It is time for the Electoral College to go away. If not by constitutional amendment, then through the National Popular Vote Compact.
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23 Comments
1) This is the second horrible President this century we got because of the Electoral college. Had the college done as designed by the original intent, they would never have elected a scam artist yesterday.
2) 52% of Republicans (remember the rural ignorant) think Trump had the popular vote.
I would love to see the imbalanced system that un-democratically gives vastly more power to voters in smaller states and ensures that the campaigns focus their attention on a few key swing states and the issues that matter to them. However, the only way to do that is constitutional amendment, which is another vehicle that gives vastly more power to smaller states because it would have to be ratified by 3/4 of states. So the electoral college is here to stay, unfortunately.
What we need to do is:
1) Get rid of the electors and just have the election results determine the electoral votes as per the rules of each state. Human electors were put into the process for only one reason and they failed to do their job the one time in 225 years it was needed. They serve no purpose and should be eliminate.
2) National Popular Vote Compact is the best (only) option out there, so it should be done. Now is the time – rally around the contempt for what Trump is doing to our government and get the states to do something about it.
TJ – turns out that a constitutional amendment is not the only way to effectively repeal the CE. Individual states that are so inclined can pass legislation that neutralizes or minimizes its ability to negate the popular vote. It’s something called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
I referenced a podcast episode earlier on this blog site that explains it in some detail, along with other pro and con arguments around the CE. Here it is again if you care to hear it:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-takeaway-2016-11-18/
We shouldn’t still be slaves to an 18th Century institution born to appease slave states.
It’s time for the DNC & the DLC to finally look at the WHOLE picture. Try focusing on the whole nation and not just D.C.! That peculiar lack of vision is why the Democrats find themselves in the position they are in today.
Disposing of the Electoral College is the right thing to do, but is not the problem.
TJ – sorry, in my haste to post, didn’t mean to neglect or upstage your point #2 as the means to getting around the CE. You just called it something slightly different but I’m sure the idea is the same. Cheers!
So funny, nobody complained about the electoral college before the election and now everyone is raging about it? It’s ironically just like the superdelegate system where Clinton had 700 some delegates before the first primary vote was cast. That’s such a great system huh, ask the Bernie supporters about that.
Lastly, each candidate ran a race based on the electoral system and one did a better job at it. But if the race was based on popular vote who is to say that after running that different kind of race that It would have produced the same result?
Same science problem, if the rules in the present produce an outcome, changing the rules without changing the assumptions is science fallacy. If the rules change, so does the game and the players of that game will change how they play it.
The candidates basically run for President of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida under the current system. Wouldn’t it be better if they had show all the voters from the entire country why they would be best for the job rather than a small subsection of it? Yes, the results of this may not be exactly as expected, but it will have been the voice of the people and one-voice-one-vote and all that.
Is it so wrong that people’s eyes have opened to see a terrible system for what it is because of the results of the election?
Finally – one did a better job at not having James Comey illegally write a letter to publicize an investigation that hadn’t even started yet and would ultimately turn up nothing. That act altered the results of a national election, which government officials are expressly forbidden to do by law, whether it be on purpose or not.
Two EC failures in 16 years means the problem is urgent; twice in the same direction means the problem has been gamed. Therefore even more urgent, but more difficult to resolve.
The electoral system was put into place to ensure that a few states don’t determine the outcome of an election and that the voice of all the states is heard. They aredivided by the # of congress persons and senators each state has, is the same representative numbers as in congress.
And ironically, Bernie’s campaign staff offered their expertise and help to Clintons campaign on the shortcomings of their strategy in the “swing” states, which they dismissed and disregarded.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/20/team-bernie-hillary-fucking-ignored-us-in-swing-states.html
Or
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/20/they-mocked-us-they-made-fun-of-us-bernie-sanders-surrogates-recall-meeting-with-smug-hillary-clinton-staffers/
So perhaps it was the arrogance of the Clinton campaign that lead to he demise more then the electoral college.
Somehow no one is remembering the electoral college in 2000 when Katherine Harris decided the election with her “hanging chads’ in Florida.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Harris
Electoral college didn’t stand their ground then, knowing the whole mess in Florida was bad. And now all the Syrians want in this country from the formation of Isis in Iraq because of our invasion of a Sovereign country before the securing the borders and for no reason. throwing all the Sunnis out of power where they turned to Isis.
And now we have a man who lies 71% of the time saying he “didn’t know that restoring the infrastructure and creating jobs” was not a Republican thing. Not even in Office before he starts his whoppers. Politifact is chomping at the bit to start rating his “promises” http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_INFRASTRUCTURE_LOBBYING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-12-20-15-24-37
Obama fulfilled 45% of his promises and compromised on 27% more. He broke 25% of his promises. Let’s see PINO (President in name only) beat that.
I would only add that, “Obama failed to in any way fulfilled 25% of his promises,” is more accurate than, “Obama broke…”
It wasn’t for lack of trying and certainly not intentional, but because many Republicans in both houses found it more important to let the country fail than to allow Obama to succeed on behalf of us all.
AND YET, Donald Trump was elected by the only system we have.
PatriotSgt – Hillary Clinton ran an imperfect campaign and lost. So stipulated.
As another topic altogether: you said “The electoral system was put into place to ensure that a few states don’t determine the outcome of an election and that the voice of all the states is heard.” Isn’t it ironic that the exact opposite is what has happened? Presidential candidates spend the vast majority of their time and effort courting voters in 3 key states, plus maybe 5-10 others secondarily, and basically ignore the voice of all the other states. Times have changed and the system doesn’t work as intended. It’s time to reform the way the president is elected in this country.
America is republic, union of states. I am ok with popular votes to determine outcome of presidency, if small states are not forced to live by values of large states (New York or California). In fact even a large state like Texas will have to conform to California or New York. If federalism is strong with states having strong rights to determine their values, I am fine with popular vote to make president win.
TJ – it is ironic. That is in part to the fact that there are red states that blues don’t try to win and blue states that reds forget about. But, the maps do change. It wasn’t too long ago that California was red and Texas was blue. The same holds true for many of the “battleground” states. They switch between red and blue. All that I suppose is as it should be.
To the argument for a popular vote I am not opposed, but should it be a straight majority or should it be something like 50% plus 1vot for the actual majority and a runoff for all the candidates who got at least say 10%. I’d even be in favor of eliminating primaries or at least shortening them to 3 months. If we are going to change let’s change it all. I’d be in favor of doing away with political parties all together. All Americans no Dems, Rubs, India or Greens just Americans. They other thing I’d like to change is setting term limits to get career politicians out of D.C.
The perfect is the enemy of the good…
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is real and possible. Wholesale election reform and dismantling of private political parties whose members occupy almost all the seats of our government at every level is never going to happen. George Washington is on your side so you’re in good company, at least you have that.
Wow, what a graphic example of fear and doubt being fed to oppose getting rid of the Electoral College!
Originally, the purpose of the EC was to pick the president. There was no popular vote for president (nor for Senators). When that went away, the EC should have gone away too. That’s the problem.
For all the reasons stated, we must get rid of the EC, as soon as possible. End of story.
About 10.5M more US citizens voted for someone other than trump. Clearly he has no mandate. Lets hope he realizes that
http://cookpolitical.com/story/10174
Here is the last I’ll say on this subject. The rules of this election were plain for all. Trump won fair and square. If the rules had been a popular only, who knows who would win, maybe Trump again. Clinton beat Trump by 6 million votes in 2 states, but outside of NY and CA Trump won by 3 million. So the question of do the majority of Americans want the 2 largest states and sanctuary havens controlling our government? I am fairly sure the answer would be a resounding NO. I would recommend to the left that instead of trying to change the rules to overcome their candidates weakness, they should instead fire the coach and put a better team on the field.
Lastly, the chances of getting 38 states to get behind a constitutional change for the benefit of a losing strategy is a waste of time, effort and money. As I would tell my Soldiers it’s time to “suck it up and drive on”.
I think its ironical now that Trump won, it was a free and fair election. Prior to that it was rigged, And I accept that he’s the POTUS and hope he succeeds.
BTW instead of CA seceding why don’t some of its inhabitants (abut 150K should do it) move to WI, MI and PA and make sure the sane candidate 4 years from now, gets elected.
I think it’s ironic Jonah that the same people including Clinton who lost there minds when Trump said in the debate that he’d have to see before accepting the results are the ones doing exactly what they lambasted him for alluding to. That my friend is both irony and hypocrisy all in one.
And yes, invading the battleground states with Californians would work, if they can get used to the winter. 🙂
BTW here’s what the president elect tweeted in 2012….when he thought BO lost the pop vote https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/811584875786567680
Apparently he has deleted those tweets
Yep, you are right my friend, total hypocrisy.