he wants to do away with the entire constitution and establish the fourth reich. don’t you zipperhead? now i ask you who else could be so stupid to want to do away with the constitution?
• ime

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  8 years ago

  Sjg is now on the bargaining stage, ha fuck you lloyd
• ime

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  8 years ago

  Lloyd pack your shit and go to Tijuana, where you will surely end up robbed, beaten and stranded in the gutter.
• Clubber

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  8 years ago

  Doc, You have to remember, many, very many, are on my ignore.
• 4got2wipe

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  8 years ago

  I'm going to change my statement about not adding to this thread, in part because rickdugan is actually engaging in a discussion without complaining that I'm trolling him. Maybe I'm wrong about the guy. Who knows. This thread had a narrow and kind of geeky focus. I was just making the point that the country could change the electoral college without a constitutional amendment. More accurately, it could retain the electoral system but adjust how those votes were cast to match the popular vote. rickdugan and JimGassigan, I wonder how much of your response depends on the fact that this election outcome matched your desires and your favored party (which I'm presuming to be Republican based on implications) is favored by the college. I'll say two things about that. First, before I read the Nate Silver piece I thought the electoral college favored Republicans. Silver convinced me that wasn't true. Twice the election has split and favored Republicans. Might not happen that way time the third time. Silver's analysis suggest it could be fairly random if the popular vote is close and elections are likely to be close for a while. Second, why is appealing to diverse groups nationwide more important than appealing to diverse groups within cities, where most of the population lives? My argument is that candidates should appeal to everybody, as much as possible. Right now winning big in the Midwest and Southeast can clearly give you a win without winning the most votes. There may be other combinations that favor Democrats. Silver's analysis suggest that is the case. So my point is not this election, which is done and won by Trump. It's that me may be in for more of these splits and the favored party will be arbitrary. Is that a good idea? Clubber, the point was that the states could change the outcome of the electoral college in a perfectly constitutional manner. One route to changing to a popular vote is an amendment. The other is this compact. This compact is (based on my understanding) constitutional and it is actually based on states rights. If enough state legislaturess decide to do it they should have the right to do it. Right now this is favored by Democratic states. My reading of Silver's analysis is that it would be good for solidly Republican states too. The only states it isn't good for is swing states. Not sure what the ignore statement is about. dallas702, about half the states do compel electors to vote the way their legislature tells them. Or they face a penalty. The penalty is modest in Washington but I don't know elsewhere. This is an academic thread so I don't have the extra energy to check (the Washington penalty was in the news). Maybe those laws are unconstitutional, I don't know if they have been tested in the courts. But they exist. Regardless, this is not an objection to this system or any other system of allocating electoral votes. In practice, electors typically vote they way the "should" based on the current system. Why would electors en masse change their behavior if the system changed? Regardless, a faithless elector that flipped an election would be the least popular person in America for (minimally) half of the voting population. That strikes me as pressure to make the system work.
• 4got2wipe

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  8 years ago

  One more comment to ime, using real names is d-baggy. You seem like a basically nice guy. I know you don't like a certain poster, who I also consider a nice guy. Do with that what you will, but ask yourself what you'd like to see happen if the shoe was on the other foot!
• Clubber

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  8 years ago

  4got, Yes, I know how it can be changed. Just pointing out there is a way to do it, but many seem they would rather bitch about the way it is than put any real effort into correcting what they see as a "wrong". Some are just bitchers!