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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.

by xxpor 6y ago

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
        Yes it was designed for this purpose. That's what I'm saying. So big states couldn't bully around small ones.
        triceratops 6y ago
        I guess it's better for small states to bully around big ones instead?
        PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        In just a few years, 30% of the US population will be responsible for electing 70% of the Senate. How is that not "bullying"? How does that play any role in an actual democratic nation, as opposed to some pre-Lincoln concept of the US a series of independent states merely "unioned"? The answer is obvious: it doesn't.
    - DFHippie 6y ago
      Vermont supports abolishing the Electoral College. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
    - xxpor 6y ago
      623,989/3 = 207996.333333 39,510,000/55 = 718363.636364
      - fjabre 6y ago
        So what? That's the point.
        xxpor 6y ago
        You might have had a minimal argument pre-17th Amendment, but that's not how the world works any more. In addition, there's 0 reason for the house to be as malapportioned as it is. 435 house members isn't written in the constitution. Third, the entire concept of smaller states having an outsized voice in the federal government comes from the slave owners from the South in 1789. There's no rational basis for it any longer. People like to pretend the founders were deities and the constitution is handed down from god. But they weren't and it wasn't. A lot of their ideas were really stupid. I mean JFC, we couldn't even get through 3 elections before they had to redo it. Vermont has a lot more in common these days with California than it does North Dakota. The EC and Senate are outmoded relics from a stupider time that should be abolished.
        nobody9999 6y ago
        >Third, the entire concept of smaller states having an outsized voice in the federal government comes from the slave owners from the South in 1789. There's no rational basis for it any longer. No. It had to do with Connecticut, New Jersey and other small population states who wouldn't have ratified the Constitution unless there was state representation (as we have in the Senate) to balance out the representation by population (cf. The Connecticut Compromise[0]). The southern states had (or expected to have) large populations, and as such, wanted representation by population. History and facts matter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
        dragonwriter 6y ago
    - triceratops 6y ago
      A hypothetical state with 3 people, if admitted to the Union, would have the same number of electors as Wyoming. Clearly sheer numbers are meaningless. And you know that, you just want to argue in bad faith.
- joelkevinjones 6y ago
  What do you mean by saying that democrats took over the post office? I assume you mean the USPS? The postmaster general was appointed by Trump. The senate until just last week had a Republican majority. Exactly how did the Democrats exercise power to "take over"?
  - fjabre 6y ago
    Dems pushed the use of the USPS as a general voting system. Terrible idea. The USPS was not designed this way. Dems knew they could leverage their population dense cities to win this using USPS. To say that one side is clean and the other is corrupt is clearly incorrect. They both cheat. They both cheat a lot. The dems just cheated better this time.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      You have no evidence of cheating in this election that has been accepted by any court. You have no evidence that USPS function "favored" Democrats. You are perpetuating the lies that have been told by the former president and his supporters for the last 2+ months.
      - fjabre 6y ago
        You're right. The dems would never cheat. Don't care that they did. They just cheated better this time.
    - DFHippie 6y ago
      The Democrats wanted the USPS to deliver the mail. They also wanted people to be able to vote through the mail because we are in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years. This is different from treating the USPS as a general voting system. You are arguing that the Democrats cheated more than the Republicans, or "better". Do you have any evidence of this? This needs to be evidence from the past election, not Chicago in 1962 or something.
      - fjabre 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.

by 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
      Yes it was designed for this purpose. That's what I'm saying. So big states couldn't bully around small ones.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        I guess it's better for small states to bully around big ones instead?
      - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        In just a few years, 30% of the US population will be responsible for electing 70% of the Senate. How is that not "bullying"? How does that play any role in an actual democratic nation, as opposed to some pre-Lincoln concept of the US a series of independent states merely "unioned"? The answer is obvious: it doesn't.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    Vermont supports abolishing the Electoral College. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
  - xxpor 6y ago
    623,989/3 = 207996.333333 39,510,000/55 = 718363.636364
    - fjabre 6y ago
      So what? That's the point.
      - xxpor 6y ago
        You might have had a minimal argument pre-17th Amendment, but that's not how the world works any more. In addition, there's 0 reason for the house to be as malapportioned as it is. 435 house members isn't written in the constitution. Third, the entire concept of smaller states having an outsized voice in the federal government comes from the slave owners from the South in 1789. There's no rational basis for it any longer. People like to pretend the founders were deities and the constitution is handed down from god. But they weren't and it wasn't. A lot of their ideas were really stupid. I mean JFC, we couldn't even get through 3 elections before they had to redo it. Vermont has a lot more in common these days with California than it does North Dakota. The EC and Senate are outmoded relics from a stupider time that should be abolished.
        nobody9999 6y ago
        >Third, the entire concept of smaller states having an outsized voice in the federal government comes from the slave owners from the South in 1789. There's no rational basis for it any longer. No. It had to do with Connecticut, New Jersey and other small population states who wouldn't have ratified the Constitution unless there was state representation (as we have in the Senate) to balance out the representation by population (cf. The Connecticut Compromise[0]). The southern states had (or expected to have) large populations, and as such, wanted representation by population. History and facts matter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
        dragonwriter 6y ago
  - triceratops 6y ago
    A hypothetical state with 3 people, if admitted to the Union, would have the same number of electors as Wyoming. Clearly sheer numbers are meaningless. And you know that, you just want to argue in bad faith.
joelkevinjones 6y ago
What do you mean by saying that democrats took over the post office? I assume you mean the USPS? The postmaster general was appointed by Trump. The senate until just last week had a Republican majority. Exactly how did the Democrats exercise power to "take over"?
- fjabre 6y ago
  Dems pushed the use of the USPS as a general voting system. Terrible idea. The USPS was not designed this way. Dems knew they could leverage their population dense cities to win this using USPS. To say that one side is clean and the other is corrupt is clearly incorrect. They both cheat. They both cheat a lot. The dems just cheated better this time.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    You have no evidence of cheating in this election that has been accepted by any court. You have no evidence that USPS function "favored" Democrats. You are perpetuating the lies that have been told by the former president and his supporters for the last 2+ months.
    - fjabre 6y ago
      You're right. The dems would never cheat. Don't care that they did. They just cheated better this time.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    The Democrats wanted the USPS to deliver the mail. They also wanted people to be able to vote through the mail because we are in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years. This is different from treating the USPS as a general voting system. You are arguing that the Democrats cheated more than the Republicans, or "better". Do you have any evidence of this? This needs to be evidence from the past election, not Chicago in 1962 or something.
    - fjabre 6y ago