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> because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too I'm from the midwest and I still don't understand this sentiment. Why should the power of

> because it lets people who don't live on the coasts have a say too I'm from the midwest and I still don't understand this sentiment. Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? That seems extremely anti-democratic to me. It's not that people who don't live on the coasts shouldn't have a say. It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election. We already have the senate. The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design. And state governments. People who don't live on the coasts have an enormous amount of say without getting an extremely disproportionate voice in the presidential election.

puranjay 10y ago
I don't know why people harp on the 2 million popular votes thing. If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. But the goal was 270 electoral votes, so that's what the candidates campaigned for. This is like a losing soccer team saying that they won more free kicks, so they should get to win, not the team that scored more goals
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. And I think that would've been a good thing. Do you disagree?
  - puranjay 10y ago
    Sure, but the rules of the game were set before the candidates started playing. You can't lose and then retroactively change the rules to give yourself the victory. If the rules are bad, change them the next time around.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      Which is exactly what's being proposed.
    - sgnelson 10y ago
      That's what people are talking about? Nobody is seriously saying, "let's change the rules now so Hillary wins!" Some people are calling for electors to not vote for Trump, but at least that's part of the original intent for the electoral college (and it's not likely to happen anyways). But lots of people are saying, "This system is obviously broken since the will of the majority was not enacted, let's fix it." So nice strawman, but I think I just burnt it down.
    - 13years 10y ago
      Even this justification for changing the rules next time around has little merit. In this case, it would be like the soccer team picking a really bad goalie, so they want to change the rules so goalies have less effect on game outcome. If the DNC were correct about their assumptions, they should have won by a landslide. This should not be about changing the rules, it should be reevaluation of our beliefs and course corrections.
  - ng12 10y ago
    I think this is one election where the Electoral College did it's job. One of the big issues Trump made this election was globalization. You know who benefits from globalization? People who live in metropolitan areas. Who pays the bill? People who live in small-town America. We are a federalist republic for this very reason -- to limit the ability of the majority to shoehorn the minority.
    - mch82 10y ago
      False, "blue states" largely pay the bill. For every dollar I get taxed in California, I get less than a dollar in Federal Government services. Florida gets over $4. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...
      - ng12 10y ago
        I meant a figurative bill, as in the socio-economic repercussions of globalizing manufacturing and low-skill service jobs. Why do you think low-income states need so much help? Because any industry they had closed down years ago.
    - sgnelson 10y ago
      Just no. The US economy relies on Urban areas. This is where the vast majority of wealth, innovation, and knowledge is created (at a much greater rate per capita, than rural areas). This is only increasing in part due to how knowledge is created/shared with agglomeration effects (in cities) and due to globalization (small factories could support small towns, with the loss of these factories, small towns die.) Small towns do not pay the bills. (Do you seriously think that small town America could afford to build and maintain the Eisenhower 4 lane highway that runs through the town? They can't.) There is practically zero evidence that "Small town America" isn't dying a painful death these days. You don't have to like it, I certainly don't. (I live in a state that was "Small town America.") But wake up, small town America is dying, and there is almost nothing that can be done to fix it. But trying to somehow "punish" Urban areas certainly doesn't make any sense. And finally, do you really believe that it's better that a minority has the ability to "showhorn" the majority? Why?
lintiness 10y ago
"if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election." what if she spent TWICE the money getting them?
- sxg 10y ago
  That's a separate issue. Not saying it's right or wrong, but at the end of the day, she had more votes.
  - logmeout 10y ago
    Legal votes? Not likely and also not likely she got the plural vote. Yes, even if 100% of the difference were legal (they aren't) it's not a majority, it's a plurality.
  - jedmeyers 10y ago
    She got more votes in a system where opponent did not optimize his process for more votes, therefore it is a meaningless metric.
  - dingaling 10y ago
    Indeed, but if it were based on raw votes then we'd probably not have had Mrs Clinton vs Mr Trump in 2016 because the timeline would have branched in 2000 based on the same metric. It's an interesting example of arguing against a cause that's only relevant because of the effect it caused previously.
- phailhaus 10y ago
  Why is the amount of money spent relevant? At the end of the day, more individuals felt that Clinton should be their president.
  - lintiness 10y ago
    uh, dunno ... maybe yield on dollars spent is indicative of, say, their ability to manage our tax dollars.
tallowen 10y ago
> The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design. Out of curiosity, how does this happen in practice? My understanding was that seats were divided up by population (giving equal voice to those in more densely populated areas).
- dangoor 10y ago
  I believe the problem is that the number of seats in Congress has not increased in 100 years despite a huge increase in population. This has caused a distortion by giving tiny states more representation than they should actually have based on their population relative to the bigger states.
- gweinberg 10y ago
  They're even with a rounding error, but every state must get at least one. The rounding error is pretty big for the smallest states.
- sgnelson 10y ago
  as someone else posted, about halfway down here is a good explanation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/17/the-electoral-college-badly-distorts-the-vote-and-its-going-to-get-worse/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/1... But I would even go further; as to the house specifically and not the election of the president, you have inner state politics affecting the house and the distracting process. ie. Gerrymandering. In my opinion, we are not seeing red states and blue states (or purple state), we have urban/suburban/rural interests all competing for resources. Keep in mind, now a days, we typically relate urban with democrats and suburban/rural with republicans, but this is not always the case, and sometimes a bit too simplistic. In a state like North Carolina for instance, the state legislature is run by the republican party, which has the power on how each US house seat is redistricted. I would argue that NC rural interests have much more power than NC urban interests at the state legislature level. This then also gets mirrored in the US Congressional redistricting, where the US Congressmen for cities like Charlotte are geographically divided to give Charlotte as little Congressional power as possible. (For instance, the Congressman for the NC 9th district was in fact essentially the Congressman for just South Charlotte and a few outlying suburbs, his seat has been spread out to a small part of South Charlotte and 3 or 4 very rural counties. This means that he can no longer solely lobby for South Charlotte's interests, but now has a "split" constituency (suburban vs. rural with different needs/wants. Think of it as a majority minority style district for rural areas). I would argue that this means that Charlotte's interests are in part superseded by small rural county interests, which once again, (unfairly?) gives more political power to lower density areas than larger density areas. (Keep in mind, the above is all my own opinions and arguments, in currently lacking in hard evidence (such as the NC legislature intentionally split the 9th district to deny power to Charlotte) and relies on a few assumptions. So take it with a grain of salt, though I stand by my analysis.) TL;DR; Even in states with a somewhat equal rural/urban divde, some states give more power to rural areas than urban areas by gerrymandering.
wslh 10y ago
> It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election. But everybody knows how the system works. It is late to discuss about its fairness.
13years 10y ago
>That seems extremely anti-democratic to me. Exactly, and it is supposed to be. We are a republic and not a democracy. The founders strongly opposed democracy. One of the reasons being that minorities would have no representation if your government is by majority rule only.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway729 10y ago
  The college no longer provides for any of the purposes that motivated its creation. If we judge the college based upon the criteria that motivated its creation, then we inevitably reach the conclusion that the college should be abolished.
  - 13years 10y ago
    There is no reason to abolish it, unless you prefer majority rule. However, if you want a true republic and protection against the problems of majority rule, then you might want to potentially change it, but not abolish it. https://fee.org/articles/the-accidental-genius-of-the-electoral-college/ https://fee.org/articles/the-accidental-genius-of-the-electo...
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      The senate and modern house play that role. As it stands, we have minority rule in nearly every branch of federal government.
      - 13years 10y ago
        The article I linked covered this topic.
        throwaway729 10y ago
        The FEE argument, if assumed to be self-consistent, works even better as an argument against a status quo that systematically favors a minority party over a (popular) majority party. If the goal is balancing power between political parties, then the presidency should certainly be a popular vote or else the house and senate should be substantially reformed.
xahrepap 10y ago
It is anti-democratic by design. Founding fathers didn't want a democratic election for presidents. I think a good example of what the electoral college is: you have a sports tournament. The winner isn't the person who gets the most points in all the games. It's the person who wins the most games.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  The original purpose of the electoral college was NOT to provide disproportionate voice to non-populous states. In fact, the states backing the college were some of the most populous as long as you count slaves. Also, the founding fathers weren't all supporters of the electoral college. Appealing to their ultimate compromise is a strange argument, especially since the original political motivations have largely become either irrelevant or reprehensible. > It's the person who wins the most games. That's the senate, and is not at all an accurate analogy for the way the electoral college works.
  - theli0nheart 10y ago
    > The original purpose of the electoral college was NOT to provide disproportionate voice to non-populous states. In fact, the states backing the college were some of the most populous as long as you count slaves. This begs for a source. Where is it stated exactly what the purpose of the electoral college was, in the Founding Fathers' own words? Furthermore, you have to keep in mind that at the time the U.S. was founded, the individual states were essentially their own countries with individual governments and leadership. The only way they could make the deal work with all of them was to ensure that no one state could "overrule" the others. If smaller states could be bullied by larger states, the term "united states" loses a quite a bit of its meaning.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      > the individual states were essentially their own countries with individual governments and leadership The debate over the scope of the federal government dates back to before the end of the revolutionary war, and was a central topic of debate in the drafting and ratification process for the Constitution. Remember that our first attempt at forming a country erred toward a weaker federal government, and was more-or-less an abject failure. > Where is it stated exactly what the purpose of the electoral college was, in the Founding Fathers' own words? Federalist 68, in which almost every argument makes literally no sense when compared to direct democracy. That paper is mostly arguing for the electoral college over e.g. the "Governors" or "congressional" plans, leaving the infeasibility of direct election as a foregone conclusion. A lot of founding fathers would've preferred a direct vote. See for example Anti Federalist 72. Using google you can also find quotes from Madison, for example, arguing that a direct vote would obviously be best. Which begs the question: why not just do the obvious thing? > The only way they could make the deal work with all of them was to ensure that no one state could "overrule" the others Why don't we come out and be explicit about it -- the only way to make it work was the make sure that slave states were comfortable that they'd be able to retain political power while continuing to subjugate a huge portion of their population. > If smaller states could be bullied by larger states, the term "united states" loses a quite a bit of its meaning. Larger by what measure? The slave states that were opposed to direct election and are today characterized as "rural" weren't actually significantly less populous than the northern states. Virginia -- a slave state -- was the most populous. It's just that a huge number of their men were black, and so didn't count in a direct election. So, the whole "rural / less populous states need a voice in presidential elections" thing is complete and utter horse shit. The actual issue was that "very populous states that choose to treat a big portion of the population as sub-humans need a vote controlled by whites but with power proportional to their entire population".
cheetos 10y ago
> Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? Because it turns out that has a very strong effect on the power of your vote :) The electoral college exists to balance the voices of citizens in cities vs. "the country." It checks the power of highly dense populations who are more likely to vote for pro-city federal policies, so the needs of those in "the country" are not ignored. I didn't support Trump and live in a super-blue city, but when the EC was explained to me this way, it made sense. I don't want to see the US further turn into a place where you can only succeed if you live in a city.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > The electoral college exists to balance the voices of citizens in cities vs. "the country That is the effect of the electoral college in modern politics, but it is not at all why the college exists.
  - cheetos 10y ago
    I saw your other comment alluding to this and was intruiged. If you have time, can you please elaborate?
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      Direct election was a proposal at the time, and many founding fathers supported it, but the slave states shot it down. The slave states are often mis-characterized as rural/not populous as compared to northern states. But that logic only holds if the color of your skin defines your humanity -- slave states weren't significantly less populous, it's just that a huge portion of their populations weren't enfranchised. In fact, the most populous state was a slave state. So IMO the thesis that the electoral college is a result of slavery is mostly accurate. As far as the "official" reasons (since slavery was a touchy motivation, even back in the day), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68 which outlines the "official" reasons for having a college as well as all of the alternatives at the time. Most of these seem pretty irrelevant to the modern world: * As a veto on dangerous men -- I don't see this ever happening in our modern world. * To avoid "cabal, intrigue, and corruption" as well as pandering. None of these function as arguments against a direct vote, but rather as arguments against the use of governors, congress, etc. in place of the electoral college.
mzw_mzw 10y ago
> It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election. Except that in a universe where the President was selected by popular vote, the candidates would have campaigned differently anyway, so your point is completely moot.
- noobermin 10y ago
  That they would try to appeal to all Americans and not just a handful in a few states? I think that is a better system.
  - mzw_mzw 10y ago
    No, they would try to run up the numbers in big cities and large media markets, and ignore the rest.
    - mhurron 10y ago
      > run up the numbers in big cities and large media markets You mean they would campaign where the people are.
    - Gaelan 10y ago
      But why? Besides from actual rallies, appearances, etc, which I doubt have a very significant effect on people's votes (people only go to the rallies of their preferred candidates), there is no reason to target people in big cities. Given that most campaigning happens online or through the media at this point, there is no reason to restrict yourself to geographical areas.
    - magicalist 10y ago
      > No, they would try to run up the numbers in big cities and large media markets, and ignore the rest. But they do ignore the rest. How much campaigning was done in rural Texas or California? Or Wyoming or Montana for that matter? It's silly to pretend that Michigan and Florida somehow represent the country folk of America.
CalChris 10y ago
> We already have the senate. The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design. The Electoral College also favors less populous states. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress So Wyoming gets 3 electors for a population of 584,153 or 194717 per elector. California gets 55 for a population of 38.8M or 705454 per elector.
- notahacker 10y ago
  For Presidential elections the electioneering arithmetic is significantly more complex than voters per elector though, and doesn't evenly favour states of any particular size. Ultimately what matters is percentage swing to the other major party for the state to change electoral vote, scaled by the size of the state and realistic probability of the swing actually happening. Wyoming might have fewer voters per elector than Florida, but as solidly Republican as states get there's not much point in paying it any attention beyond the primaries, whereas the priorities of a few thousand Cuban exiles in Florida can shape foreign policy because they frequently play a major role in determining the eventual president. And a smallish electoral bribe in the form of investment allocated to populous areas of large states Michigan and Wisconsin would, for better and for worse, probably have swung it for Clinton. California is at the rougher end of both scales, both under-represented per head and unlikely to change hands. But you'd also probably be less likely to be ignored in a pure popular vote election if you lived in Wyoming, especially if you were amongst the minority of Wyoming residents willing to vote for either party depending on the individual candidates' programmes.
curiousgeorgio 10y ago
> Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? Should that same philosophy apply globally? Should you be able to vote in a country where you don't live? You may live in the United States, but if each state were a different country, wouldn't it make more sense that your vote carry more weight in your own country than others? Obviously, we think of countries as being on a completely different level, but the Unites States was originally set up to be a group of states with a great deal of autonomy, united only by a relatively weak federal government. In that context, the president of the United States should be regarded as a president of the states, not a president of the people. It certainly matters globally where you choose to lay your head down at night, just as it matters in which state you lay your head down at night, and that's by design. If you don't care for your state's laws, you should be able to find a state the matches your ideals without having to leave the country. The president's power should therefore be removed by a layer of geographical abstraction from the people - it serves only to make limited decisions that affect all the states in a very limited way.

puranjay 10y ago

I don't know why people harp on the 2 million popular votes thing. If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. But the goal was 270 electoral votes, so that's what the candidates campaigned for. This is like a losing soccer team saying that they won more free kicks, so they should get to win, not the team that scored more goals

throwaway729 10y ago
> If that was the goal, that's what the candidates would have campaigned for. And I think that would've been a good thing. Do you disagree?
- puranjay 10y ago
  Sure, but the rules of the game were set before the candidates started playing. You can't lose and then retroactively change the rules to give yourself the victory. If the rules are bad, change them the next time around.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    Which is exactly what's being proposed.
  - sgnelson 10y ago
    That's what people are talking about? Nobody is seriously saying, "let's change the rules now so Hillary wins!" Some people are calling for electors to not vote for Trump, but at least that's part of the original intent for the electoral college (and it's not likely to happen anyways). But lots of people are saying, "This system is obviously broken since the will of the majority was not enacted, let's fix it." So nice strawman, but I think I just burnt it down.
  - 13years 10y ago
    Even this justification for changing the rules next time around has little merit. In this case, it would be like the soccer team picking a really bad goalie, so they want to change the rules so goalies have less effect on game outcome. If the DNC were correct about their assumptions, they should have won by a landslide. This should not be about changing the rules, it should be reevaluation of our beliefs and course corrections.
- ng12 10y ago
  I think this is one election where the Electoral College did it's job. One of the big issues Trump made this election was globalization. You know who benefits from globalization? People who live in metropolitan areas. Who pays the bill? People who live in small-town America. We are a federalist republic for this very reason -- to limit the ability of the majority to shoehorn the minority.
  - mch82 10y ago
    False, "blue states" largely pay the bill. For every dollar I get taxed in California, I get less than a dollar in Federal Government services. Florida gets over $4. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...
    - ng12 10y ago
      I meant a figurative bill, as in the socio-economic repercussions of globalizing manufacturing and low-skill service jobs. Why do you think low-income states need so much help? Because any industry they had closed down years ago.
  - sgnelson 10y ago
    Just no. The US economy relies on Urban areas. This is where the vast majority of wealth, innovation, and knowledge is created (at a much greater rate per capita, than rural areas). This is only increasing in part due to how knowledge is created/shared with agglomeration effects (in cities) and due to globalization (small factories could support small towns, with the loss of these factories, small towns die.) Small towns do not pay the bills. (Do you seriously think that small town America could afford to build and maintain the Eisenhower 4 lane highway that runs through the town? They can't.) There is practically zero evidence that "Small town America" isn't dying a painful death these days. You don't have to like it, I certainly don't. (I live in a state that was "Small town America.") But wake up, small town America is dying, and there is almost nothing that can be done to fix it. But trying to somehow "punish" Urban areas certainly doesn't make any sense. And finally, do you really believe that it's better that a minority has the ability to "showhorn" the majority? Why?

lintiness 10y ago

"if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election." what if she spent TWICE the money getting them?

sxg 10y ago
That's a separate issue. Not saying it's right or wrong, but at the end of the day, she had more votes.
- logmeout 10y ago
  Legal votes? Not likely and also not likely she got the plural vote. Yes, even if 100% of the difference were legal (they aren't) it's not a majority, it's a plurality.
- jedmeyers 10y ago
  She got more votes in a system where opponent did not optimize his process for more votes, therefore it is a meaningless metric.
- dingaling 10y ago
  Indeed, but if it were based on raw votes then we'd probably not have had Mrs Clinton vs Mr Trump in 2016 because the timeline would have branched in 2000 based on the same metric. It's an interesting example of arguing against a cause that's only relevant because of the effect it caused previously.
phailhaus 10y ago
Why is the amount of money spent relevant? At the end of the day, more individuals felt that Clinton should be their president.
- lintiness 10y ago
  uh, dunno ... maybe yield on dollars spent is indicative of, say, their ability to manage our tax dollars.

tallowen 10y ago

> The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design. Out of curiosity, how does this happen in practice? My understanding was that seats were divided up by population (giving equal voice to those in more densely populated areas).

dangoor 10y ago
I believe the problem is that the number of seats in Congress has not increased in 100 years despite a huge increase in population. This has caused a distortion by giving tiny states more representation than they should actually have based on their population relative to the bigger states.
gweinberg 10y ago
They're even with a rounding error, but every state must get at least one. The rounding error is pretty big for the smallest states.
sgnelson 10y ago
as someone else posted, about halfway down here is a good explanation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/17/the-electoral-college-badly-distorts-the-vote-and-its-going-to-get-worse/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/1... But I would even go further; as to the house specifically and not the election of the president, you have inner state politics affecting the house and the distracting process. ie. Gerrymandering. In my opinion, we are not seeing red states and blue states (or purple state), we have urban/suburban/rural interests all competing for resources. Keep in mind, now a days, we typically relate urban with democrats and suburban/rural with republicans, but this is not always the case, and sometimes a bit too simplistic. In a state like North Carolina for instance, the state legislature is run by the republican party, which has the power on how each US house seat is redistricted. I would argue that NC rural interests have much more power than NC urban interests at the state legislature level. This then also gets mirrored in the US Congressional redistricting, where the US Congressmen for cities like Charlotte are geographically divided to give Charlotte as little Congressional power as possible. (For instance, the Congressman for the NC 9th district was in fact essentially the Congressman for just South Charlotte and a few outlying suburbs, his seat has been spread out to a small part of South Charlotte and 3 or 4 very rural counties. This means that he can no longer solely lobby for South Charlotte's interests, but now has a "split" constituency (suburban vs. rural with different needs/wants. Think of it as a majority minority style district for rural areas). I would argue that this means that Charlotte's interests are in part superseded by small rural county interests, which once again, (unfairly?) gives more political power to lower density areas than larger density areas. (Keep in mind, the above is all my own opinions and arguments, in currently lacking in hard evidence (such as the NC legislature intentionally split the 9th district to deny power to Charlotte) and relies on a few assumptions. So take it with a grain of salt, though I stand by my analysis.) TL;DR; Even in states with a somewhat equal rural/urban divde, some states give more power to rural areas than urban areas by gerrymandering.

wslh 10y ago

> It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election. But everybody knows how the system works. It is late to discuss about its fairness.

13years 10y ago

>That seems extremely anti-democratic to me. Exactly, and it is supposed to be. We are a republic and not a democracy. The founders strongly opposed democracy. One of the reasons being that minorities would have no representation if your government is by majority rule only.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
throwaway729 10y ago
The college no longer provides for any of the purposes that motivated its creation. If we judge the college based upon the criteria that motivated its creation, then we inevitably reach the conclusion that the college should be abolished.
- 13years 10y ago
  There is no reason to abolish it, unless you prefer majority rule. However, if you want a true republic and protection against the problems of majority rule, then you might want to potentially change it, but not abolish it. https://fee.org/articles/the-accidental-genius-of-the-electoral-college/ https://fee.org/articles/the-accidental-genius-of-the-electo...
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    The senate and modern house play that role. As it stands, we have minority rule in nearly every branch of federal government.
    - 13years 10y ago
      The article I linked covered this topic.
      - throwaway729 10y ago
        The FEE argument, if assumed to be self-consistent, works even better as an argument against a status quo that systematically favors a minority party over a (popular) majority party. If the goal is balancing power between political parties, then the presidency should certainly be a popular vote or else the house and senate should be substantially reformed.

xahrepap 10y ago

It is anti-democratic by design. Founding fathers didn't want a democratic election for presidents. I think a good example of what the electoral college is: you have a sports tournament. The winner isn't the person who gets the most points in all the games. It's the person who wins the most games.

throwaway729 10y ago
The original purpose of the electoral college was NOT to provide disproportionate voice to non-populous states. In fact, the states backing the college were some of the most populous as long as you count slaves. Also, the founding fathers weren't all supporters of the electoral college. Appealing to their ultimate compromise is a strange argument, especially since the original political motivations have largely become either irrelevant or reprehensible. > It's the person who wins the most games. That's the senate, and is not at all an accurate analogy for the way the electoral college works.
- theli0nheart 10y ago
  > The original purpose of the electoral college was NOT to provide disproportionate voice to non-populous states. In fact, the states backing the college were some of the most populous as long as you count slaves. This begs for a source. Where is it stated exactly what the purpose of the electoral college was, in the Founding Fathers' own words? Furthermore, you have to keep in mind that at the time the U.S. was founded, the individual states were essentially their own countries with individual governments and leadership. The only way they could make the deal work with all of them was to ensure that no one state could "overrule" the others. If smaller states could be bullied by larger states, the term "united states" loses a quite a bit of its meaning.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > the individual states were essentially their own countries with individual governments and leadership The debate over the scope of the federal government dates back to before the end of the revolutionary war, and was a central topic of debate in the drafting and ratification process for the Constitution. Remember that our first attempt at forming a country erred toward a weaker federal government, and was more-or-less an abject failure. > Where is it stated exactly what the purpose of the electoral college was, in the Founding Fathers' own words? Federalist 68, in which almost every argument makes literally no sense when compared to direct democracy. That paper is mostly arguing for the electoral college over e.g. the "Governors" or "congressional" plans, leaving the infeasibility of direct election as a foregone conclusion. A lot of founding fathers would've preferred a direct vote. See for example Anti Federalist 72. Using google you can also find quotes from Madison, for example, arguing that a direct vote would obviously be best. Which begs the question: why not just do the obvious thing? > The only way they could make the deal work with all of them was to ensure that no one state could "overrule" the others Why don't we come out and be explicit about it -- the only way to make it work was the make sure that slave states were comfortable that they'd be able to retain political power while continuing to subjugate a huge portion of their population. > If smaller states could be bullied by larger states, the term "united states" loses a quite a bit of its meaning. Larger by what measure? The slave states that were opposed to direct election and are today characterized as "rural" weren't actually significantly less populous than the northern states. Virginia -- a slave state -- was the most populous. It's just that a huge number of their men were black, and so didn't count in a direct election. So, the whole "rural / less populous states need a voice in presidential elections" thing is complete and utter horse shit. The actual issue was that "very populous states that choose to treat a big portion of the population as sub-humans need a vote controlled by whites but with power proportional to their entire population".

cheetos 10y ago

> Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? Because it turns out that has a very strong effect on the power of your vote :) The electoral college exists to balance the voices of citizens in cities vs. "the country." It checks the power of highly dense populations who are more likely to vote for pro-city federal policies, so the needs of those in "the country" are not ignored. I didn't support Trump and live in a super-blue city, but when the EC was explained to me this way, it made sense. I don't want to see the US further turn into a place where you can only succeed if you live in a city.

throwaway729 10y ago
> The electoral college exists to balance the voices of citizens in cities vs. "the country That is the effect of the electoral college in modern politics, but it is not at all why the college exists.
- cheetos 10y ago
  I saw your other comment alluding to this and was intruiged. If you have time, can you please elaborate?
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    Direct election was a proposal at the time, and many founding fathers supported it, but the slave states shot it down. The slave states are often mis-characterized as rural/not populous as compared to northern states. But that logic only holds if the color of your skin defines your humanity -- slave states weren't significantly less populous, it's just that a huge portion of their populations weren't enfranchised. In fact, the most populous state was a slave state. So IMO the thesis that the electoral college is a result of slavery is mostly accurate. As far as the "official" reasons (since slavery was a touchy motivation, even back in the day), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68 which outlines the "official" reasons for having a college as well as all of the alternatives at the time. Most of these seem pretty irrelevant to the modern world: * As a veto on dangerous men -- I don't see this ever happening in our modern world. * To avoid "cabal, intrigue, and corruption" as well as pandering. None of these function as arguments against a direct vote, but rather as arguments against the use of governors, congress, etc. in place of the electoral college.

mzw_mzw 10y ago

> It's that if someone wins a popular vote by 2 million fucking votes, then they should probably win the election. Except that in a universe where the President was selected by popular vote, the candidates would have campaigned differently anyway, so your point is completely moot.

noobermin 10y ago
That they would try to appeal to all Americans and not just a handful in a few states? I think that is a better system.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  No, they would try to run up the numbers in big cities and large media markets, and ignore the rest.
  - mhurron 10y ago
    > run up the numbers in big cities and large media markets You mean they would campaign where the people are.
  - Gaelan 10y ago
    But why? Besides from actual rallies, appearances, etc, which I doubt have a very significant effect on people's votes (people only go to the rallies of their preferred candidates), there is no reason to target people in big cities. Given that most campaigning happens online or through the media at this point, there is no reason to restrict yourself to geographical areas.
  - magicalist 10y ago
    > No, they would try to run up the numbers in big cities and large media markets, and ignore the rest. But they do ignore the rest. How much campaigning was done in rural Texas or California? Or Wyoming or Montana for that matter? It's silly to pretend that Michigan and Florida somehow represent the country folk of America.

CalChris 10y ago

> We already have the senate. The house also favors less populous states, even if not by design. The Electoral College also favors less populous states. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress So Wyoming gets 3 electors for a population of 584,153 or 194717 per elector. California gets 55 for a population of 38.8M or 705454 per elector.

notahacker 10y ago
For Presidential elections the electioneering arithmetic is significantly more complex than voters per elector though, and doesn't evenly favour states of any particular size. Ultimately what matters is percentage swing to the other major party for the state to change electoral vote, scaled by the size of the state and realistic probability of the swing actually happening. Wyoming might have fewer voters per elector than Florida, but as solidly Republican as states get there's not much point in paying it any attention beyond the primaries, whereas the priorities of a few thousand Cuban exiles in Florida can shape foreign policy because they frequently play a major role in determining the eventual president. And a smallish electoral bribe in the form of investment allocated to populous areas of large states Michigan and Wisconsin would, for better and for worse, probably have swung it for Clinton. California is at the rougher end of both scales, both under-represented per head and unlikely to change hands. But you'd also probably be less likely to be ignored in a pure popular vote election if you lived in Wyoming, especially if you were amongst the minority of Wyoming residents willing to vote for either party depending on the individual candidates' programmes.

curiousgeorgio 10y ago

> Why should the power of your vote depend on where you choose to lay your head down at night? Should that same philosophy apply globally? Should you be able to vote in a country where you don't live? You may live in the United States, but if each state were a different country, wouldn't it make more sense that your vote carry more weight in your own country than others? Obviously, we think of countries as being on a completely different level, but the Unites States was originally set up to be a group of states with a great deal of autonomy, united only by a relatively weak federal government. In that context, the president of the United States should be regarded as a president of the states, not a president of the people. It certainly matters globally where you choose to lay your head down at night, just as it matters in which state you lay your head down at night, and that's by design. If you don't care for your state's laws, you should be able to find a state the matches your ideals without having to leave the country. The president's power should therefore be removed by a layer of geographical abstraction from the people - it serves only to make limited decisions that affect all the states in a very limited way.