10 ms·

The Case for Dumping the Electoral College

45 points by car 6y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
As others have pointed out, changing the Electoral College is a really big task. However, there is a similar kind of injustice, that is much easier to get rid of. In the NBA Championships and MLB World Series, not every basket and run counts the same. Some are worth more than others. This is because instead of just counting the total number of points scored in the whole series of games and making the team with the most total points the winner, we arcanely insist, on splitting those points up by game, and making the winner of the series, the team that wins the majority of the games. You can easily end up with a series, where the team that actually has fewer points, wins the series, because those points were scored more strategically across the games. As should be obvious, that is an injustice. This type of arrangement might be understood in the past where we did not have the Internet and instant communication and had to rely on slower forms of news with less bandwidth, so being able to summarize a series as tied at 3 games apiece was easier than trying to give the entire score. But now, there is no reason to retain this archaic system. We should just consider total points scored. All points should be equal!
- yongjik 6y ago
  That would be a great analogy, if the purpose of US presidential election is to entertain people and garner ad revenue.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dheera 6y ago
Personally I say abolish the electoral colleges to ensure that every vote actually matters. That alone will reduce voter apathy and get more people actually out there voting.
- nradov 6y ago
  Sounds good. Now how do we make that happen? Complaints about the Electoral College are rather meaningless without a realistic proposal for a Constitutional amendment that could achieve the necessary level of political support.
  - striking 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... already exists and is 73% of the way to coming into effect. No need for amendments when you have clever legal hackery!
    - GeneralMayhem 6y ago
      It's the last 20% that's the hardest, though (apart from the first 1%). No state with Republican leadership will ever sign it, because they know that they depend on minority rule. That means that the Democrats effectively have to run enough states to control the Electoral College anyway, and winning enough branches of a state legislature to pass laws is generally more difficult than winning that state in a presidential election. The one thing that's working in favor of the NPVIC happening is that it doesn't have to happen all at once, but that's a double-edged sword - if we get a state or two in the purpleish zone to sign on one year, but it's not enough to get to 270, then they could repeal it the next year. In particular, it'll be really interesting to see what happens if/when we get to the point where any state joining the NPVIC would push it over the edge. Would that state waver knowing that they're going to be the ones to press the big red button? You also have the judiciary to worry about. It's not obvious that the NPVIC is constitutional, and I highly doubt that the current Supreme Court, packed as it is with activist right-wing judges, would let it happen.
      - jackcosgrove 6y ago
        > You also have the judiciary to worry about. It's not obvious that the NPVIC is constitutional Interstate compacts without the blessing of the federal government are unconstitutional. This is because the federal government has sovereign power over interstate relations, and a bloc of states that coordinate action are effectively challenging that sovereign power. So if the NPVIC is passed, it would also need to be approved by federal legislation to be deemed constitutional.
vmception 6y ago
There are deeper cases for revisiting the Electoral College than "I don't like it when the popular vote doesn't favor me". One primary issue is that the Electors for each state are not elected. A patch for this and guidance for their behaviors is something that has to be addressed in each state on their own, with a few states here or there seeming to force Electors to submit certain information, such as the popular vote result. Revisiting the simpler argument about not liking the representation provided by the Electoral College, it is valid that its purpose was for a much smaller nation of like 12-14 states at time of inception. It should be obvious that this argument will fall flat because it will never reach the level of consensus necessary to change it, as you need 75% ratification of the states, most of which benefit from the Electoral College amplifying their vote and relevancy. There are better uses of energy. Regulating the Electors is a better use of energy, as there are real inefficiencies and a lack of accountability in who they are and what they do, as they can submit literally anything to Congress no matter what their own state voted for.
- Kalium 6y ago
  I think there's a quite strong argument that "I don't like it when the outcome doesn't favor me" is one of the worst available reasons to make major structural changes to a system of government. Major changes can easily be made for short-sighted, petty, power-seeking, partisan, or other unwise reasons. The US Constitution is difficult to change in no small part to guard against these. Every time I see someone advocating for an Amendment on the basis that they think it will favor their brand of partisanship, I inevitably find myself thinking that they're exactly what the system was designed to stop. Which is really deeply unfortunate on many levels. These are very often kind, compassionate, caring people who have correctly identified a very real problem in dire need of addressing.
- kthejoker2 6y ago
  Supreme Court ruled this year that that's not so, you can't be a faithless elector. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/885168480/supreme-court-rules-state-faithless-elector-laws-constitutional https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/885168480/supreme-court-rules...
HideousKojima 6y ago
The fight against the electoral college is one of those things that misses the forest for the trees. The real problem is that too much power has been vested in the federal government (and in the executive branch specifically), and too much power has been taken from the states. People would care a lot less about how the president gets elected if he didn't have so much control over the entire country.
- HeavenFox 6y ago
  I agree with you; in practice, however, when Alabama enacts anti-abortion law New Yorkers get pissed; when New Jersey enacts anti-gun law Texans get pissed. Everyone want to push their favorite ideology nationwide and the federal government grows as a result.
  - gizmo686 6y ago
    More practically, states have open borders. In the world where the constitution was written, this was not as big of a deal. However, improvement to transportation technology mean that it has become increasingly possible to circumvent one states laws by traveling to another state. Hence, any law a state may want to make legitimatly becomes an issue of interstate commerce, which is nessasarily a federal concern [0]. For instance, when Alabama enacts their anti-abortion law, they could have a legitamite grievence that their residents can hop in a car and spend a weekend taking a road trip up to New York (assuming every closer state passes a simmilar law) and get their abortion there. Or, when New Jersey passes their anti-gun law, they can get pissed that their citizens can go to Texas to buy guns and take them back to New Jersey. We (arguably) fought a civil war over this issue. States had different laws with regards to slavery. The southern states were upset that their laws on slavery were being undermined by the ability of slaves to travel to northern states which would than grant their freedom. A compromise was struck were federal law (the fugitive slave act) would require northern states to honor the slave laws of southern states and return slaves. Some northern states asserted their states rights to not follow this law; thereby continuing to allow slaves freedom once they crossed the border. We may have had a civil war regardless; but if the northern states weren't able to directly undermine the slavery laws of the southern states, it may not have reached that point. [0] Although, even with modern transportation technology, Wickard v. Filburn (1942) takes a very broad view of what constitutes interstate commerce.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
What frustrates me about this constant argument is that there's a way to retain the electoral college, which serves to at least somewhat fairly designate votes by state populations, and still make every vote count: Make states assign electors proportionally. A couple states already do it, and if all fifty did, we'd have a much fairer system that is still somewhat insulated from differences in how states manage voting.
platz 6y ago
The electoral college itself isn't really the issue. It's the fact that states use winner-take-all apportionment of electors. Unlike the electoral college, winner-take-all apportionment isn't mandated in the constitution. You could have the electoral college and also distribute electors according to the share of popular vote each party received in that state.
- compycom 6y ago
  It's still an issue in that this wouldn't afford equal representation. The way the number of electors is determined is {senators + members of congress + 3}. Since the senate affords massively more representation per person to rural states, rural states will be overrepresented in this system as well.
  - platz 6y ago
    small price to pay to unlock everyones' vote mattering instead of just a couple battleground states. Also, giving a bit more representation to less populous areas may be a feature you don't want to get rid of quite so hastily.
- arthens 6y ago
  This is definitely a huge factor. A 2 party system is another one. Some founding fathers even wrote against it [1] [1] https://ritholtz.com/2011/07/founding-fathers-beware-two-party-system/ https://ritholtz.com/2011/07/founding-fathers-beware-two-par...
- Talanes 6y ago
  True, but that's arguably just as difficult a change to make. Either getting enough State's to swap that the ones that don't are insignificant, or amend the Constitution. If it comes down to state-level changes, the threshold for that popular vote compact may be lower.
- Mindless2112 6y ago
  Maine and Nebraska are the two states that don't do winner-take-all. Most states won't switch to proportional allocation because the party with the most political power in a state is likely to lose electoral college votes by switching. > In forty-eight states and D.C., the winner of the plurality of the statewide vote receives all of that state's electors; in Maine and Nebraska, two electors are assigned in this manner and the remaining electors are allocated based on the plurality of votes in each congressional district.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...
baron816 6y ago
I’ve long been in favor of rewriting the constitution. Everyone hates how the government operates—courts are politicized and at risk of being captured, the legislature is at a constant impasse, everything is hyper partisan, the executive is either way too powerful, or not powerful enough. The only things people can point to that they like about the constitution are the first amendment, and sometimes the second and fourteenth amendments. Other countries have tried out different forms of representative government in the last 231 years. There’s a lot we can learn from them.
- thayne 6y ago
  I remember one of my teachers proudly saying how great the constitution was since it has hardly changed in 200 years. I now realize that while the constitution was great for it's time, the fact that we haven't changed it to apply what we've learned from both our own experience, and that of other democracie, or account for changes in technology and society, is not a good thing.
  - nradov 6y ago
    The Constitution has been amended 27 times. That seems like enough.
  - claytongulick 6y ago
    Do you belive that people have fundamentally changed in the past 200 years?
- stmfreak 6y ago
  With the way our legislature and senators are captives of lobbyists, global dictators and billionaires today, what makes you think a rewrite would be in your best interests? Or do you imagine the little people like us would have a say in such a rewrite?
- Areading314 6y ago
  There is a mechanism to amend the constitution, which has been used numerous times over the years, as the country and culture have shifted. I think it's somewhat naive to think, especially in the current climate, that a rewriting of the constitution would do anything to serve the people.
batch12 6y ago
If the nation was intended to be a union of states, then the electoral college is one mechanism that can be used to ensure that each state, as an entity, has an equal vote for federal leadership. I understand it as less of a person voting directly for the President, and more as each person voting for how their state should vote for President. The idea from the article that any argument for the electoral college is racist is a shallow attempt to quiet any real discussion. edit: grammar
oldertimer 6y ago
Dump states too while you're at it. Might as well divide people up by watersheds or timezones or tectonic plates.
- labster 6y ago
  That’s why they keep mining coal in West Virginia and Wyoming. Florida and Delaware will be under water and mountain states will be sitting pretty.
padseeker 6y ago
The threshold for changing the constitution is exceptionally high, requiring 38 states. If the Electoral college gives more power to smaller states, why are they going to give that power up? Why is Wyoming and North/South Dakota going to give up their more valuable electoral votes to get rid off the electoral college? Also it benefits one party over another. Unless there is overwhelming broad appeal, this isn't going to happen. The only way it would change is if the party that benefits from this structure were to suddenly lose because of it. Why would that happen? I understand how pro-democracy argument, but the logistics required to make this happen is far removed.
olivermarks 6y ago
The word democracy doesn't appear anywhere in the US republic's constitution. The USA was set up so that the electoral college had the final say over any populist choice of leadership, ie veto power. This is similar to the way the far more recent unelected EU commissioners are the senior decision and strategy makers. The issue is centralized federalism and how to dilute this.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  A republic is a democracy. It’s just one that has a president, and not a king. That’s all it is. It’s not representatives It’s not federalism. It’s just not having a monarch.
  - rudiv 6y ago
    I find a lot of Americans display a belief that 'democracy' can only refer to a direct democracy and 'republic' is the accurate term to refer to representational democracies, but with the implication often being that the point of representative democracy (vs direct democracy) is primarily to prevent majoritarianism or 'mob rule'. None of that meshes with my knowledge of political science gleaned from education in my home country (parliamentary system) or in the United States, so I really wonder where this idea began. As per my knowledge, representative democracies have an advantage over direct democracies primarily in ease of administration and legislation. I don't think there are any particularly strong reasons to suggest representative democracy is less prone to a tyranny of the majority than a direct democracy. My hypothesis is that the idea is borne out of a necessity to resolve the dissonance between the US founders and constitution being in many ways anti-democratic, with a culture that holds up democracy & freedom as its highest ideals. (democracy in this case defined as it would be in the dictionary)
    - jonathankoren 6y ago
      The "We're a republic, not a democracy," comes from the 1930s as an isolationist slogan to argue against getting involved with "the defense of democracies" (the FDR argument) during World War II. From there it became a quip from the John Birch Society to delegitimize a political party. I know that sounds, hyperbolic, but it's true. Jamelle Bouie recently did yeoman work tracking down it's start. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/opinion/aoc-crenshaw-republicans-democracy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/opinion/aoc-crenshaw-repu...
techman9 6y ago
I do wonder whether the electoral college system somewhat insulates the US from election tampering or voter fraud. The current system disaggregates election certification to the state level, which is then made official by a discrete vote of the electoral college. For instance, if Donald Trump wants to claim that the election was rigged or tampered with, it's sort of moot as it's ultimately up to the state electors. It feels like in the face of this, it's very hard for one candidate to dispute the election, as it's ultimately resolved by electoral vote. If we were to change the system to one based only a national first past the post poll, even one certified by vote totals from individual states, I wonder how you'd ensure an impartial certification of the final result.
- cmurf 6y ago
  We don't have the Electoral College Hamilton envisioned in Federalist 68. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp They were supposed to be regular people, not politicians. And certainly not the worst people ever conceived: party loyalists. That's The system we use. It's also not the ultimate decision making body. If the results are disputed, and no candidate gets 270 Electors, House of Representatives chooses the president, one vote per state. Senate choose VP, one vote per senator.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  Elections are run by the states, not the federal government. We have — and would still have, since the electors aren’t even bound until after the election — to have 57 separate elections. It’s this separation that adds a level of security, not the EC.
seanwilson 6y ago
For people that complain a party won without the popular vote under the current rules, if you changed the rules for what defines winning, then that party would have campaigned in a completely different way E.g. under the old rules, maybe the winning party purposely didn't campaign in a state they knew they couldn't win (a logical use of campaign funds), dragging down their countrywide vote. If the countrywide vote was important though, they wouldn't have campaigned like this. You could argue that the current rules for winning don't accurately match the general will of the people but it's illogical to me to argue that the party that won under the current rules would have or should have lost if the rules changed. Making it easier for people to vote and getting more people to vote seems like a no-brainier improvement though.
- LanceH 6y ago
  It amazes me the sheer number of people that just don't get this. I personally believe that this influence Republicans to move a bit more center. but who knows? A good example of what could happen to close the national voting gap: Republicans would actually campaign in California and a few of the big blue states. Right now, someone voting for a republican in California has very little incentive to show up to vote. Republicans start campaigning there and the voters now have a reason to show up. Maybe not enough to close the gap completely, but it could close it a lot with no policy changes, just campaigning and a reason for people to show. The same could happen the other way, but the big population blue states are more abandoned by Republicans than the big red states are by dems (it seems). Anyhow, if you change the rules, the players are going to change their game.
mNovak 6y ago
I was interested to learn there's a sort of workaround to resolving the electoral college without a constitutional amendment, and it's some 70% of the way implemented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... Essentially, a block of states with sufficient electoral votes to determine the election legislates that they will cast their electoral votes in accordance with the national popular vote. It's interesting because it takes advantage of the large freedom states have to regulate their own electors, and substantially reduces the number of small states that have to get on board, as compared to an amendment. Obviously somewhat more fragile though, as states could in principle leave the pact later on.
- judge2020 6y ago
  There's also the issue with SCOTUS potentially declaring it an interstate compact (as defined by the Constitution's compact clause) and striking down its legality - although IIRC the point of that was preventing secession and it hasn't been used for anything else. I would think that other sorts of interstate compacts like the shared peach pass(GA)/sun pass(FL)/quick pass(NC) would be illegal if someone were to challenge the constitutionality of them under that clause.
throwawaysea 6y ago
This reads more like a case to end the United States of America. The fundamental problem is that ditching the electoral college will subject many people of varied opinions, backgrounds, lifestyles, and cultures to a tyranny of the majority (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority). This is already a problem even within states, where a few cities end up with enormous political power and can basically subject everyone else to their whims. The urban-rural divide is incredibly unhealthy (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/26/across-country-rural-communities-secede-states-why-column/4851817002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/26/across-cou...) and makes those subject to the tyranny of the majority lose belief in democracy because they feel unrepresented. The solution is not less electoral college but more, so people can live their own lives. And governments that are broader in geographical scope (state and federal) should have incredibly narrow political/legal scope, with the majority of power seated at more local levels. That is how everyone can feel represented, retains locality of culture, retain faith in the system, and coexist without eventual civil war.
compycom 6y ago
One half solution that people don't tend to bring up: massively increase the number of members of congress. The formula for a states representation in the electoral college is {number of senators + number of representatives}. Since the senate is fixed at 2 senators per state, it massively advantages small states in terms of political power per person. The number of representatives per state is currently set at 435, and is allocated proportionately to population. This number is arbitrary, and can be changed by an act of congress. Increasing it will dilute the power of the electors from the Senate. There's also compelling reason to increase the number of for its own sake: the number of people per representative is higher now than it has ever been. And it's much higher than other Western democracies. When the Constitution was written, the number of representatives was set so there'd be one for every 30,000 people. The idea was that the number would be increased over time, and there was almost almost an amendment ratified to ensure this would happen, where the ratio would never get above 50,000 per. But the number of representatives hasn't been updated since 1929. Back then, there was one representative per 218,000 people. Now there's one representative per 744,000. If we had the 1929 ratio in place, we'd have 1505 representatives. And if we set representatives at 50,000 per person (as preferred by founders such as Washington), we'd have 6564.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  Also deliberation happens behind closed doors and not in front of C-SPAN.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Which doesn’t help since the Senate has far more power than the house. It confirms judges who have lifetime appointments and cabinet members.
- ryathal 6y ago
  This is important for way more than just Presidential elections. It helps solve the money in politics problem as well by diluting power and making representatives more accountable.

45 points by car 6y ago

As others have pointed out, changing the Electoral College is a really big task. However, there is a similar kind of injustice, that is much easier to get rid of. In the NBA Championships and MLB World Series, not every basket and run counts the same. Some are worth more than others. This is because instead of just counting the total number of points scored in the whole series of games and making the team with the most total points the winner, we arcanely insist, on splitting those points up by game, and making the winner of the series, the team that wins the majority of the games. You can easily end up with a series, where the team that actually has fewer points, wins the series, because those points were scored more strategically across the games. As should be obvious, that is an injustice. This type of arrangement might be understood in the past where we did not have the Internet and instant communication and had to rely on slower forms of news with less bandwidth, so being able to summarize a series as tied at 3 games apiece was easier than trying to give the entire score. But now, there is no reason to retain this archaic system. We should just consider total points scored. All points should be equal!

yongjik 6y ago
That would be a great analogy, if the purpose of US presidential election is to entertain people and garner ad revenue.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dheera 6y ago

Personally I say abolish the electoral colleges to ensure that every vote actually matters. That alone will reduce voter apathy and get more people actually out there voting.

nradov 6y ago
Sounds good. Now how do we make that happen? Complaints about the Electoral College are rather meaningless without a realistic proposal for a Constitutional amendment that could achieve the necessary level of political support.
- striking 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... already exists and is 73% of the way to coming into effect. No need for amendments when you have clever legal hackery!
  - GeneralMayhem 6y ago
    It's the last 20% that's the hardest, though (apart from the first 1%). No state with Republican leadership will ever sign it, because they know that they depend on minority rule. That means that the Democrats effectively have to run enough states to control the Electoral College anyway, and winning enough branches of a state legislature to pass laws is generally more difficult than winning that state in a presidential election. The one thing that's working in favor of the NPVIC happening is that it doesn't have to happen all at once, but that's a double-edged sword - if we get a state or two in the purpleish zone to sign on one year, but it's not enough to get to 270, then they could repeal it the next year. In particular, it'll be really interesting to see what happens if/when we get to the point where any state joining the NPVIC would push it over the edge. Would that state waver knowing that they're going to be the ones to press the big red button? You also have the judiciary to worry about. It's not obvious that the NPVIC is constitutional, and I highly doubt that the current Supreme Court, packed as it is with activist right-wing judges, would let it happen.
    - jackcosgrove 6y ago
      > You also have the judiciary to worry about. It's not obvious that the NPVIC is constitutional Interstate compacts without the blessing of the federal government are unconstitutional. This is because the federal government has sovereign power over interstate relations, and a bloc of states that coordinate action are effectively challenging that sovereign power. So if the NPVIC is passed, it would also need to be approved by federal legislation to be deemed constitutional.

vmception 6y ago

There are deeper cases for revisiting the Electoral College than "I don't like it when the popular vote doesn't favor me". One primary issue is that the Electors for each state are not elected. A patch for this and guidance for their behaviors is something that has to be addressed in each state on their own, with a few states here or there seeming to force Electors to submit certain information, such as the popular vote result. Revisiting the simpler argument about not liking the representation provided by the Electoral College, it is valid that its purpose was for a much smaller nation of like 12-14 states at time of inception. It should be obvious that this argument will fall flat because it will never reach the level of consensus necessary to change it, as you need 75% ratification of the states, most of which benefit from the Electoral College amplifying their vote and relevancy. There are better uses of energy. Regulating the Electors is a better use of energy, as there are real inefficiencies and a lack of accountability in who they are and what they do, as they can submit literally anything to Congress no matter what their own state voted for.

Kalium 6y ago
I think there's a quite strong argument that "I don't like it when the outcome doesn't favor me" is one of the worst available reasons to make major structural changes to a system of government. Major changes can easily be made for short-sighted, petty, power-seeking, partisan, or other unwise reasons. The US Constitution is difficult to change in no small part to guard against these. Every time I see someone advocating for an Amendment on the basis that they think it will favor their brand of partisanship, I inevitably find myself thinking that they're exactly what the system was designed to stop. Which is really deeply unfortunate on many levels. These are very often kind, compassionate, caring people who have correctly identified a very real problem in dire need of addressing.
kthejoker2 6y ago
Supreme Court ruled this year that that's not so, you can't be a faithless elector. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/885168480/supreme-court-rules-state-faithless-elector-laws-constitutional https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/885168480/supreme-court-rules...

HideousKojima 6y ago

The fight against the electoral college is one of those things that misses the forest for the trees. The real problem is that too much power has been vested in the federal government (and in the executive branch specifically), and too much power has been taken from the states. People would care a lot less about how the president gets elected if he didn't have so much control over the entire country.

HeavenFox 6y ago
I agree with you; in practice, however, when Alabama enacts anti-abortion law New Yorkers get pissed; when New Jersey enacts anti-gun law Texans get pissed. Everyone want to push their favorite ideology nationwide and the federal government grows as a result.
- gizmo686 6y ago
  More practically, states have open borders. In the world where the constitution was written, this was not as big of a deal. However, improvement to transportation technology mean that it has become increasingly possible to circumvent one states laws by traveling to another state. Hence, any law a state may want to make legitimatly becomes an issue of interstate commerce, which is nessasarily a federal concern [0]. For instance, when Alabama enacts their anti-abortion law, they could have a legitamite grievence that their residents can hop in a car and spend a weekend taking a road trip up to New York (assuming every closer state passes a simmilar law) and get their abortion there. Or, when New Jersey passes their anti-gun law, they can get pissed that their citizens can go to Texas to buy guns and take them back to New Jersey. We (arguably) fought a civil war over this issue. States had different laws with regards to slavery. The southern states were upset that their laws on slavery were being undermined by the ability of slaves to travel to northern states which would than grant their freedom. A compromise was struck were federal law (the fugitive slave act) would require northern states to honor the slave laws of southern states and return slaves. Some northern states asserted their states rights to not follow this law; thereby continuing to allow slaves freedom once they crossed the border. We may have had a civil war regardless; but if the northern states weren't able to directly undermine the slavery laws of the southern states, it may not have reached that point. [0] Although, even with modern transportation technology, Wickard v. Filburn (1942) takes a very broad view of what constitutes interstate commerce.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

What frustrates me about this constant argument is that there's a way to retain the electoral college, which serves to at least somewhat fairly designate votes by state populations, and still make every vote count: Make states assign electors proportionally. A couple states already do it, and if all fifty did, we'd have a much fairer system that is still somewhat insulated from differences in how states manage voting.

platz 6y ago

The electoral college itself isn't really the issue. It's the fact that states use winner-take-all apportionment of electors. Unlike the electoral college, winner-take-all apportionment isn't mandated in the constitution. You could have the electoral college and also distribute electors according to the share of popular vote each party received in that state.

compycom 6y ago
It's still an issue in that this wouldn't afford equal representation. The way the number of electors is determined is {senators + members of congress + 3}. Since the senate affords massively more representation per person to rural states, rural states will be overrepresented in this system as well.
- platz 6y ago
  small price to pay to unlock everyones' vote mattering instead of just a couple battleground states. Also, giving a bit more representation to less populous areas may be a feature you don't want to get rid of quite so hastily.
arthens 6y ago
This is definitely a huge factor. A 2 party system is another one. Some founding fathers even wrote against it [1] [1] https://ritholtz.com/2011/07/founding-fathers-beware-two-party-system/ https://ritholtz.com/2011/07/founding-fathers-beware-two-par...
Talanes 6y ago
True, but that's arguably just as difficult a change to make. Either getting enough State's to swap that the ones that don't are insignificant, or amend the Constitution. If it comes down to state-level changes, the threshold for that popular vote compact may be lower.
Mindless2112 6y ago
Maine and Nebraska are the two states that don't do winner-take-all. Most states won't switch to proportional allocation because the party with the most political power in a state is likely to lose electoral college votes by switching. > In forty-eight states and D.C., the winner of the plurality of the statewide vote receives all of that state's electors; in Maine and Nebraska, two electors are assigned in this manner and the remaining electors are allocated based on the plurality of votes in each congressional district.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...

baron816 6y ago

I’ve long been in favor of rewriting the constitution. Everyone hates how the government operates—courts are politicized and at risk of being captured, the legislature is at a constant impasse, everything is hyper partisan, the executive is either way too powerful, or not powerful enough. The only things people can point to that they like about the constitution are the first amendment, and sometimes the second and fourteenth amendments. Other countries have tried out different forms of representative government in the last 231 years. There’s a lot we can learn from them.

thayne 6y ago
I remember one of my teachers proudly saying how great the constitution was since it has hardly changed in 200 years. I now realize that while the constitution was great for it's time, the fact that we haven't changed it to apply what we've learned from both our own experience, and that of other democracie, or account for changes in technology and society, is not a good thing.
- nradov 6y ago
  The Constitution has been amended 27 times. That seems like enough.
- claytongulick 6y ago
  Do you belive that people have fundamentally changed in the past 200 years?
stmfreak 6y ago
With the way our legislature and senators are captives of lobbyists, global dictators and billionaires today, what makes you think a rewrite would be in your best interests? Or do you imagine the little people like us would have a say in such a rewrite?
Areading314 6y ago
There is a mechanism to amend the constitution, which has been used numerous times over the years, as the country and culture have shifted. I think it's somewhat naive to think, especially in the current climate, that a rewriting of the constitution would do anything to serve the people.

batch12 6y ago

If the nation was intended to be a union of states, then the electoral college is one mechanism that can be used to ensure that each state, as an entity, has an equal vote for federal leadership. I understand it as less of a person voting directly for the President, and more as each person voting for how their state should vote for President. The idea from the article that any argument for the electoral college is racist is a shallow attempt to quiet any real discussion. edit: grammar

oldertimer 6y ago

Dump states too while you're at it. Might as well divide people up by watersheds or timezones or tectonic plates.

labster 6y ago
That’s why they keep mining coal in West Virginia and Wyoming. Florida and Delaware will be under water and mountain states will be sitting pretty.

padseeker 6y ago

The threshold for changing the constitution is exceptionally high, requiring 38 states. If the Electoral college gives more power to smaller states, why are they going to give that power up? Why is Wyoming and North/South Dakota going to give up their more valuable electoral votes to get rid off the electoral college? Also it benefits one party over another. Unless there is overwhelming broad appeal, this isn't going to happen. The only way it would change is if the party that benefits from this structure were to suddenly lose because of it. Why would that happen? I understand how pro-democracy argument, but the logistics required to make this happen is far removed.

olivermarks 6y ago

The word democracy doesn't appear anywhere in the US republic's constitution. The USA was set up so that the electoral college had the final say over any populist choice of leadership, ie veto power. This is similar to the way the far more recent unelected EU commissioners are the senior decision and strategy makers. The issue is centralized federalism and how to dilute this.

jonathankoren 6y ago
A republic is a democracy. It’s just one that has a president, and not a king. That’s all it is. It’s not representatives It’s not federalism. It’s just not having a monarch.
- rudiv 6y ago
  I find a lot of Americans display a belief that 'democracy' can only refer to a direct democracy and 'republic' is the accurate term to refer to representational democracies, but with the implication often being that the point of representative democracy (vs direct democracy) is primarily to prevent majoritarianism or 'mob rule'. None of that meshes with my knowledge of political science gleaned from education in my home country (parliamentary system) or in the United States, so I really wonder where this idea began. As per my knowledge, representative democracies have an advantage over direct democracies primarily in ease of administration and legislation. I don't think there are any particularly strong reasons to suggest representative democracy is less prone to a tyranny of the majority than a direct democracy. My hypothesis is that the idea is borne out of a necessity to resolve the dissonance between the US founders and constitution being in many ways anti-democratic, with a culture that holds up democracy & freedom as its highest ideals. (democracy in this case defined as it would be in the dictionary)
  - jonathankoren 6y ago
    The "We're a republic, not a democracy," comes from the 1930s as an isolationist slogan to argue against getting involved with "the defense of democracies" (the FDR argument) during World War II. From there it became a quip from the John Birch Society to delegitimize a political party. I know that sounds, hyperbolic, but it's true. Jamelle Bouie recently did yeoman work tracking down it's start. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/opinion/aoc-crenshaw-republicans-democracy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/opinion/aoc-crenshaw-repu...

techman9 6y ago

I do wonder whether the electoral college system somewhat insulates the US from election tampering or voter fraud. The current system disaggregates election certification to the state level, which is then made official by a discrete vote of the electoral college. For instance, if Donald Trump wants to claim that the election was rigged or tampered with, it's sort of moot as it's ultimately up to the state electors. It feels like in the face of this, it's very hard for one candidate to dispute the election, as it's ultimately resolved by electoral vote. If we were to change the system to one based only a national first past the post poll, even one certified by vote totals from individual states, I wonder how you'd ensure an impartial certification of the final result.

cmurf 6y ago
We don't have the Electoral College Hamilton envisioned in Federalist 68. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp They were supposed to be regular people, not politicians. And certainly not the worst people ever conceived: party loyalists. That's The system we use. It's also not the ultimate decision making body. If the results are disputed, and no candidate gets 270 Electors, House of Representatives chooses the president, one vote per state. Senate choose VP, one vote per senator.
jonathankoren 6y ago
Elections are run by the states, not the federal government. We have — and would still have, since the electors aren’t even bound until after the election — to have 57 separate elections. It’s this separation that adds a level of security, not the EC.

seanwilson 6y ago

For people that complain a party won without the popular vote under the current rules, if you changed the rules for what defines winning, then that party would have campaigned in a completely different way E.g. under the old rules, maybe the winning party purposely didn't campaign in a state they knew they couldn't win (a logical use of campaign funds), dragging down their countrywide vote. If the countrywide vote was important though, they wouldn't have campaigned like this. You could argue that the current rules for winning don't accurately match the general will of the people but it's illogical to me to argue that the party that won under the current rules would have or should have lost if the rules changed. Making it easier for people to vote and getting more people to vote seems like a no-brainier improvement though.

LanceH 6y ago
It amazes me the sheer number of people that just don't get this. I personally believe that this influence Republicans to move a bit more center. but who knows? A good example of what could happen to close the national voting gap: Republicans would actually campaign in California and a few of the big blue states. Right now, someone voting for a republican in California has very little incentive to show up to vote. Republicans start campaigning there and the voters now have a reason to show up. Maybe not enough to close the gap completely, but it could close it a lot with no policy changes, just campaigning and a reason for people to show. The same could happen the other way, but the big population blue states are more abandoned by Republicans than the big red states are by dems (it seems). Anyhow, if you change the rules, the players are going to change their game.

mNovak 6y ago

I was interested to learn there's a sort of workaround to resolving the electoral college without a constitutional amendment, and it's some 70% of the way implemented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... Essentially, a block of states with sufficient electoral votes to determine the election legislates that they will cast their electoral votes in accordance with the national popular vote. It's interesting because it takes advantage of the large freedom states have to regulate their own electors, and substantially reduces the number of small states that have to get on board, as compared to an amendment. Obviously somewhat more fragile though, as states could in principle leave the pact later on.

judge2020 6y ago
There's also the issue with SCOTUS potentially declaring it an interstate compact (as defined by the Constitution's compact clause) and striking down its legality - although IIRC the point of that was preventing secession and it hasn't been used for anything else. I would think that other sorts of interstate compacts like the shared peach pass(GA)/sun pass(FL)/quick pass(NC) would be illegal if someone were to challenge the constitutionality of them under that clause.

throwawaysea 6y ago

This reads more like a case to end the United States of America. The fundamental problem is that ditching the electoral college will subject many people of varied opinions, backgrounds, lifestyles, and cultures to a tyranny of the majority (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority). This is already a problem even within states, where a few cities end up with enormous political power and can basically subject everyone else to their whims. The urban-rural divide is incredibly unhealthy (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/26/across-country-rural-communities-secede-states-why-column/4851817002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/26/across-cou...) and makes those subject to the tyranny of the majority lose belief in democracy because they feel unrepresented. The solution is not less electoral college but more, so people can live their own lives. And governments that are broader in geographical scope (state and federal) should have incredibly narrow political/legal scope, with the majority of power seated at more local levels. That is how everyone can feel represented, retains locality of culture, retain faith in the system, and coexist without eventual civil war.

compycom 6y ago

One half solution that people don't tend to bring up: massively increase the number of members of congress. The formula for a states representation in the electoral college is {number of senators + number of representatives}. Since the senate is fixed at 2 senators per state, it massively advantages small states in terms of political power per person. The number of representatives per state is currently set at 435, and is allocated proportionately to population. This number is arbitrary, and can be changed by an act of congress. Increasing it will dilute the power of the electors from the Senate. There's also compelling reason to increase the number of for its own sake: the number of people per representative is higher now than it has ever been. And it's much higher than other Western democracies. When the Constitution was written, the number of representatives was set so there'd be one for every 30,000 people. The idea was that the number would be increased over time, and there was almost almost an amendment ratified to ensure this would happen, where the ratio would never get above 50,000 per. But the number of representatives hasn't been updated since 1929. Back then, there was one representative per 218,000 people. Now there's one representative per 744,000. If we had the 1929 ratio in place, we'd have 1505 representatives. And if we set representatives at 50,000 per person (as preferred by founders such as Washington), we'd have 6564.

threatofrain 6y ago
Also deliberation happens behind closed doors and not in front of C-SPAN.
scarface74 6y ago
Which doesn’t help since the Senate has far more power than the house. It confirms judges who have lifetime appointments and cabinet members.
ryathal 6y ago
This is important for way more than just Presidential elections. It helps solve the money in politics problem as well by diluting power and making representatives more accountable.