Electoral college

[Danny Bateman]

I was told Trump was going to win California and New York.

 

I feel like I've been lied to.

[HuskerNation1]

 

As I said in another thread, those arguing that the electoral college should be dropped because HIllary would have won are making a huge assumption that would have actually happened. Hillary racked up HUGE vote margins in states that Trump did not spend one minute in (like CA, IL, and NY), and hence the margins were extremely high there. When you look at those battleground states both competed in, Trump's campaign and efforts allowed him to get the better of her.

 

I read another article today that explained it this way...it would be like playing a basketball game where one team has won, and then arguing that had the 3-point line not been allowed the other team would have won. You can't draw conclusions on how the outcome might have differed when you are talking about a completely different way of playing the game.

I don't think anyone is saying that (at least here). And a lot of people just found it funny/ironic that Trump earlier said that the electoral college was a disaster and then won with it. And I would argue that Hillary did the same thing in states that she knew she wouldn't win. It goes both ways.

 

 

Folks on this board may not be saying it, but are you keeping up with all the nastiness coming from the Progressive left right now. I am all fine with protests, but calling for or committing violence is not acceptable, and at some point the peaceful protesters are going to have to accept the result and move on with their lives.

[84HuskerLaw]

The primary purpose for the electoral college is to put a degree of protection and assuance in place that some kind of disasterous mistake and or malfeasance such as the high liklihood of voter fraud and cheating. For example, it is abundantly clear that California and New York with extremely large populations could easily cast nearly as many votes, theoretically speaking, as say the rest of the all the states west of the Mississippi. With dishonest voting (vote counting and reporting false numbers for example), in a simple popular election, California and New York Democrat insiders within the vote counting and reporting process could over report Dem votes by millions and under report Rep vote by millions, thereby changing the outcome of the election, easily. This would be the case this year, for example, just using California as the numbers show Hillary actually got more total popular votes when combining all of the votes that the states and DC and etc reported. If she 'won' the popular vote on a nationwide basis by say 1 million votes. Voter turnout is different as a percentage of population in each state for any number of reasons. This is easily understandable in an election year when the eastern half of the country has a blizzard snowstorm on Nov. 8th and this causes total voter turnout in that half of the nation to be reduced by a substantial amount. To simply say that the President is elected by a nationwide 'gross' vote would enable a handfull of voting cheats to over report the votes from California and change the outcome of the race entirely. This would then create massive outcry actross the country as the several states would immediately call into question the reliability of the vote data from all the others. Eventually, I suspect the entire 'union' would collapse and break apart.

 

The electoral college is also designed to provide a cushion and some measure of protection against an emergency or mistake of some kind in which the people vote for a given candidate and then it turns out during the weeks following election day and before the swearing in that the said candidate is not who the people thought or was otherwise ineligible, etc. But the primary reason is assure 'one person and one vote by state' so that there is proportional representation similar to the House of Representatives. Again, it is intended to ensure that voter fraud and voter turnout do not disenfranchise the voters of the other states.

[zoogs]

The primary purpose for the electoral college is to put a degree of protection and assuance in place that some kind of disasterous mistake and or malfeasance such as

...the election of an incompetent, vindictive demagogue?

[zoogs]

An interesting interview with a Yale Law professor, which I find hard to disagree with.

 

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/12/13598316/donald-trump-electoral-college-slavery-akhil-reed-amar

 

In brief:

- The EC was a concession to the slave-holding South, whose influence would have been diminished without upwardly weighting their votes.

- It's unlikely for more states to sign onto NPVIC, although that is an interesting development.

- Not only is change hard to come by, it will be fraught with its own issues. One of the strengths of American election security is its distributed nature, for example.

 

I still accept the federalism argument, generally. But this is a good articulation from someone in favor of direct elections.

 

If Hillary closes in on these current projections of a 2-million popular vote victory margin (!!!?), that's going to be present an interesting potential impetus for change. I have to say, it's hard to continue to accept and defend such a system as completely fair.

[BigRedBuster]

This is going to get interesting. I am very concerned if they get rid of the electoral college. However, obviously before this year, Trump thought it was the worst thing in the world and now the Dems may be on board with getting rid of it. Welcome to the era where middle America won't mean anything to politicians.

 

Instead of this, why doesn't Boxer start pushing for legislation that appeals to middle America. They might actually get some votes here then.

 

[zoogs]

Well, it might not be that bad. The middle of America isn't so much campaigned in as ignored as reliably red for the most part.

 

I don't know what a national campaign would look like without the EC. But in states, for example, maybe that's an analogy. If a Dem wants to win PA, then they need to focus on getting turnout in Philadelphia, etc, and try not to get crushed as badly as they did this time in the red areas of the state.

 

So I could see that working similarly. The Democrats need to get turnout in their population centers as they do already, but also need to mitigate damage elsewhere. The Republicans need to get turnout from their areas but also cut in where they can. Manhattan going 68-32 versus 86-14 is a big deal.

 

All hypothetical, ofc, the Electoral College is in no danger.

[Moiraine]

It's not going to pass.

 

But if it did, a hell of a lot more people would vote, and it would be harder for metroplitan areas to accomodate that.

[Lil' Red]

This is going to get interesting. I am very concerned if they get rid of the electoral college. However, obviously before this year, Trump thought it was the worst thing in the world and now the Dems may be on board with getting rid of it. Welcome to the era where middle America won't mean anything to politicians.

 

Instead of this, why doesn't Boxer start pushing for legislation that appeals to middle America. They might actually get some votes here then.

 

 

Right now, only about a dozen states matter in the election. Candidates currently have zero incentive to campaign or consider legislation tailored to any of the other states. If you define middle America as the Midwest, it currently represents 21.1% of the population which is more than the northeast at 17.5% [source]. A candidate would be facing a very uphill battle if they attempted to completely write off the Midwest in an election based on the popular vote.

 

If we want a democracy based on the principle of one person, one vote then the Electoral College needs to go. Based on 538's Voter Power Index a person's vote in New Mexico is over 48 times more powerful than mine. A person's vote should have the same chance of altering the outcome of the election regardless of what state they live in.

[TGHusker]

[QMany]

Why Is The Electoral College Constitutional?

 

 

In the Reapportionment Act of 1929, Congress imposed a 435-member cap on the House of Representatives. It’s not in the Constitution, nor is it anything the Framers would have intended, but there it is. And that baggage got imported into the Electoral College because the text of Article II continues to reflect an outdated interpretation of apportionment.

 

 

For what it’s worth, these numbers create a result that looks like — assuming Trump still wins about half the electoral districts in Maine — this:

Clinton: 702 Trump: 920

So, yeah, Trump would have still won despite losing the popular vote in this much more accurate reflection of the Framers’ intent. That’s just what happens when you win enough big-ticket states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

...

That’s not to say that the Electoral College — if it must stay — shouldn’t be reformed to reflect the original intent, just that such reform wouldn’t have moved the needle in this election. On the other hand (and I’m using the current numbers here rather than recalculating for 2000, but since Texas and Florida were smaller back then it, only means the margin would have been a little bigger)…

Gore: 824 Bush: 798

Well, that’s much bigger than the final electoral count in 2000.

5 to 4.

[TGHusker]

One conservative columnist's take on the popular vote vs electoral college vote. I copies the full article below.

 

Here is an important point:

 

What too many of these uneducated and unshowered drum circlers don’t know, or don’t care to know, is the popular vote is a meaningless unit of measure. The Electoral College exists, and it is how we determine who is president. We are a union of states, hence the name United States of America, not singular blob on a map. Candidates must appeal to a broad swath of the nation with differing and sometimes conflicting interests. It’s a brilliant system.

 

 

http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2016/12/04/the-unpopular-truth-about-the-popular-vote-n2254534

 

The Unpopular Truth About The Popular Vote

Derek Hunter

|

Posted: Dec 04, 2016 12:01 AM

Have you heard the news that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote? Unless you live under a rock you likely have stumbled across a barista or aspiring novelist mumbling something about how the Electoral College is unfair and undemocratic and how electors should follow “the will of the people” and vote for Hillary on Dec. 19. Because “democracy!” or something.

If we lived in a democracy, they’d have a point. Thankfully, we do not.

What too many of these uneducated and unshowered drum circlers don’t know, or don’t care to know, is the popular vote is a meaningless unit of measure. The Electoral College exists, and it is how we determine who is president. We are a union of states, hence the name United States of America, not singular blob on a map. Candidates must appeal to a broad swath of the nation with differing and sometimes conflicting interests. It’s a brilliant system.

Donald Trump didn’t campaign in California because there was no point in campaigning in California. Unless Los Angeles and San Francisco fell into the ocean, the state wasn’t in play. This left a lot of potential Republican voters deciding to skip the lines on Election Day. Same goes for New York.

More nefariously, Democratic pundits and journalists have expanded the deception of the presidential popular vote to Congress as well. “Democrats got more votes for the Senate than Republicans, yet the GOP controls it. That’s not fair!” – or some such childish refrain has been making the rounds on social media and TV since people voted.

Just like the “recount” is a naked attempt to discredit Trump’s victory, this “smart take” is a deliberate deception designed to keep the unshowered angry.

The Nation magazine put it this way, “The preliminary count had Democratic Senate candidates gathering 46.2 million votes to 39.3 million for Republican candidates.” That and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee from the aforementioned unshowered, probably with earlobes stretched to the size of Frisbees and an impromptu lecture on the “justice” of fair trade coffee beans.

But it’s a fraud.

Those numbers aren’t a lie, per se, but how the left is using them is, just like how it is using the presidential popular vote.

In California now, all candidates run in the same primary, and the top two vote-getters advance to the runoff unless one receives more than 50 percent of the vote. Thanks to total Democratic Party control, both candidates for the open Senate seat were Democrats. So Democrats got all the votes in California’s Senate race.

Meanwhile, Texas, which has a large population and generally votes Republican, did not have a Senate race this year. So millions of votes that could have gone to Republican Senate candidates didn’t because there was no election for them to vote in.

In fact, several solidly Republican states or states Republicans stand a good chance of winning didn’t have Senate elections in 2016.

When you choose the unit of measure by which you determine success you will always come out ahead. That’s what Democrats are doing here.

In this year’s World Series, the Chicago Cubs won the title 4 games to 3. But both the Cubs and Cleveland Indians scored 27 runs in the seven games. Applying the argument liberals are using, there needs to be an eighth game, or at least more innings added to game 7 with the winner being whichever team scores the next run.

That doesn’t make any sense, and neither does arguing about the popular vote for president or in regards to Congress. The rules were the rules, and campaigns were run under those rules, deliberately.

This won’t stop the unshowered and uneducated. Their ignorance inoculates them from such realities. But it doesn’t excuse the showered and educated who should, and do, know better.

The political class is doing all it can to hurt the incoming Republican government; to discredit it before anyone takes their oaths of office. C-list celebrities have even taken to social media to promote a meaningless online petition to “pressure” Trump electors to switch their votes to Hillary (and avoid keeping their word to leave the country). Many of the great unwashed have even taken to threatening the lives of Trump electors, which is illegal but of no interest to the current Justice Department. Unable to win at the ballot box, these are the tactics they’ve chosen. It’s who they are.

Outside of their enclaves, Democrats have little appeal. They can’t win under the rules, so they do what they always do – ignore them. Be it through a bogus recount trying to deny enough Electoral College electors for Trump to reach 270 votes (he’d still win without them from the three states the Greens and Clinton are challenging, it would just empower Democrats to claim he didn’t have 270, or the widely known “majority”), or the “we won more votes” congressional nonsense. Democrats have never lost well.

You’d think they’d be used to it by now. If they haven’t and they continue down this path, the American people will continue to give them ample opportunity to.

[zoogs]

Candidates must appeal to a broad swath of the nation with differing and sometimes conflicting interests.

Counter-point: candidates only must appeal to a narrow, specific cross-section of swing states.

 

Exhibit A: The Democratic coalition is broad swath of the nation. In this election they dominated, once again, a whole lot of the demographic cross sections that make up this multicultural country. Hillary's popular vote margin appears to be at 2.5 million. She lost three key "blue firewall" states: PA, WI, MI, by a total of ~200,000 votes, which is one-hundredfold less. It's also a single demographic that is far more specific.

 

In the aftermath, there's a surging narrative that the Democrats need to focus far more on the white working class voter in the Midwest. For all their effort to win such a diverse coalition, the rules of the game tells them that catering to the Rust Belt white voter hurt by globalization is more important. If they respond this way, they will become a different Party accordingly. For the better? Depends on your perspective. More representative? I don't think so.

 

Every Western "democracy" is democratic in the same sense as we are, except they do have One Person = One Vote. The US system *is* highly unusual. It's not without strengths, but nor is it without weakness. Enclaves? What a grossly misleading characterization, along with the rest of this, really. Mr. Hunter should probably take a shower himself.

 

P.S -- I like the sports analogy. It'd make more sense if the reality were that the team who won the most number of innings won the game, regardless of runs scored. Why should Inning 9 represent less than Inning 1? But that's not reality, because that'd be crazy. In a football analogy, Hillary outscores Donald by two touchdowns in the first quarter, but Trump wins the other three by a field goal each and wins the game.

[TGHusker]

 

Candidates must appeal to a broad swath of the nation with differing and sometimes conflicting interests.

Counter-point: candidates only must appeal to a narrow, specific cross-section of swing states.

 

Exhibit A: The Democratic coalition is broad swath of the nation. In this election they dominated, once again, a whole lot of the demographic cross sections that make up this multicultural country. Hillary's popular vote margin appears to be at 2.5 million. She lost three key "blue firewall" states: PA, WI, MI, by a total of ~200,000 votes, which is one-hundredfold less. It's also a single demographic that is far more specific.

 

In the aftermath, there's a surging narrative that the Democrats need to focus far more on the white working class voter in the Midwest. For all their effort to win such a diverse coalition, the rules of the game tells them that catering to the Rust Belt white voter hurt by globalization is more important. If they respond this way, they will become a different Party accordingly. For the better? Depends on your perspective. More representative? I don't think so.

 

Every Western "democracy" is democratic in the same sense as we are, except they do have One Person = One Vote. The US system *is* highly unusual. It's not without strengths, but nor is it without weakness. Enclaves? What a grossly misleading characterization, along with the rest of this, really. Mr. Hunter should probably take a shower himself.

 

P.S -- I like the sports analogy. It'd make more sense if the reality were that the team who won the most number of innings won the game, regardless of runs scored. Why should Inning 9 represent less than Inning 1? But that's not reality, because that'd be crazy. In a football analogy, Hillary outscores Donald by two touchdowns in the first quarter, but Trump wins the other three by a field goal each and wins the game.

 

Hey Zoogs - True on the bold. However, it seems each election that varies somewhat. But also in reality, less say they just concentrate on the swing states - there are too many - non-swing states who's votes are vital even if the candidate secures the swing state. Years ago, NC, Va, Colo were not swing states. Who would have thought Wi, MI, Pa would be swing states this year. A party ignores them, and puff they are not longer a part to the 'secure' non-swing state.

 

I like your PS - that makes a better comparison.

[zoogs]

I agree, and I'm not a staunch opponent of the EC. It just doesn't seem accurate to claim anymore that it forces candidates to appeal to a broader swath of Americans. A quirk of recent times, perhaps!

 

Also, if the Democratic Party had paid more attention to these states (I certainly don't think Pennsylvania at least was ignored), they would have done so not by targeting outside their coalition but by concentrating on the big city "elites" (a curious term for a very large number of people from different backgrounds, many of them the furthest thing from elite) within these states.

 

So whether a party is choosing to gear itself nationally towards the urban or the rural populations, it seems they're basing these calls on how the urban/rural tug-of-war happens to go in a couple of states.