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This is false. The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The electoral college does not matter. They go the way their states go as was made quite clear i

by fjabre 6y ago

This is false. The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The electoral college does not matter. They go the way their states go as was made quite clear in the last election. EDIT: Of course it matters how the voting system was designed. The EC votes the way their State votes. The forefathers intended for states to have some say in the matter. We are a representative democracy. That is how the system was designed.

triceratops 6y ago
> The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The key term is "now". After getting about 40m more votes. Be honest. Is that balanced?
- fjabre 6y ago
  Was just pointing out it's quite clear that the nation itself is left leaning. That's honest by the numbers. To say the Republicans have any kind of advantage right now except for maybe the courts is incorrect.
  - takeda 6y ago
    They had to lose by 7 million votes to actually lose, I would say they have quite advantage. As another user said: "The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans"
    - fjabre 6y ago
      We are a representative democracy for a reason. It was designed that way. You can't change the rules of the game because you're losing. The United States was designed as a representative democracy on purpose by the forefathers. That is fact.
      - sjwright 6y ago
        Just because something was designed for a specific purpose a few hundred years ago doesn't mean it serves that same purpose today. Situations change. The Constitution was designed to be amended.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        "representative democracy" does not require the structure of the US senate, nor state districting policies, nor the electoral college. There are many other representative democracies that do not have any of these "features". Also, I thought a reply ago, you stated that the left was winning, not losing.
        fjabre 6y ago
        The left is winning. I lean left on a lot of issues. I have no issue with this. I also believe that they cheated. I don't need evidence. Their motive was highly incentivized. The cost too great. The dems definitely cheated. That's what I believe. But so did the other side.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        > We are a representative democracy And the argument is that this democracy isn't sufficiently "representative", since it doesn't represent everyone equally. Indeed that's an explicit non-goal. > You can't change the rules of the game because you're losing. But you can agree that the rules of the game are rigged against one side. You don't get to deny that just because you're winning.
      - colinmhayes 6y ago
        It was designed to be unfair. The small states threw a fit at the constitutional convention so now we're stuck with this bs. Why does representative democracy mean some people are more represented than others? Why can't everyone be equally represented in a representative democracy?
        triceratops 6y ago
xxpor 6y ago
You can not seriously argue the EC doesn't matter when the republicans have won the popular vote once since 1988 yet have held the presidency for 3 terms.
- fjabre 6y ago
  It's just a bunch of State puppets who do the State's bidding in almost all cases. Each state gets numbers by its population. Great. Forefathers intended it this way. I think that's fair. It stops a giant mob from overpowering the system. Unless you take over the Post office and use it as a voting system, which dems clearly did here. I don't think a direct democracy would work in the US. I like representative democracies.
  - gowld 6y ago
    > Each state gets numbers by its population. This is false, and the core of the criticism of the EC. Each state gets 2 votes independent of its population, which is biased toward small population states, and for over a century the definition of states was constrained by a compromise to protect slavery.
    - fjabre 6y ago
      California has more electors than Vermont.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        You're still missing the point. The lowest number of electors a state can have is three. Mathematically, this biases the EC in favor of low population states. The same approach (all states having two senators) biases the Senate in favor of low population states. This appears to have been intentional on the part of the founders, but that doesn't make it right. [ EDIT: s/two/three/ ]
        fjabre 6y ago
betterunix2 6y ago
The electoral college absolutely does matter and absolutely does favor right wing politicians (for now). Every state gets a minimum of three electoral votes regardless of their population, so as a result, a single vote in a sparsely populated state like Wyoming has up to four times the influence that a single vote in a densely populated state like NJ has. The current political make-up of the country is such that right-wing politicians find far greater support in rural areas and thus are favored by the electoral college. So far only right-wing politicians have managed to win the electoral college without winning a majority in the popular vote. Similar logic applies to the Senate: regardless of population every state gets two senators. Right-wing senators have received fewer actual votes (by individual voters) than left-wing senators for years, yet in that time right-wing control of the senate has been more common than left-wing control. Right now the split in the Senate is 50-50 (Vice President, a Democrat, breaks the tie) but the total number of votes cast for Democratic senators was much higher than the number cast for Republicans. You literally have to deny reality when you deny that the electoral college and the senate represent a structural advantage for Republicans right now.
- fjabre 6y ago
  Reality is that the Dems own the entire congress and the presidency right now. Reality is we are representative democracy. The forefathers deliberately designed it that way. Reality must line up with your arguments. It does not. If what you say is true, Trump would most likely be president right now. Dems own entire cities with the largest population centers. Dems have better organized grassroots. Dems have California and New York, the main stream media. What advantages you speak of are moot compared to those ones. We are a representative democracy and we always have been.
maxerickson 6y ago
Yes, we should change the system. It was a compromise that is now well outdated.
- fjabre 6y ago
  Appreciate your honesty even if I disagree. I like the way it is setup. It stops the big states from pushing around the little ones too much.
- ben509 6y ago
  The entire premise of a republic is that power is checked and balanced. The aim is not to represent the "will of the people", because the will of a majority is frequently to oppress a minority. The EC was more than a compromise, it was an integral part of a system that prevents too much power being handed to any one institution or demographic. And forcing national candidates to appeal to a multitude of states rather than a handful of cities has a moderating effect. If anything, what's outdated about the EC is we need more checks on the political influence that is centralized in cities because the founders didn't anticipate urbanization.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    And the current system allows the minority to oppress the majority. I don't see how that is better. What we actually need is ranked choice or proportional representation so that we can have more than 2 parties.

by fjabre 6y ago

triceratops 6y ago

> The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The key term is "now". After getting about 40m more votes. Be honest. Is that balanced?

fjabre 6y ago
Was just pointing out it's quite clear that the nation itself is left leaning. That's honest by the numbers. To say the Republicans have any kind of advantage right now except for maybe the courts is incorrect.
- takeda 6y ago
  They had to lose by 7 million votes to actually lose, I would say they have quite advantage. As another user said: "The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans"
  - fjabre 6y ago
    We are a representative democracy for a reason. It was designed that way. You can't change the rules of the game because you're losing. The United States was designed as a representative democracy on purpose by the forefathers. That is fact.
    - sjwright 6y ago
      Just because something was designed for a specific purpose a few hundred years ago doesn't mean it serves that same purpose today. Situations change. The Constitution was designed to be amended.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      "representative democracy" does not require the structure of the US senate, nor state districting policies, nor the electoral college. There are many other representative democracies that do not have any of these "features". Also, I thought a reply ago, you stated that the left was winning, not losing.
      - fjabre 6y ago
        The left is winning. I lean left on a lot of issues. I have no issue with this. I also believe that they cheated. I don't need evidence. Their motive was highly incentivized. The cost too great. The dems definitely cheated. That's what I believe. But so did the other side.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > We are a representative democracy And the argument is that this democracy isn't sufficiently "representative", since it doesn't represent everyone equally. Indeed that's an explicit non-goal. > You can't change the rules of the game because you're losing. But you can agree that the rules of the game are rigged against one side. You don't get to deny that just because you're winning.
    - colinmhayes 6y ago
      It was designed to be unfair. The small states threw a fit at the constitutional convention so now we're stuck with this bs. Why does representative democracy mean some people are more represented than others? Why can't everyone be equally represented in a representative democracy?
      - triceratops 6y ago

xxpor 6y ago

You can not seriously argue the EC doesn't matter when the republicans have won the popular vote once since 1988 yet have held the presidency for 3 terms.

fjabre 6y ago
It's just a bunch of State puppets who do the State's bidding in almost all cases. Each state gets numbers by its population. Great. Forefathers intended it this way. I think that's fair. It stops a giant mob from overpowering the system. Unless you take over the Post office and use it as a voting system, which dems clearly did here. I don't think a direct democracy would work in the US. I like representative democracies.
- gowld 6y ago
  > Each state gets numbers by its population. This is false, and the core of the criticism of the EC. Each state gets 2 votes independent of its population, which is biased toward small population states, and for over a century the definition of states was constrained by a compromise to protect slavery.
  - fjabre 6y ago
    California has more electors than Vermont.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      You're still missing the point. The lowest number of electors a state can have is three. Mathematically, this biases the EC in favor of low population states. The same approach (all states having two senators) biases the Senate in favor of low population states. This appears to have been intentional on the part of the founders, but that doesn't make it right. [ EDIT: s/two/three/ ]
      - fjabre 6y ago

betterunix2 6y ago

The electoral college absolutely does matter and absolutely does favor right wing politicians (for now). Every state gets a minimum of three electoral votes regardless of their population, so as a result, a single vote in a sparsely populated state like Wyoming has up to four times the influence that a single vote in a densely populated state like NJ has. The current political make-up of the country is such that right-wing politicians find far greater support in rural areas and thus are favored by the electoral college. So far only right-wing politicians have managed to win the electoral college without winning a majority in the popular vote. Similar logic applies to the Senate: regardless of population every state gets two senators. Right-wing senators have received fewer actual votes (by individual voters) than left-wing senators for years, yet in that time right-wing control of the senate has been more common than left-wing control. Right now the split in the Senate is 50-50 (Vice President, a Democrat, breaks the tie) but the total number of votes cast for Democratic senators was much higher than the number cast for Republicans. You literally have to deny reality when you deny that the electoral college and the senate represent a structural advantage for Republicans right now.

fjabre 6y ago
Reality is that the Dems own the entire congress and the presidency right now. Reality is we are representative democracy. The forefathers deliberately designed it that way. Reality must line up with your arguments. It does not. If what you say is true, Trump would most likely be president right now. Dems own entire cities with the largest population centers. Dems have better organized grassroots. Dems have California and New York, the main stream media. What advantages you speak of are moot compared to those ones. We are a representative democracy and we always have been.

maxerickson 6y ago

Yes, we should change the system. It was a compromise that is now well outdated.

fjabre 6y ago
Appreciate your honesty even if I disagree. I like the way it is setup. It stops the big states from pushing around the little ones too much.
ben509 6y ago
The entire premise of a republic is that power is checked and balanced. The aim is not to represent the "will of the people", because the will of a majority is frequently to oppress a minority. The EC was more than a compromise, it was an integral part of a system that prevents too much power being handed to any one institution or demographic. And forcing national candidates to appeal to a multitude of states rather than a handful of cities has a moderating effect. If anything, what's outdated about the EC is we need more checks on the political influence that is centralized in cities because the founders didn't anticipate urbanization.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  And the current system allows the minority to oppress the majority. I don't see how that is better. What we actually need is ranked choice or proportional representation so that we can have more than 2 parties.