Electoral College

[zoogs]

I’d be happy to see alternative systems of electing presidents, by the way. Maybe we get rid of the electoral college. Maybe we turn to a parliamentary legislature. These are interesting, valuable conversation in their own right, but they are also not happening. 

 

Not only is the current system imperfect, no political system ever will be. There are always trade offs. We can only use the levers we’ve got, and maybe try to empower people who are likely to push against things like gerrymandering and selective disenfranchisement to improve the structure of our democracy long term. At the least we wouldn’t have people who are trying to crush democracy wholesale, as we do now — from voting rights to faith in institutions. We are paying a truly staggering cost right now and it’s unclear how we will emerge from this unscathed. In both the short and long term it is terrifying, and moreover, this was the obvious outcome of a Trump presidency.

 

[RedDenver]

2 hours ago, zoogs said:

I’d be happy to see alternative systems of electing presidents, by the way. Maybe we get rid of the electoral college. Maybe we turn to a parliamentary legislature. These are interesting, valuable conversation in their own right, but they are also not happening. 

 

Not only is the current system imperfect, no political system ever will be. There are always trade offs. We can only use the levers we’ve got, and maybe try to empower people who are likely to push against things like gerrymandering and selective disenfranchisement to improve the structure of our democracy long term. At the least we wouldn’t have people who are trying to crush democracy wholesale, as we do now — from voting rights to faith in institutions. We are paying a truly staggering cost right now and it’s unclear how we will emerge from this unscathed. In both the short and long term it is terrifying, and moreover, this was the obvious outcome of a Trump presidency.

 

I posted a lengthy reply but the board software ate it. I'll be back later.

[RedDenver]

5 hours ago, zoogs said:

That’s not your only option — it’s just the one that fits the “you can be anti Trump and *turn out*, and also just want Democrats to move in a certain direction on this area of policy” stance. It’s fine if the stance is actually stand on the sidelines and opt out until some party achieves idealism, or to shake things up until Some Third Party gets federal funding, but then say so. If that is the overriding priority, then the simple fact is that policy is not.

 

Tens of thousands of people around the country were dissatisfied and wanted to send Democrats a message. They stayed home, voted third party, and argued to those around them that this was a good thing. This curious means of attempting to not elect Donald F*cking Trump as President did not succeed, to put it mildly, and in any honest examination that was not the goal.

Except that my goals are policy-driven. If the Dems or the Repubs or the Whigs or whoever adopted policies I agree with, I'd be more likely to vote for them. I think you just don't agree with my methods of getting to the policies that I want. If you've got some way to vote for a party AND make them change, then I'd consider that method, but politicians who keep getting elected are unlikely to change.

 

Hillary won Colorado where I voted, and the current system doesn't give her any more electors for having a bigger proportion of the vote. Go ahead and tell me how my vote would have changed the outcome in any way. I mean if we're only looking at outcomes, then your method of voting also got Trump elected. As I explained, I looked at my choices, considered the risks based on the state I'm voting in, and voted in a way that I thought would best achieve my goals. As it turned out, no matter how I voted, nothing would have changed.

 

5 hours ago, zoogs said:

I’d be happy to see alternative systems of electing presidents, by the way. Maybe we get rid of the electoral college. Maybe we turn to a parliamentary legislature. These are interesting, valuable conversation in their own right, but they are also not happening. 

 

Not only is the current system imperfect, no political system ever will be. There are always trade offs. We can only use the levers we’ve got, and maybe try to empower people who are likely to push against things like gerrymandering and selective disenfranchisement to improve the structure of our democracy long term. At the least we wouldn’t have people who are trying to crush democracy wholesale, as we do now — from voting rights to faith in institutions. We are paying a truly staggering cost right now and it’s unclear how we will emerge from this unscathed. In both the short and long term it is terrifying, and moreover, this was the obvious outcome of a Trump presidency.

 

But they are happening. Maine instituted ranked-choice voting in 2016. Maine and Nebraska already have proportional electors in the electoral college. We don't have to get rid of the electoral college to make things better.

 

You've said what I've been trying to say, "We can only use the levers we’ve got." I'm trying to empower people that align with my policy goals. The system is indeed imperfect, so I have to make choices as to how best to do that.

 

I agree that Trump and his ilk are terrible short-term, but none of us knows what will happen long-term. The real long-term power in our government is Congress. I think long-term we need systemic changes in our economy. Neither Clinton nor Trump were going to do that. But the possible silver-lining with Trump (and you have to squint to see it) is that he's so terribly bad that voters may finally see through the facade of the Republicans, which could lead to long-term voting changes.

[zoogs]

So, I do appreciate having policy goals that don't align with the mainstream. However to me it seems like the number one goal is "get a third party federal funding", against which the differences between the parties on, let's say, the environment, or immigration, or healthcare and social spending, reduce to insignificance. 

 

Of course there is a way to vote for a party and change. Parties are dynamic; they are constantly changing. They're responding to internal activism; for example, the kind which led to the shutdown over DACA. 

 

I must disagree with "my state is voting Democrat anyway". We're all part of the national polity, and the dampened enthusiasm was global. This was the atmosphere in which every minute non-scandal was blown out of proportion, in which the "reasonable" position for nonpartisans felt like acknowledging that both candidates were quite awful, and so on. It's not only one's vote that matters, but one's advocacy. This matters a great deal. 

 

Look, if we're going to sit here and wait for perfection, we'll never get it. If we will only support ideal candidates and not flawed ones against terrible candidates, then we'll continue to risk this unfortunate reality of ours where the terrible ones are in power...but at least we can complain about all the ways the opposition is still not ideal.  There are fights we are now faced with, by nobody's choosing really, and to win them requires organization.

---

To the rest: OK, the EC miiiiiight go. And maybe that's good! But the parliamentary system (which I think would be necessary to decentralize parties) is not in the offing, at least not without a Constitutional Convention. 

 

In any case, I have two arguments here: any alternative is going to have its own flaws and trade-offs. So it's not a top issue for me. But even if it were, there's a clear difference in the long term. 

 

When we get mindless, self-serving autocrats in power, they will undermine all the democratic tools we have. The Republicans want to curb minority enfranchisement, shut down activism, and Trump wants to convince his fawning fans that only the Supreme Leader speaks truth against a sea of Fake News. Reverence for the police and the military is the only thing this government will promote. Authoritarians will break democracy to concentrate power in their own hands, and in the hands of the already powerful. 

 

You talk about systemic changes in our economy, for example. On the one hand, mainstream Democratic Party platforms aren't quite socialism, and on the other, the Trump-tilted NLRB is crushing unions and discouraging the formation of new ones. Under Trump's priorities we will accelerate towards a world where systemic change of this kind is not only unimaginable, but not possible -- and, perhaps even portrayed as radical, extremist, and unpatriotic. 

 

Progress is designed to happen very slowly in the American system, which is simultaneously a flaw and a benefit. To the extent that this mold might be broken, though, it will be autocrats laying waste to all our democratic foundations and causing long-term, irreversible damage. 

[Moiraine]

@RedDenver

 

Proportional electors based on geography within states is a terrible idea. The way Nebraska does it is not good. It would be another opportunity to gerrymander. Nebraska has already gerrymandered to prevent another vote like in 2008 when Obama got 1 electoral vote. You would have the same exact problem we have with the House.

 

On the other hand if the proportion represents the entire state's vote, that would be an improvement. If Nebraska votes 2/3 for the Republican, then the Republican gets 2 votes. Regardless of the location of the voters. That would be a little progress.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Moiraine

[zoogs]

^An issue with that is states are gerrymandered units to begin with. Clinton won by 3M votes in 2016, and if every state proportionally allocated its electoral votes she still would have come in behind Trump: https://www.270towin.com/alternative-electoral-college-allocation-methods/?year=2016

 

There's something odd about a system where this can happen. Straightforward, up-and-down popular vote. It doesn't need to be complicated.

[Moiraine]

2 minutes ago, zoogs said:

^An issue with that is states are gerrymandered units to begin with. Clinton won by 3M votes in 2016, and if every state proportionally allocated its electoral votes she still would have come in behind Trump: https://www.270towin.com/alternative-electoral-college-allocation-methods/?year=2016

 

There's something odd about a system where this can happen. Straightforward, up-and-down popular vote. It doesn't need to be complicated.

 

 

 

By definition they're not. They're pre-defined borders that won't change, and the counts are based only on population.

 

Not until the Census Bureau is run by partisans, anyway. Oh wait, Trump is trying to do that.

[RedDenver]

13 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

@RedDenver

 

Proportional electors based on geography within states is a terrible idea. The way Nebraska does it is not good. It would be another opportunity to gerrymander. Nebraska has already gerrymandered to prevent another vote like in 2008 when Obama got 1 electoral vote. You would have the same exact problem we have with the House.

 

On the other hand if the proportion represents the entire state's vote, that would be an improvement. If Nebraska votes 2/3 for the Republican, then the Republican gets 2 votes. Regardless of the location of the voters. That would be a little progress.

 

5 minutes ago, zoogs said:

^An issue with that is states are gerrymandered units to begin with. Clinton won by 3M votes in 2016, and if every state proportionally allocated its electoral votes she still would have come in behind Trump: https://www.270towin.com/alternative-electoral-college-allocation-methods/?year=2016

 

There's something odd about a system where this can happen. Straightforward, up-and-down popular vote. It doesn't need to be complicated.

 

1 minute ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

 

By definition they're not. They're pre-defined borders that won't change, and the counts are based only on population.

 

Not until the Census Bureau is run by partisans, anyway. Oh wait, Trump is trying to do that.

Nice link @zoogs. If you look at it carefully, you'll notice that the system being proposed in the law suits is the popular vote by state (PVS), which ends up with Trump getting 267, Clinton getting 265, and 6 going to 3rd parties. But the vote is influenced by the rules, so there's an excellent chance Clinton wins those 3rd party votes (although Trump might win them too, I don't see if that site spells out which 3rd party won them). The trouble with going to a popular vote is that it requires a Constitutional Amendment, which requires a 3/4 majority vote by the states to get ratified, but many rural states don't want that.

 

@Moiraine, I disagree that proportional electors is a bad idea. They don't have to be apportioned per some boundary but can instead be apportioned by popular vote in each state (aka popular vote by state), which can't be gerrymandered in any way I'm aware of. (I see you considered this in the second paragraph of the first post I quoted.)

 

We're not getting the electoral college removed or popular national vote probably ever, but proportional popular vote by state may be possible.

 

 

[zoogs]

Right, it's not subject to gerrymandering in the sense that they can't be changed. They're still somewhat arbitrary, somewhat not borders that happen to introduce certain, inscrutable effects that can moderate or reverse the result of a sizable popular vote margin. We happen to have a lot of pretty red states and some of the big blue states are also really large and include their fair share of reddish areas.

 

But we function as a single country and not as merely a union of states, so it seems valuable to have some form of nationally elected representation not subject to the filtering of fixed state lines. The White House is out there setting foreign policy, national participation in treaties such as the Paris Climate deal and the TPP, etc. WH priorities have enormous national impact.

 

The closest the EC is going to come to being dismantled is more states signing on to commit their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. I really think the solution that gets at the heart of the problem is best. What we want is the popular vote to decide things, so make the popular vote decide things. (And RD, you're correct also that the vote is influenced by the rules, and so are the campaigns. Nonetheless, the issue there is that we observe a case of a 3M popular vote margin being turned into an electoral deficit. What are we solving there? Maybe it's better than the status quo, but why not just go all the way? As much trouble as any change is going to be.)

Edited February 23, 2018 by zoogs

[RedDenver]

20 minutes ago, zoogs said:

Right, it's not subject to gerrymandering in the sense that they can't be changed. They're still somewhat arbitrary, somewhat not borders that happen to introduce certain, inscrutable effects that can moderate or reverse the result of a sizable popular vote margin. We happen to have a lot of pretty red states and some of the big blue states are also really large and include their fair share of reddish areas.

 

But we function as a single country and not as merely a union of states, so it seems valuable to have some form of nationally elected representation not subject to the filtering of fixed state lines. The White House is out there setting foreign policy, national participation in treaties such as the Paris Climate deal and the TPP, etc. WH priorities have enormous national impact.

 

The closest the EC is going to come to being dismantled is more states signing on to commit their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. I really think the solution that gets at the heart of the problem is best. What we want is the popular vote to decide things, so make the popular vote decide things. (And RD, you're correct also that the vote is influenced by the rules, and so are the campaigns. Nonetheless, the issue there is that we observe a case of a 3M popular vote margin being turned into an electoral deficit. What are we solving there? Maybe it's better than the status quo, but why not just go all the way? As much trouble as any change is going to be.)

Well, figure out how to get 3/4 of the states to ratify that amendment, and I'll back you. Until then, a proportional distribution of elector by state is achievable by the current lawsuits or by each state making that change. I just don't see the popular national vote for president ever happening or even coming remotely close to happening.

Edited February 23, 2018 by RedDenver

[zoogs]

Does proportional distribution actually have any less of a barrier? I kind of treat these as all pretty far-fetched scenarios (which leaves me free to muse about what would be ideal )...

 

Because you'd need all states to do the exact same thing. It doesn't work if California chooses to do this and Texas says, yeah, no thanks. We'll take your split up electoral votes and keep ours; enjoy your losses. The dynamics and changing strategic calculations are all so convoluted. I don't see a way to do this without some way of having not even 3/4th, but 100% of states agreeing to implement the same change at the same time.

[RedDenver]

Just now, zoogs said:

Does proportional distribution actually have any less of a barrier? I kind of treat these as all pretty far-fetched scenarios (which leaves me free to muse about what would be ideal )...

 

Because you'd need all states to do the exact same thing. It doesn't work if California chooses to do this and Texas says, yeah, no thanks. We'll take your split up electoral votes and keep ours; enjoy your losses. The dynamics and changing strategic calculations are all so convoluted. I don't see a way to do this without some way of having not even 3/4th, but 100% of states agreeing to implement the same change at the same time.

The reason this may be possible is that there's a lawsuit challenging the way states have winner-take-all elector distributions. I've read several law scholars saying this suit has a better than average chance of succeeding, which would cause all the states to change at once.

[zoogs]

Ah, I see.

 

Even then, it's not clear to me that it is a strictly better system at all -- just a different one. It could even be worse. There are lots of ways this might just benefit Republicans. It all goes again to the weird, kinda arbitrary way states filter the national result. 

[RedDenver]

4 minutes ago, zoogs said:

Ah, I see.

 

Even then, it's not clear to me that it is a strictly better system at all -- just a different one. It could even be worse. There are lots of ways this might just benefit Republicans. It all goes again to the weird, kinda arbitrary way states filter the national result. 

No matter what, it'll more closely resemble the popular vote than what we have now.

[zoogs]

Is that the case, though? 

 

Like, if you're going to say the President is meant to represent the states then  it seems fair enough to me to say, "OK, we have California going 60% Democrat; a sizable majority. CA is a very Democrat state, and CA is going blue. Texas is 60% Republican; it's similarly a quite red state, and it's going to go red." Each state throws in its lot, and they are weighted by state representation in federal government.

 

If you want to approximate the popular vote by proportional allocation but still keep the state weighing, it's an odd in-between. California has 65 times the population of Wyoming, and 18 times the electors. A state like California dividing its electors tilts the scales much more than a state like Wyoming. There are competing effects and consequences but I don't think we could say this is a means of approximating the popular vote better -- it seems more like a way of, on balance, slightly expanding Republican influence from the status quo in Presidential elections (because the biggest states by population, and therefore the most under-weighted states, are more blue or swing to begin than red).