The Electoral College gives advantage to less populous areas. It is also the legacy of 3/5ths.
Senator Birch Baye from Indiana tried to amend the constitution and eliminate it. Over 2.8 million more persons voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, than voted for Donald Trump.
The high degree of polarization in our electorate today much to do with the rise of the Born Again Christian Movement, and what is called Christian Nationalism.
25 idk how to help you, I find if a link on here doesn’t work, if I open the post and then open the link from within the post but in a new window it will work.
Well, my understanding is that while some states do have more votes than others, the weight of votes still doesn’t reflect how the population is distributed.
IDK the specifics of the electoral-college in order to opine as to whether it's fair or not - seems there's only been a hoopla about it in recent times - I always assumed if it was flawed/that-flawed it would have been changed a long time ago since it's been around a long-time
SJG — no, I do not want sc’s to be more regulated.
SJG — so, does a state contribute all of its electoral votes as a number, or, does it contribute one single vote that is either for candidate A or B— that’s what I interpret your comment to mean, the latter...??
@PSD this I believe answers the question you asked
48 of the fifty states are winner take all and Washington D.C. meaning who ever gets 51% of the popular vote in that state gets all of the allocated electoral college votes in that state.
Only Nebraska and Maine apportion the electoral votes by actual voting percentages
In most states it is still winner take all. So all of that states votes go to the candidate who got the most popular vote in that state.
A few states now have a vote splitting system.
Now some states have passed a new law which says that its electoral votes all go to the candidate with the highest nation wide popular vote count.
But I do not think red states are signing this, and that still leaves voters in Wyoming with close to 3x the power in their votes as a voter in California.
Most of the Red State drive comes from Richard Nixon's 1968 Southern Strategy, to use racism and have the Republican Party take over, and then now from the rise of the Born Again Christian Movement, and the efforts of Republican activist Paul Weyrich
@PSD this I believe answers the question you asked
48 of the fifty states are winner take all and Washington D.C. meaning who ever gets 51% of the popular vote in that state gets all of the allocated electoral college votes in that state.
Only Nebraska and Maine apportion the electoral votes by actual voting percentages
So its actually easy to see how the winner can lose the popular vote in a landslide yet win the electoral college voting, It's actually a statistical anomaly, that this hasn't happened more often than it actually does, the latest election is actually a perfect example
Of course Idaho and Nevada may very well be the next Colorado and Arizona as the demographic shifts towards a more brown America continues and more young people flee the unaffordable coasts for cheaper metros.
Actually @dougster you are very wrong, according to Fox news which I used to check these numbers the popular vote was recorded this way
Trump actually got 62,984,828 (46.1%) votes to Hillary's 65,853,514 (48.2%)
fact
TX and FL are considered purple-states now and wouldn't surprise me if they turned blue in the not too distant future (in part due to their very-large Latino populations which are getting even bigger and lean Democratic often heavily Democratic)
No @ dougster you are very much here, and so wrong as always, I wrapped my head around facts a long time ago, there is not a single state where Donald Trump won by million or more votes not a single one
I think the electoral college is brilliant. It’s the foundation of this government which I think is the oldest government in first world countries currently operating on the planet. Don’t hate the system, hate the playa. You mad about Trump, put up someone besides old ass Bernie amd crooked Hilary. Has nothing to do with electoral collage.
try writing in american english and while your at it write a review dougie boy, might be good practice for you, maybe some one not fluent in moron, might understand what you're trying to say, Comprende moron .
IMO the electoral college is flawed because of the all or nothing that the 48 states use. I think it should be either the total of the state is split by the percent of the popular vote each candidate receives or on the basis of who wins each respective house district gets that vote and 2 votes associated with senate seats go to who wins the popular vote for the state. This would end the greatest grievance with the system because people see that there vote doesn't really matter especially in large partisan states like California and New York. Why would a Republican care about voting in those states, even if they live in a conservative district, when they are outnumbered in the balance of the state by probably a 2 or more to 1 ratio. Likewise, why would a Democrat living in an urban, liberal area of a conservative state want to vote for the same reason. By assigning the electoral college votes to correspond to how the local populace actually voted would shift the vote to be closer to what is actually cast.
I think the all or nothing system is just lazy and the states do not want to change because it would break up the hold the respective parties have on their entire states. Would splitting the vote have changed the outcome of the last election, it probably would have as the Democrats would have received some of the Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, and Wisconsin votes, thus giving them the election.
By assigning the electoral college votes to correspond to how the local populace actually voted would shift the vote to be closer to what is actually cast
—-
^^Not even close @Pistola I explained it correctly above I'll post it here for you check it if you like
@PSD this I believe answers the question you asked
48 of the fifty states are winner take all and Washington D.C. meaning who ever gets 51% of the popular vote in that state gets all of the allocated electoral college votes in that state.
Only Nebraska and Maine apportion the electoral votes by actual voting percentages
So its actually easy to see how the winner can lose the popular vote in a landslide yet win the electoral college voting, It's actually a statistical anomaly, that this hasn't happened more often than it actually does, the latest election is actually a perfect example
A state's number of electors equals the number of representatives plus two electors for both senators the state has in the United States Congress. The number of representatives is based on the respective populations, determined every 10 years by the United States Census. Each representative represents on average 711,000 persons.
So, the number of electoral votes generally reflects the State’s population
The depth of ignorance about the Constitution, the electoral college and the type of governing system we have is astounding. I will exclude twenty-five who does get it as indicated by his Maine/Nebraska comment. Thomas Jefferson designed the electoral college specifically because we are not a Democracy in the truest sense. We are a Constitutional Republic. It was never intended at any time that overall population in the country would determine the vote. Each state was and is a unique entity and in order to get the small states to sign on to the Constitution the electoral college was created. Had it not been created, there would be no America. The smaller rural states were suspicious of the larger industrial states and neither trusted them, nor wanted to be controlled by them. It has nothing to do with the 3/5's rule which was also a compromise, but would have existed whether or not the electoral college existed. Southern States wanted each slave to count for person when voting. The compromise is that they would count 3/5's and yes that was the count for purposes of the House seats. Same would have been true if the system were different as well. In fact, the electoral college bogeyman has come into play no more than 4 times in history. Losers always want to change the rules and the rule change the left wants is the same reason they encourage and pay illegals and foreigners to come here and leech off the taxpayer. America's wealth has been trending down since 1990, which is the same starting point for the addition of over 45 million foreigners to this country. Poorer people rely on Government to make up for their failures by stealing, oh I mean redistributing income from those who work, earn and contribute, to those who do none of the above. If Americans really hate the system propose a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college. call a constitutional convention to abolish the Electoral college, or do what left wingers do best: lie, cheat, whine, bitch and breed criminals. Direct elections where the dirty elites on the coast and their foreign supporters without amending the Constitution is possible, as long as you don't mind a civil war. As we all know I live on the coast so I w ould personally benefit from the dirty progressives lying and cheating, but America first.
ski posted: "The depth of ignorance about the Constitution, the electoral college and the type of governing system we have is astounding. I will exclude twenty-five who does get it as indicated by his Maine/Nebraska comment. Thomas Jefferson designed the electoral college specifically because we are not a Democracy in the truest sense. We are a Constitutional Republic. It was never intended at any time that overall population in the country would determine the vote. Each state was and is a unique entity and in order to get the small states to sign on to the Constitution the electoral college was created. Had it not been created, there would be no America. The smaller rural states were suspicious of the larger industrial states and neither trusted them, nor wanted to be controlled by them."
^This 100% and it is as valid today as it ever was. When one looks at how few states and, even more telling, how few counties Hillary actually won, it is actually a bit scary. The electoral college was a compromise to ensure that every state had a voice in who governed the country and state rights and autonomy still matter. In the absence of a system like this, we would start to look like the Hunger Games, with a few capital cities filled with welfare recipients and vapid urbanites dictating policies for the entire country, while all of the less populated states would serve as little more than their supply districts.
Fortunately, there is no way in hell that any of the less populated states, or their elected representatives to Congress, are ever going to approve a Constitutional amendment to revise this system, so all this teeth gnashing by the aforementioned vapid urbanites is rather pointless.
But this won't stop sore losers from whining I suppose. Next time, if the Dems want to win, they will need to field a candidate who appeals to people other than the urbanites and welfare recipients. In order to piece together the coalition that elected him, Trump has to appeal to farmers, steel workers, union auto workers, educated men and women in purple states and a wide variety of other groups.
It also shows that we're stupid enough to spend billions to build and rebuild infrastructure in areas that are routinely (or will be) wiped out by natural disasters or climate change.
The Electoral College was *deliberately* designed so that more populous states wouldn’t be able to automatically outvote less populous ones. It’s the same reason the U.S. Senate isn’t based on population.
The Founders understood that mob rule is a possible endgame of pure democracy, so those measures, along with others, were put in place to help prevent.
Something our current politicians, with few exceptions, have (deliberately) forgotten.
This is all rather simple to understand. States are basically free to whatever they wish, as long as they stay within the limits of our Constitution. Said Constitution and it's electoral college is there to prevent major population centers (read states) dictate to the entire their choices. That's why we have, as examples ny and ca versus TX and FL.
Sadly, as Papi mentioned above, the influx of illegals and dastardly deeds are on the way to ruining TX and FL as they have ca and ny.
The funny thing is even California citizens are getting fed up..........I've been watching the movement to split it into two or three states now ( internal to the state population) and with the exception of LA and the surrounding areas and San Francisco and the surrounding areas people are tired of the bullshit.
It will be interesting to see how this gets "handled" in the next year or so but basically it will end the cries of gerrymandering and all the other nonsense the far left makes.....live in LA or SF or not but if you do understand what the laws of this country are and follow them.
^ California will never split simply because the House and Senate won't let it. Looking at the way the state can be split, all you will end up with are more liberal Senators and the same number of liberal Representatives. Unfortunately for California, you can no split the state effectively and break up the predominately liberal bases, thus offering the conservative sections the opportunity to elect Republicans, so the conservatives are not going to agree to the split and essentially give the liberals more Senate seats.
Before a state can fragment, the House and Senate have to approve the action, so regardless of what the citizens of California want, unless they can come up with a plan that Washington DC will agree to, they won't be splitting into smaller states. Just like the federal government has to agree to adding new states, they have to agree to a state splitting/fragmenting and that hasn't happened since the Civil War and Virginia/West Virginia.
@ Warrenboy the cries of gerrymandering could be shut down by simple geography, now one needs to slice up the districts like they’re picking the two largest slices of pizza and leaving isolated pockets in between with no pepperoni, gerrymandering is the most undeniable example of mob rule ever devised.
@twentyfive --I agree I just find it interesting how when something doesn't go the way expected the cry is always the other side is being unfair.
Hell the constitution and the electoral college have only been around since what 1789? :--). I found it refreshing that others on here actually know why the electoral college was used and the thought process behind it. Same with the idea of Gerrymandering as if the Republican party is the inventor.....skibum hit it on the head. The only reason I know is that around where I live that same cry has been used for years as to why the Republicans hold on to the State House seats. So they changed the areas.....didn't make much difference. To me the biggest crybaby was Al Gore....in your state. Hanging chads, not counting the votes except for the way he wanted them to be counting, which included not counting any of the overseas service personal at the time ( something always left out when reported since it would show what an ass he was) but something of record if people dig a little.
It's about that time I started to shift over from being a blue voter to an Independent who admittedly has voted more red in the past ten years.
As for the California issue I still find the process fascinating. We tend to equate California as the home of the liberal nut job but even out there when you look at what is happening there really are two distinct political camps and thought processes. We only hear about the one......wonder why that is?
None of my statements on this thread were intentionally biased either right or left, but as a fellow Blue Dog it seems the extreme right has a decidedly undemocratic bias, not saying the left wing is any better, but it would be smart to remember that this country as a whole over the long term, generally returns to the center, usually slightly right or left, but if the center doesn’t hold the country will eventually fall apart.
@WarrenBoy- All the statistical evidence showed that Democrats needed to win the House popular vote by 6 points just to break even. Democrats ending up winning the House popular vote by almost 9 points. Do you really need more evidence that gerrymandering favors the GOP at this point in time? Yes the Democrats are capable of cheating too. Big fucking deal -- that's not what happened in the midterms.
The goal was a compromise between direct elections and a parliamentary system. There was never a need for it in the first place. It should just be by popular vote
@FruitCup wrote: "That, by itself is not proof that gerrymandering exists, though it would be a result if it does.
Correlation vs. Causation "
________________
Huh? Whatever the fuck that means? The nice thing about an unmoderated board is the freedom to spew outright conspiracy theories (e.g., @SkiBum and birtherism), @WarrenBoy can state that "gerrymandering is nonsense" (without any evidence whatsoever), and I can insert relevant facts about how the Democrats needed to win the House popular vote in 2018 by unprecedented margins to compensate for gerrymandering.
Sorry for inserting logic and relevant facts, fruitcup.
where did I say it was nonsense.........? my point is that for at least at the state level where it pertains to me directly all the cries of foul about gerrymandering didn't amount to a warm pitcher of spit..........
The intent of my comments were two other points entirely---one which Skibum stated before I did.
The Electoral College goes back to the 1787 Constitution where there was zero direct election of the President, it was all done by State Legislatures. Little by little there have been amendments and things have changed.
Today we have reached a time when the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness.
Wyoming: population 579,315 (2017 est.) electoral votes 3
California population 39,536,653 (2017 est.) electoral votes 55
Get a calculator and do the long division. It is not fair at all. For a California vote to count like a Wyoming vote we would have to have about 80 electoral votes.
Now yes, there will be some change with the 2020 census ( Trump is trying to fuck with that ), but it is still an unfair and outdated arrangement.
Hatch, Corker, and Flake were all republicans that chose not to run for reelection to the senate.
Of the three Flake was the only one who expected a close race.
34 Republicans chose not to run for the House ( not sure where I heard this number and I didn't follow the House as close as the Senate.) Part of the reason some of us are pushing back on the whole" the Democrats won in a landslide spill" is to some extent it appears the elephants abdicated their positions.
74 comments
Senator Birch Baye from Indiana tried to amend the constitution and eliminate it. Over 2.8 million more persons voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, than voted for Donald Trump.
The high degree of polarization in our electorate today much to do with the rise of the Born Again Christian Movement, and what is called Christian Nationalism.
https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Coming-Ri…
Pink, do you want more regulations at the strip clubs in Washington?
SJG
WANT ADS by Honey Cone (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c58XCtIj…
So the state with the lowest population is Wyoming, it has one House seat and two Senate seats. So they get 3 electoral votes.
The most populous state is California, with 53 House seats and 2 senate seats, for 55 electoral votes.
So it works out that a vote in Wyoming counts in the electoral college for close to 3x what a vote in California counts.
Look at the states with the smallest populations and the smallest number of US House seats.
Do you want more regulations in Washington strip clubs?
Pink, I am glad you are hear, to listen to some of these guys it would sound like strippers are all Republicans and Donald Trump supporters.
SJG
SJG — so, does a state contribute all of its electoral votes as a number, or, does it contribute one single vote that is either for candidate A or B— that’s what I interpret your comment to mean, the latter...??
We also have gerrymandering (cheating) which vastly favors the GOP in the House races. Dems won anyway.
48 of the fifty states are winner take all and Washington D.C. meaning who ever gets 51% of the popular vote in that state gets all of the allocated electoral college votes in that state.
Only Nebraska and Maine apportion the electoral votes by actual voting percentages
A few states now have a vote splitting system.
Now some states have passed a new law which says that its electoral votes all go to the candidate with the highest nation wide popular vote count.
But I do not think red states are signing this, and that still leaves voters in Wyoming with close to 3x the power in their votes as a voter in California.
Birch Bahy of Indiana trying to change it, 1977
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_Bayh…
And continuing from Bahy's efforts:
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/
Most of the Red State drive comes from Richard Nixon's 1968 Southern Strategy, to use racism and have the Republican Party take over, and then now from the rise of the Born Again Christian Movement, and the efforts of Republican activist Paul Weyrich
And then, Dog Whistle Politics:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019022…
How this works, and Lee Atwater explaining how to covertly communicate the N word:
https://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/14/d…
You can see the thread saying dancers want more regulations, in Washington.
SJG
48 of the fifty states are winner take all and Washington D.C. meaning who ever gets 51% of the popular vote in that state gets all of the allocated electoral college votes in that state.
Only Nebraska and Maine apportion the electoral votes by actual voting percentages
So its actually easy to see how the winner can lose the popular vote in a landslide yet win the electoral college voting, It's actually a statistical anomaly, that this hasn't happened more often than it actually does, the latest election is actually a perfect example
Wyoming, less population than needed for one US House seat, but gets it anyway. So 3 votes.
California, population for 53 seats, gets 55 votes.
SJG
Trump actually got 62,984,828 (46.1%) votes to Hillary's 65,853,514 (48.2%)
fact
—
Nah, that’s called the heart of America.
The Electoral College is the legacy of 3/5th's.
SJG
I think the all or nothing system is just lazy and the states do not want to change because it would break up the hold the respective parties have on their entire states. Would splitting the vote have changed the outcome of the last election, it probably would have as the Democrats would have received some of the Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, and Wisconsin votes, thus giving them the election.
—-
Thats actually how it works moron.
@PSD this I believe answers the question you asked
48 of the fifty states are winner take all and Washington D.C. meaning who ever gets 51% of the popular vote in that state gets all of the allocated electoral college votes in that state.
Only Nebraska and Maine apportion the electoral votes by actual voting percentages
So its actually easy to see how the winner can lose the popular vote in a landslide yet win the electoral college voting, It's actually a statistical anomaly, that this hasn't happened more often than it actually does, the latest election is actually a perfect example
Remember this is "The United States of America", not "America Divided into States"
So, the number of electoral votes generally reflects the State’s population
^This 100% and it is as valid today as it ever was. When one looks at how few states and, even more telling, how few counties Hillary actually won, it is actually a bit scary. The electoral college was a compromise to ensure that every state had a voice in who governed the country and state rights and autonomy still matter. In the absence of a system like this, we would start to look like the Hunger Games, with a few capital cities filled with welfare recipients and vapid urbanites dictating policies for the entire country, while all of the less populated states would serve as little more than their supply districts.
Fortunately, there is no way in hell that any of the less populated states, or their elected representatives to Congress, are ever going to approve a Constitutional amendment to revise this system, so all this teeth gnashing by the aforementioned vapid urbanites is rather pointless.
But this won't stop sore losers from whining I suppose. Next time, if the Dems want to win, they will need to field a candidate who appeals to people other than the urbanites and welfare recipients. In order to piece together the coalition that elected him, Trump has to appeal to farmers, steel workers, union auto workers, educated men and women in purple states and a wide variety of other groups.
The Founders understood that mob rule is a possible endgame of pure democracy, so those measures, along with others, were put in place to help prevent.
Something our current politicians, with few exceptions, have (deliberately) forgotten.
Sadly, as Papi mentioned above, the influx of illegals and dastardly deeds are on the way to ruining TX and FL as they have ca and ny.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-…
It will be interesting to see how this gets "handled" in the next year or so but basically it will end the cries of gerrymandering and all the other nonsense the far left makes.....live in LA or SF or not but if you do understand what the laws of this country are and follow them.
Before a state can fragment, the House and Senate have to approve the action, so regardless of what the citizens of California want, unless they can come up with a plan that Washington DC will agree to, they won't be splitting into smaller states. Just like the federal government has to agree to adding new states, they have to agree to a state splitting/fragmenting and that hasn't happened since the Civil War and Virginia/West Virginia.
Hell the constitution and the electoral college have only been around since what 1789? :--). I found it refreshing that others on here actually know why the electoral college was used and the thought process behind it. Same with the idea of Gerrymandering as if the Republican party is the inventor.....skibum hit it on the head. The only reason I know is that around where I live that same cry has been used for years as to why the Republicans hold on to the State House seats. So they changed the areas.....didn't make much difference. To me the biggest crybaby was Al Gore....in your state. Hanging chads, not counting the votes except for the way he wanted them to be counting, which included not counting any of the overseas service personal at the time ( something always left out when reported since it would show what an ass he was) but something of record if people dig a little.
It's about that time I started to shift over from being a blue voter to an Independent who admittedly has voted more red in the past ten years.
As for the California issue I still find the process fascinating. We tend to equate California as the home of the liberal nut job but even out there when you look at what is happening there really are two distinct political camps and thought processes. We only hear about the one......wonder why that is?
Correlation vs. Causation
This thread is turning into yet another platform for the pseudo-intellectuals to try to impress themselves.
Fruitcup
@FruitCup wrote: "That, by itself is not proof that gerrymandering exists, though it would be a result if it does.
Correlation vs. Causation "
________________
Huh? Whatever the fuck that means? The nice thing about an unmoderated board is the freedom to spew outright conspiracy theories (e.g., @SkiBum and birtherism), @WarrenBoy can state that "gerrymandering is nonsense" (without any evidence whatsoever), and I can insert relevant facts about how the Democrats needed to win the House popular vote in 2018 by unprecedented margins to compensate for gerrymandering.
Sorry for inserting logic and relevant facts, fruitcup.
The intent of my comments were two other points entirely---one which Skibum stated before I did.
"... it will end the cries of gerrymandering and all the other nonsense the far left makes."
Today we have reached a time when the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness.
Wyoming: population 579,315 (2017 est.) electoral votes 3
California population 39,536,653 (2017 est.) electoral votes 55
Get a calculator and do the long division. It is not fair at all. For a California vote to count like a Wyoming vote we would have to have about 80 electoral votes.
Now yes, there will be some change with the 2020 census ( Trump is trying to fuck with that ), but it is still an unfair and outdated arrangement.
SJG
As for fucking with a census as I recall the 2010 had some interesting twist and turns as well.
SJG
Those two changes alone would cause a huge crisis in the GOP and thus are unlikely to be fixed.
SJG
So they had 52 when Trump took office, then they lost one to Doug Jones :) :) :).
So most all incumbent Senators do get re-elected. And the Democrats gained one of the AZ seats? Or no, now they are saying no.
So were some incumbent Democrats defeated? Which ones? Or did they just decide to retire.
SJG
Of the three Flake was the only one who expected a close race.
34 Republicans chose not to run for the House ( not sure where I heard this number and I didn't follow the House as close as the Senate.) Part of the reason some of us are pushing back on the whole" the Democrats won in a landslide spill" is to some extent it appears the elephants abdicated their positions.
SJG
Nicki Minaj
https://nrg.radio/hiphop/wp-content/uplo…