9 ms·
An amendment to the Constitution of the USA to abolish the electoral college
- LinuxBender 6y agoWhat are the pros and cons to moving to a purely populous voting system? Have other countries made this move and how did it play out? I bet someone here is an expert on this topic.
- buffaloo 6y agoAristotle and others gave some thought to the polity vs. democracy. The electoral college is one of the checks on the possibility of the tyranny of the masses, polity perverted to democratic demagoguery. The crude version is: The red states feed the blue states, so better keep them happy - electoral college is one of the checks that performs that function.
- perardi 6y agoThe red states feed the blue states, so better keep them happy - electoral college is one of the checks that performs that function. You’d think the giant bribes—oops, I mean, farm subsidies would help with that. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/trump-farmers-subsidies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/trump-farmers...
- perardi 6y agoAnd for those downvoting me: I grew up in a town called Farmington. My family gets these big fat subsidies. Which I sure do appreciate! Doesn’t mean it’s not a tremendous distortion of the market and the environment.
- nradov 6y agoThat depends which blue states you mean. California and some others are net agricultural exporters.
- geofft 6y agoWait, do the red states actually feed the blue states? https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/state-export-data/annual-state-agricultural-exports/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/state-export-data/ann... says the top exporters are California (blue), Iowa (purple), Illinois (blue), Minnesota (blue), Nebraska (red), and Texas (red). And even so, the margins are not huge - at most about 2/3 and 1/3, and usually closer - so the idea of "red states" or "blue states" doesn't quite make sense, I think. EDIT: I ran the data - looking at the 2020 results (and rounding off Maine to D and Nebraska to R), "blue" states have $64B agricultural exports and "red" states have $73B agricultural exports. So the answer is that while red states export a bit more, it can hardly be described as one feeding the other.
- alwillis 6y agoGoing to a popular vote system essentially means the Republican Party as currently constructed would have a very difficult time winning the presidency. The democratic nominee has won the popular vote in 7 out of the 8 previous presidential elections, including 2016 when Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 but lost the Electoral College to George Bush.
- exclusiv 6y agoIf your goal is a United States, then purely populous isn't ideal. Electoral college essentially requires cross-regional appeal in order to win. We also have to remember that there are some really key states to the US that don't have population. Ex: Alaska and Hawaii. It's not good to lose states (or regions) from the union based purely on votes cast from more populated regions. But it does need to be damn close to # of votes. The electoral college is not perfect but it's pretty masterful.
- berdario 6y agoHow does normalizing Alaska and Hawaii's representation to their population cause them to be "lost from the union"? Puerto Rico has 0 representation, and yet they're still part of the united states (ok, plenty of puerto rican might want a different arrangement... but my point is that you'll lose Puerto Rico before losing Alaska)
- exclusiv 6y agoI'm just saying that if a small subset of states (NY/CA/TX/FL,etc) essentially could pick the President as an example, you run the risk of alienating a lot of states, including some that are really important, but have small populations. And it could get to the point where they wish to exit the union. Let's say you lose the farmland and Alaska and some other important, but low population states. Is that worth it so everyone could say that the most votes will always win? We already have a system where candidates can just ignore states. They really can't ignore regions though with the electoral college. They have to have some cross regional appeal to win. That's a good thing. Straight popular votes is too risky for little gain. I care more about the states and their rights, the preservation of the union, the country's assets, and other things than ensuring that every vote is counted 1:1 in practice. For many, yes, their vote will not matter depending on who they vote for and where they live. But the founders anticipated more than most realize. It's like when you have an election with 10 candidates. Nobody gets a majority, but some people are like - whoever gets the most votes should win! That's not likely to be the best result. I'm a big fan of keeping it simple. But I don't believe a straight popular vote would be a better system with our history, today's divisiveness and the goals of preserving the union.
- RicoElectrico 6y agoI am not from the US, but probably not gonna happen due to state politics? As in the whole point of EC is that mostly urbanized states won't overwhelm the sparsely populated ones?
- zepto 6y ago“ As in the whole point of EC is that mostly urbanized states won't overwhelm the sparsely populated ones?” Pretty much. Also the idea that the election would have been the same only less close if the EC was abolished is a fiction. It would just change where the battleground states are, largely to the places with the biggest urban populations.
- wan23 6y agoPeople always say this, but it doesn't make sense. The reason there is such a thing as a battleground state is because some voters matter and others do not, thanks to the EC. Look at this map from the 2016 election. New York is almost all red, but Trump didn't even bother courting voters there because their votes matter not at all. If there were a national popular vote, then every vote everywhere would matter. No candidate could focus on a few places if they want to win, because the whole country would be in play.
- simonsarris 6y agoExcept 83% of the USA population lives in urban areas. Parent comment is suggesting that any candidate would rationally only focus on urban areas, urban issues, urban trends, etc.
- zepto 6y agoExactly - high population density areas would become the battlegrounds. Nobody outside a city would matter.
- wan23 6y agoIn our first past the post voting system, the parties will gravitate to positions that roughly 50% of the people have. If there were two candidates that were both ignoring rural areas and were 50/50 with urbanites, it would be only rational for one to try to capture the remaining 17% of people who live in rural areas. That would make it so that the candidate who ignores the rural population would be a sure loser. The only thing that could happen then would be that the other party also fights for the rural vote or that they try to claim a larger share of the urban vote to make up for their disadvantage in rural communities. In either case, votes from the entire country would matter.
- thesuperbigfrog 6y ago“Pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” – James Madison, Federalist 10, 1787 This bill is unlikely to pass in the Senate. Why would lower-population states reduce their own representation power?
- geofft 6y agoThe amount of empirical data about pure democracies that James Madison had in 1787 is minuscule compared to the amount of empirical data anyone with a free half hour and a connection to Wikipedia has today. (Madison was also a slaveowner and an advocate of expanding slavery into new territories. Now, yes, he was apparently considerate to his slaves compared to the average slaveowners, and I suppose you could make the "by the standards of his time" argument, but - the standards of his time were that you could literally own slaves and still be a considerate person and a respected authority on fair republican government.)
- kemitchell 6y agoThis isn't a proposal for pure democracy. Depending on how you define it, that would require proportional allocation of the senate, or its abolition, as well. Our not-so-pure democracy, based on the constitution Madison signed, has lately been quite the spectacle and proved incompatible with basic rights and security. It hasn't lasted very long, and arguably fell apart in 1860. Our president elect has been alive for a third of its lifespan, counting the long way from 1788. Which is another way of saying our president elect is pretty old, and our government pretty young. There are founders aplenty to quote on the necessity of amendment, as well. But without further research, I'd guess trouble in the Senate, too.
- dane-pgp 6y ago> Why would lower-population states reduce their own representation power? That is why the supporters of this amendment (and similar approaches like the NPVIC) should be prepared to settle for a compromise which preserves the disproportionate power of the lower-population states. In fact, such a compromise was proposed in 1950, with the bipartisan Lodge-Gossett Amendment[0]. The idea behind it was that the electors in each state would have to vote proportionally to the popular vote within that state while not changing the number of electors granted to each state. Because of the small number of electors in some states, rounding issues can be quite significant in some situations, and I believe the proposal required fractional electoral voters, representing a tenth of a percent of the state popular vote. [0] https://www.fairvote.org/past_attempts_at_reform https://www.fairvote.org/past_attempts_at_reform
- bawolff 6y agoIm not amercian, but isn't one of the factors that lead to "trump", a feeling that rural was very different than urban, and that rural felt disenfrsnchised, so they went for the demagogue who wanted to burn the world down ("drain the swamp") Seems like effectively reducing rural voting power would just inflame tensions
- mattnewton 6y ago> Seems like effectively reducing rural voting power would just inflame tensions I don’t know why that means we should be stuck with continuing to give small and predominantly rural states disproportionately higher representation. This feels like the mindset of someone stuck in an abusive relationship.
- anewaccount2021 6y agoI'm pretty sure in the next ten years that will be fixed.
- dkjaudyeqooe 6y agoWhat's the argument for rural votes currently having disproportionally more power than other votes?
- drak0n1c 6y agoFears of Tyranny of the majority, with our geographic size and mutual ignorance of each others' local concerns. An extreme depiction in popular culture is the domination of rural districts in "The Hunger Games". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
- mattnewton 6y agoTyranny of the majority is avoided by giving organized minority parties rights, so they can negotiate from positions of weakness, not arbitrarily choosing a minority to have disproportionate representation. Our current system of democracy suffers because we can attack a much smaller % of the population with misinformation, and rural voters are more efficient to target.
- perardi 6y agoThe Electoral College is not going away via an amendment. No small state Senator would vote for that, nor would any small state legislature. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact? Maybe. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/12/09/how-to-get-rid-of-the-electoral-college/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/12/09/how-to-get-...
- wl 6y agoThe National Popular Vote Compact still needs the approval of Congress. > No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. US Constitution, Art. I §10 Cl. 3
- perardi 6y agoYes, but that is a “simple”* majority vote, and not the 2/3 majority needed in the House, Senate, and the states. *not that any majority is simple these days, but you get what I mean.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- BugsJustFindMe 6y agohttps://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.16#myth_9.16.5 https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/section_9.16#myth_9.16.5 says that the Supreme Court has on several occasions interpreted that clause differently. The rule so far appears to be that it only applies if the states try to oppose the power of the federal government, but that doesn't apply to voting because control of vote apportionment is given to the states.
- jack_h 6y agoThis source is particularly biased for obvious reasons. Legally speaking there are a lot of open questions surrounding NPVIC and anyone claiming anything at this point should be looked at with a heavy dose of skepticism. There are good arguments on both sides but they're not dispositive.
- anewaccount2021 6y agoThe Constitution will never again be amended, because you will never get 2/3 of States to ever agree on anything, ever. As it stands, such an amendment would require rural citizens to effectively eliminate themselves from the electoral system. They will never consent to this and why would they? Since State legislatures are also not pure popular-votes, this assures that nothing remotely resembling this will ever happen. No rural voting district will consent to being washed out by a large metro.
- adamdonahue 6y agoHorrible idea.
- dkjaudyeqooe 6y agoSo the current system where some people's votes are worth thousands of other people's votes is better?
- delecti 6y agoI'm no fan of the electoral college, but the highest ratio is only about a 3-4x difference comparing population vs electoral votes. Certainly not thousands of times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#/media/File:US_2010_Census_State_Population_Per_Electoral_Vote.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...
- sokoloff 6y agoWhere is an example of such a gross difference in voting power?
- adamdonahue 6y agoPeople who support this tend to be largely uneducated in our system of government and Constitutional history, and are typically located in urban areas where of course they would benefit from this.
- codemac 6y agoWhat? This starts with counting slaves as 3/5th a citizen, and thus letting states with slavery to increase their influence in the electoral college. At no time has this been about "urban vs rural". It was a compromise to keep slave-money in the US.
- geofft 6y agoWhat's your evidence for this claim? (For instance, the idea of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact was suggested by by a Yale professor of constitutional law, a UC professor of constitutional law, and the a Northwestern professor of constitutional law and former dean, so I doubt they are uneducated in our system of government and Constitutional history. But I suppose you're referring to popular support in general.)
- kemitchell 6y agoAd hominem. Personal attack and guilt by association. Americans are as a rule uneducated in our system of government. And it would be a tremendous waste to make 300 million constitutional law professors. From experience, I expect that would increase disagreements about the constitution, not resolve them all.
- c1ccccc1 6y agoIt's generally more productive to talk about the reasons why a proposed change is or isn't valuable than to talk about the kinds of people who believe it. I could construct a mirror version of your comment: "People who oppose this tend to be largely uneducated in the theory of voting systems and are typically located in rural areas, where of course they would benefit from the status quo." But such statements aren't really helpful if one is trying to come to a conclusion about an issue. IMHO, some kind of electoral reform is needed, though probably not this particular bill. The current system forces the political landscape into a two party state very strongly right now, which I think has caused the nation a lot of damage. As someone once said, whose name I don't remember at the moment, "a two party state means that things can get arbitrarily bad, so long as the two parties get worse at equal rates." As I understand it, a major concern of the drafters of the Constitution was to ensure that less populous states had enough power to prevent more populous states from bullying them into submission. I agree with that ideal, and think that any new system should conserve it. One possible option is to keep the electoral college, and the current relative weighting of densely vs. sparsely populated states, but to use something like approval-voting, or score-voting instead of FPTP. That would both weaken the two party stranglehold, and preserve the current weighting of state votes. I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on such a system?
- jimmyswimmy 6y agoIt's probably about time this happened, but it is unlikely to occur as an amendment. The least populous states would instantly lose even the minimal power they have, and it would disadvantage the party of the rural, until such time as they can reconfigure themselves to appeal to city dwellers. Doesn't seem likely. In any event, the simple fact that the electoral college allows a tie is reason enough to eliminate it, to me. What happened in 2020 is nothing compared to what we can expect in the event of an electoral college tie.
- throwaway2245 6y agoAbolish the Presidency. Presidential systems give too much power to a single person, which only entrenches partisanship and the worst of politics.
- dane-pgp 6y agoOr just vastly reduce the president's (and federal government's) powers. If the individual states could decide their own drug policy, gun policy, marriage policy, and the point at which life begins, then the campaign for president could focus largely on trade and military policies.
- krapp 6y agoThis is an interesting idea. So many of the problems with American politics seem rooted in the Presidency, either its powers or the politics and system of election, etc. So why do we need a President? Other than "Because the Constitution says," why not a Prime Minster, or no one at all?
- gonational 6y agoFranklin said, “a republic, if you can keep it”. Prior to the mid-1800s there wasn’t even a popular vote; people voted for their representatives and the representatives chose the president. This slippery slope of republic -> republic with a popular vote -> republic w/ referendums -> full democracy will be our undoing.
- dane-pgp 6y agoHamilton said: "But a representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable." Is there any evidence that countries or US states which allow referendums have worse political environments than those which forbid them? Also, how many countries and states that allow referendums have fallen down the slippery slope from there to "full democracy" and whatever disaster you picture at the bottom of that slope?
- gonational 6y ago> how many countries and states that allow referendums have fallen down the slippery slope from there to "full democracy" A joke, right? I can’t speak for all states, but the last midterms in FL alone had 10 referendums, some of which changed the state forever in big ways, constitutional amendments, etc. (e.g., allowing felons to vote, permanent tax changes, etc.). If you think that doesn’t represent a low enough bottom of that slippery slope, you’re out of your fucking mind.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago"A joke, right?" Do you have any better example of the horror? Allowing felons to vote sounds correct to me. It also sounds correct to me that we each get to vote about that correctness rather than your opinion being the one that matters. "tax changes" is not bad or good until you define the nature of the changes and successfully convince everyone else that they are bad. (that darn "your opinion is merely your opinion" thing again)
- jostmey 6y agoThe beauty of the current system is that the federal government gets no say in who is president by placing the election into the hands of the States. Imagine what Trump could have done if the federal government oversaw elections. The electoral college needs updated, but it might not be a good idea to replace it with a popular vote administered by the federal government
- tobib 6y agoSee Canada for an example of an independent federal institution overseeing the elections, see https://www.elections.ca https://www.elections.ca
- jostmey 6y agoI believe the US requires stronger safeguards. The temptations to abuse power so great, the feeling that it is necessary to steer the world in the "right" direction by holding onto office so immense, that any centralized election system will be abused. The decentralized election system of the US is extremely resilient to tampering from the top. I personally believe the decentralized nature of the US election system is vital to its democracy. Think of the decentralized election system as a check and balance on power rather than a fair count of each person's vote. That said, I think the US needs to do away with the electoral college middlemen and replace it with a direct vote tallied by each county that is reported by each State. The US also needs to make gerrymandering illegal
- benjohnson 6y agoI’d like to keep some sort of state partitioning and vastly improved voting security. That was one poorly functioning state can’t claim that they had 100% voter turnout and skew the entire result.
- barnaclejive 6y agoYES PLEASE
- joelhoffman 6y agoThis will be on the table the day after Texas votes for a Democratic candidate. Not before. Hopefully we can get the first-past-the-post language out of it before then.
- naebother 6y agoMore likely we'll voluntarily abolish the US.