Is the Electoral College Doomed?

[Making Chimichangas]

I am pretty liberal, but getting rid of the electoral college is a VERY, VERY bad idea.

 

I'm sorry, but making Presidential elections a popular vote will mean that, as B.B. pointed out, a handful of large urban areas will decide who gets elected.  If democrat or liberal candidates for President want to win the Presidency, then they're going to have get "dirty" and go into these rural areas and engage the people who live there.  

 

Something Hillary mostly did not do.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Making Chimichangas

[Big Red 40]

11 minutes ago, Making Chimichangas said:

I am pretty liberal, but getting rid of the electoral college is a VERY, VERY bad idea.

 

I'm sorry, but making Presidential elections a popular vote will mean that, as B.B. pointed out, a handful of large urban areas will decide who gets elected.  If democrat or liberal candidates for President want to win the Presidency, then they're going to have get "dirty" and go into these rural areas and engage the people who live there.  

 

Something Hillary mostly did not do.

She partially didn’t do that because it was assumed she already had certain states Electoral  College  votes locked up, so there was no reason to go there . If every vote counted there would be no more “flyover “ states or “Swing states” and candidates would have to work harder everywhere . Imo

[Moiraine]

Yep. A Republican candidate could make go to the most conservative areas of big cities. They would also go to a place like Omaha or Minneapolis, all the big cities in Texas. But people in rural areas could come to see them. That's kind what they're doing now anyway, but only in a select few states like Iowa and other battleground states. Now they might visit a much larger variety of areas. Both the Republican and Democrat candidates. It might be worth it to visit every state instead of 15 of them 50 times.

[Making Chimichangas]

4 hours ago, Big Red 40 said:

She partially didn’t do that because it was assumed she already had certain states Electoral  College  votes locked up, so there was no reason to go there . If every vote counted there would be no more “flyover “ states or “Swing states” and candidates would have to work harder everywhere . Imo

 

That is kinda my point with keeping the Electoral College.  Hillary, I am certain, presumed there was no way she could win states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, etc so she avoided them altogether.  To me, that was a mistake.  I'm no political operative and I realize that even people running for President have to allocate their resources wisely.  However, by staying almost exclusively in "blue states" she largely was preaching to the choir.  Hillary was perceived as, among other things, only caring what rich, urban people thought.  By avoiding "red" states altogether, she basically let Trump cement the idea that she was a crook who couldn't be trusted.  I'm not saying whether she was or wasn't, I'm saying she never really challenged him.  Not saying Hillary coming to Boise, Billings, or Laramie would have won her the election, but it is clear that people who were on the fence about Trump felt slighted by Hillary so those in the middle defaulted to Trump.

 

Regardless, I like the idea that to become President you have to win a plurality of states.  I don't believe 8 of so of the most populous states should always get to decide who is elected President.  Which is what would happen if we went to a strict popular vote.

 

[Moiraine]

1 hour ago, Making Chimichangas said:

However, by staying almost exclusively in "blue states" she largely was preaching to the choir.  Hillary was perceived as, among other things, only caring what rich, urban people thought.  By avoiding "red" states altogether, she basically let Trump cement the idea that she was a crook who couldn't be trusted.

 

But that's not what she did. Like previous candidates, she visited swing states. Below is the last 10 weeks of the campaigns.

Where she and her team failed was recognizing which states were swing states. She ignored Wisconsin and didn't go to Pennsylvania and Michigan often enough. IIRC she barely won Minnesota, which she also ignored. She lost all 3 of the others. If she had won those 3 states, she would be president. In fact, her error was the opposite of what you're saying. Look at how often she visited North Carolina. I think they thought they had WI, MI, and PA in the bag, and decided to reach for NC as a safety net. That backfired badly.

 

With the popular vote, if I was a Democratic candidate's advisor, I'd send the candidate to the biggest cities and/or college towns in most states. For example I'd send them to Austin, Atlanta, St. Louis, Denver, Portland, Seattle, Omaha, Minneapolis, Chicago, Madison. With the more highly populated states I'd go to several cities. I'd also throw in some festival-esque visits to more rural areas.

Both parties' candidates are already going mostly to cities. They're just going to cities in a small number of states. Changing to the popular vote would mean they would be visiting way more cities than before, imo.


Another reason this argument is silly to me is their visits mean jack sh** as far as who they're going to go to bat for while in office. It's all a show. Maybe they have to try to do a little bit during their first term to please specific swing states, but I don't really think that enters their minds a lot. For one thing they don't have a lot of ability to do that.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Moiraine

[Making Chimichangas]

@Moiraine, you know what is interesting about that graphic you put up?  Is that actually both Trump and Clinton skipped, or stayed out of, many of the same states.  You're right about Clinton not going to swing states or not knowing whi h states were swing states..  

 

People say that with the Electoral College that rural, less populated areas are "over-represented."  However, if the EC is removed and it goes to just a popular vote, rural and less populated areas votes wouldn't matter at all.  If it were a popular vote New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle, Portland, and a handful of other liberal cities would decide who is President every single election because they have the populations to out-vote rural people.  And it is interesting, I didn't hear anyone from the left suggesting we do away with the EC when Obama was elected twice.  They seemed just fine with how the system operates.  Or maybe I am mis-remembering and there was in fact widespread discontent among the left with the EC after Obama won.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Making Chimichangas

[Moiraine]

The reason for the Democrats not caring when Obama was elected is pretty obvious; Obama won the popular vote. It's not some viewpoint they have whenever it suits them (I know they have plenty of those). It's a viewpoint they're reminded of whenever the EC bites them in the ass (2000 and 2016). If the Democrats ever lose the popular vote and win the presidency, and then they stay silent about it, then their silence matters. Otherwise, it doesn't matter one bit. So far, that has never happened.


The argument you're using has never sounded logical to me, and I've heard it many times. A "liberal city" can't out-vote rural people. Not every vote in the city would go to 1 candidate. Each person's vote counts for 1, period. A rural person's vote counts the same as a city person's vote. That's the way it should be. Also, whenever people say these things they seem to be assuming that city people are one homogeneous blob. Cities are full of diverse groups of people who want different things from the president.

The only logical argument for the EC that I've heard is the candidates will ignore the rural areas and no longer have to worry about pleasing them. This is a concern I understand, and there is a logical basis for the concern. My answer to that is that's why we have the Senate. That was the reason it was created. It gives an equal voice to each state. It makes it harder to cater to specific groups of people and stops largely populated states from dominating.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Moiraine

[zoogs]

Cities can "out vote" rural areas -- for example, by having more people. A lot of states come down to extremely blue urban centers competing against the rest of the state, which can be quite red. Of course, by "out vote" we're talking about an outcome where the selection reflects the wishes of the larger share of the people.

 

The argument for the EC is that you do not want the President to represent the people, but instead to represent the States. And in the way States happen to divide up the country, this is a pretty Republican-friendly deal currently.

[Moiraine]

1 hour ago, zoogs said:

Cities can "out vote" rural areas -- for example, by having more people. A lot of states come down to extremely blue urban centers competing against the rest of the state, which can be quite red. Of course, by "out vote" we're talking about an outcome where the selection reflects the wishes of the larger share of the people.

 

 

That just makes no sense to me. There are people in cities who are very similar to people in rural areas. They don't vote as a group. The needs of many people in the city are similar to the needs of those in rural areas. Cities have more voters than rural areas, but they don't all vote together. Also, the president visiting these places never meant he gave a crap about or did anything specifically for people in those areas, anyway.

[jsneb83]

Plus, it's not like the President has free reign on everything. The House and Senate are just as important as the President. They are your policy makers

[Big Red 40]

When i go to the voting booth and cast my ballot i want the candidate i voted for to win plain and simple . Electors or state voting results shouldn't be a factor . With the Electoral College i'm told, that since a bunch of other people in my state voted differently, my vote is being negated. That's just wrong. 

With a popular vote every single vote would count exactly the same no matter what  state , rural or urban , ghetto or penthouse etc. 67 million votes beats 64 million votes no matter where they came from.

[Big Red 40]

7 hours ago, jsneb83 said:

Plus, it's not like the President has free reign on everything. The House and Senate are just as important as the President. They are your policy makers

Yes and those very important positions are elected by popular vote. Why isn't there an electoral college for them too?

[zoogs]

8 hours ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

That just makes no sense to me. There are people in cities who are very similar to people in rural areas. They don't vote as a group. The needs of many people in the city are similar to the needs of those in rural areas. Cities have more voters than rural areas, but they don't all vote together. Also, the president visiting these places never meant he gave a crap about or did anything specifically for people in those areas, anyway.

 

I mean, think of how PA votes. Philadelphia is something close to 90% Democratic, Pittsburgh also quite high. Outside of the urban population centers there’s a lot of red in the state. In 2016 this was all true but the cities didn’t turn out quite strongly enough to win the state, as they usually do. 

 

Look at the party affiliation in a state like Georgia. Atlanta is heavily blue, but then as you get to the suburbs — which throughout the country are more wealthy, more white — it starts turning red.  Virginia is the same way. Although suburbs are more up for grabs than more rural areas, which for whatever reason the Republican Party has been more effective in reaching. This is how elections get called; maybe only 40% of precincts are reporting but you know that the big city districts haven’t reported yet and so a close R lead is going to be almost certainly wiped out.

 

Go to states in the South and find cities like Austin that are blue, or rural sections of CA that are red. There is a stark, meaningful difference in how cities vote vs how suburbs vote vs how rural areas vote. 

Edited February 25, 2018 by zoogs

[zoogs]

1 hour ago, Big Red 40 said:

Yes and those very important positions are elected by popular vote. Why isn't there an electoral college for them too?

 

The Senate is an inherently “not popular vote” body, from a national perspective. The 35 million people in California have the same number of Senators as the half a million in Nebraska. It’s a powerful legislative body meant to increase the voice of less populous states.

 

The House is subject to an incredible degree of gerrymandering — as if you had national Senate elections, but you could choose your state boundary lines. This is why Republicans, especially after what they accomplished in 2010, dominate the House. And we can fight the gerrymandering fight (maybe we’ll lose even, with a Republican president stacked SCOTUS) but it’s a hard problem to solve. We can expect a degree of this always. And it’s typically happening now by consolidating blue districts to ensure there are more red districts, again amplifying the voice of non urban centers within a state.

 

At every level we find ways to moderate the simple popular vote. And then we wonder how we can get governments so free to refuse to act on areas that enjoy quite a lot of popular support.

[Moiraine]

25 minutes ago, zoogs said:

I mean, think of how PA votes. Philadelphia is something close to 90% Democratic, Pittsburgh also quite high. Outside of the urban population centers there’s a lot of red in the state. In 2016 this was all true but the cities didn’t turn out quite strongly enough to win the state, as they usually do. 

 

Look at the party affiliation in a state like Georgia. Atlanta is heavily blue, but then as you get to the suburbs — which throughout the country are more wealthy, more white — it starts turning red.  Virginia is the same way. Although suburbs are more up for grabs than more rural areas, which for whatever reason the Republican Party has been more effective in reaching. This is how elections get called; maybe only 40% of precincts are reporting but you know that the big city districts haven’t reported yet and so a close R lead is going to be almost certainly wiped out.

 

Go to states in the South and find cities like Austin that are blue, or rural sections of CA that are red. There is a stark, meaningful difference in how cities vote vs how suburbs vote vs how rural areas vote. 

 

 

 

I'm not following the point you're trying to make. I'm aware that cities have a higher % of Democrats, and that a higher % of the population lives in cities, but I don't get why you're posting about it. I also don't get why people are hung up on where people live, as if people can be broken into 2 blobs, country folk and city folk. 80% of the population lives in cities, and they are hugely underrepresented in the senate, and also underrepresented in the House and the EC. I'm not sure why all 3 of these political bodies need to favor rural areas.


I feel like this is pretty simple math. 1 voter, 1 vote. A rural vote would count for as much as a city vote. That's really all there is to the math.

The only valid argument for the EC which I mentioned already is that politicians may then ignore the needs of the voters who aren't in as highly concentrated areas. It's the only one that makes any logical sense. And it's not a good enough reason to have the EC.

 

This weird fixation on cities dominating the vote makes no sense. We only have 2 parties. You say 90% of Philadelphia is Democrat. Well, when it comes to vote counts, that 10% non Democrat is a huge # of voters voting with the rural Republicans. And I just think this is a weird, nonsensical argument.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Moiraine