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No one is saying that campaigns and voting behavior wouldn't change. Just that the electoral college is a ridiculous system in the first place and should be got

No one is saying that campaigns and voting behavior wouldn't change. Just that the electoral college is a ridiculous system in the first place and should be gotten rid of.

mi100hael 10y ago
I feel like I'm in the minority these days, but I personally think the Electoral College is a clever system that should remain. As large, coastal cities like NYC & LA continue to grow, they risk becoming entirely self-serving at the expense of the rest of the US. Voters in fly-over states often deal with agricultural and manufacturing issues that aren't even on the radar for voters in urban centers, so it's important to ensure the voice of middle-America isn't totally drowned out.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  Wouldn't that be better served by reducing federal government's in favor of more local systems (like states, or even cities)?
  - mi100hael 10y ago
    Some argue that was the original intent of the Founding Fathers by including the 10th amendment. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. To what extent the Federal government has or has not encroached upon States' rights has become a partisan issue in its own right, these days.
- alwaysdoit 10y ago
  Getting rid of the electoral college for the Presidential election would not affect representation in the House and Senate.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The larger the effect of disenfranchisement via the electoral college is (and therefore, the less effective democratic participation is I resolving the concerns of the people it underrepresents), the greater the likelihood that it causes a crisis which gets resolved by means other than peaceful democratic participation.
erichocean 10y ago
> Just that the electoral college is a ridiculous system in the first place and should be gotten rid of. Chesterton's fence strikes again.[0] The electoral college addresses a real issue, and "the electoral college is a ridiculous system" is not an argument for removing/replacing it. If you want to see the electoral college replaced or reformed, you need to at least demonstrate that you understand why it exists in the first place. Hint: it's not because they weren't aware of the simpler "winner takes all" approach with the popular vote. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > The electoral college addresses a real issue The real issue it (along with the 3/5 compromise, the structure of the Senate, and the limited term explicit protection of the slave trade in the original Constitution) addressed is that, in the early US, slavery wasn't all that popular in the states that were more urbanized and had economies and value systems that supported growth in the enfranchised population, so the system had to be skewed to protect the masters in the disenfranchising states for theme to feel secure in their "peculiar institution", even if that meant sacrificing the ideal of equality even among the enfranchised citizenry.
  - erichocean 10y ago
    The electoral college had literally nothing to do with slavery, and everything to do with balancing population-based governance and state-based governance (i.e. the reason we have both a House and Senate). The 3/5 compromise was used to calculate the population-based component of governance, and at any rate, is no longer used so completely irrelevant today. I gave more details is this response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969671
- AngrySkillzz 10y ago
  Nice low-effort comment punk. The electoral college was created as a part of the three fifths compromise. In order to get southern states on board, the framers needed to find a clever way to count slaves as population without letting them vote. Three-fifths plus the electoral college let them do that. It's an ugly hack that should be patched. And don't give me any of that "republic" crap. As if anyone has any idea who their electors are, or cares. No voter honestly thinks they are selecting an elector qualified to relay popular opinion to the government. They're voting for the president. The EC was imagined in an era where people thought the government would be more a federation of states than a central government. That is not what we have today. The system does not make sense in the current context. Maybe you'll play the "regional interests" card. Sure. Is it any more fair that a minority candidate can be elected by the less populous states, rather than having a majority candidate elected by the more populous states? No. It's a facile argument that falls apart with any examination. Given the poor modern justification for the EC, and all of the negative externalities it causes (election of less popular candidates, voter suppression and apathy in partisan states, etc.), it deserves to be abolished.

No one is saying that campaigns and voting behavior wouldn't change. Just that the electoral college is a ridiculous system in the first place and should be gotten rid of.

mi100hael 10y ago

I feel like I'm in the minority these days, but I personally think the Electoral College is a clever system that should remain. As large, coastal cities like NYC & LA continue to grow, they risk becoming entirely self-serving at the expense of the rest of the US. Voters in fly-over states often deal with agricultural and manufacturing issues that aren't even on the radar for voters in urban centers, so it's important to ensure the voice of middle-America isn't totally drowned out.

Klathmon 10y ago
Wouldn't that be better served by reducing federal government's in favor of more local systems (like states, or even cities)?
- mi100hael 10y ago
  Some argue that was the original intent of the Founding Fathers by including the 10th amendment. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. To what extent the Federal government has or has not encroached upon States' rights has become a partisan issue in its own right, these days.
alwaysdoit 10y ago
Getting rid of the electoral college for the Presidential election would not affect representation in the House and Senate.
dragonwriter 10y ago
The larger the effect of disenfranchisement via the electoral college is (and therefore, the less effective democratic participation is I resolving the concerns of the people it underrepresents), the greater the likelihood that it causes a crisis which gets resolved by means other than peaceful democratic participation.

erichocean 10y ago

> Just that the electoral college is a ridiculous system in the first place and should be gotten rid of. Chesterton's fence strikes again.[0] The electoral college addresses a real issue, and "the electoral college is a ridiculous system" is not an argument for removing/replacing it. If you want to see the electoral college replaced or reformed, you need to at least demonstrate that you understand why it exists in the first place. Hint: it's not because they weren't aware of the simpler "winner takes all" approach with the popular vote. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

dragonwriter 10y ago
> The electoral college addresses a real issue The real issue it (along with the 3/5 compromise, the structure of the Senate, and the limited term explicit protection of the slave trade in the original Constitution) addressed is that, in the early US, slavery wasn't all that popular in the states that were more urbanized and had economies and value systems that supported growth in the enfranchised population, so the system had to be skewed to protect the masters in the disenfranchising states for theme to feel secure in their "peculiar institution", even if that meant sacrificing the ideal of equality even among the enfranchised citizenry.
- erichocean 10y ago
  The electoral college had literally nothing to do with slavery, and everything to do with balancing population-based governance and state-based governance (i.e. the reason we have both a House and Senate). The 3/5 compromise was used to calculate the population-based component of governance, and at any rate, is no longer used so completely irrelevant today. I gave more details is this response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969671
AngrySkillzz 10y ago
Nice low-effort comment punk. The electoral college was created as a part of the three fifths compromise. In order to get southern states on board, the framers needed to find a clever way to count slaves as population without letting them vote. Three-fifths plus the electoral college let them do that. It's an ugly hack that should be patched. And don't give me any of that "republic" crap. As if anyone has any idea who their electors are, or cares. No voter honestly thinks they are selecting an elector qualified to relay popular opinion to the government. They're voting for the president. The EC was imagined in an era where people thought the government would be more a federation of states than a central government. That is not what we have today. The system does not make sense in the current context. Maybe you'll play the "regional interests" card. Sure. Is it any more fair that a minority candidate can be elected by the less populous states, rather than having a majority candidate elected by the more populous states? No. It's a facile argument that falls apart with any examination. Given the poor modern justification for the EC, and all of the negative externalities it causes (election of less popular candidates, voter suppression and apathy in partisan states, etc.), it deserves to be abolished.