Poll: Is it a good idea to get rid of the Electoral College

[Angry Dragon]

Yes, No or something else??

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. IIRC the number of electoral votes a state has is tied to

its representation in congress. Wouldn't an indictment against the one essentially be an indictment of the other?

Honest question.

[Angry Dragon]

4. That is a good question

I had not thought of that

The rep numbers change according to the census so they could divide the population by the number 435
and then from there decide how many reps per state. Would that cover that problem??

[Pab Sungenis]

5. Yes, but

each state also gets two votes, representing their Senators.

Thus even Delaware, Rhode Island, and Wyoming have three electoral votes. So does DC!

[hifiguy]

6. Nope, because only the President is elected

on a national basis. A Senator is a Senator from Wissouri or Minnebraska, the President is president of the nation.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

17. True but the laws that congress advances are based on these apportionments.

That's my thought, FWIW.

[Angry Dragon]

20. Just perhaps congress would then consider all the people

instead of just a minority..........

How do you feel about the electoral college??

[Nuclear Unicorn]

25. It's my understanding the intent

is to keep heavily-populated states from dominating the election landscape. That would be a good idea, in and of itself. Hawaii, Rhode Island, the Dakotas etc deserve as much love as New York, California and Texas.

[Angry Dragon]

30. Right now if I run for president all I have to do

is convince people in the high electoral states to vote for me
to get to 270 and I win. I do not really have to worry about the voters in the smaller states.

One person, one vote gives more power to the people than it is right now.

[former9thward]

33. Actually all those states you mention do not get any love.

There are only about 12-15 swing states where candidates campaign. The states you mentioned are automatically either Democratic or Republican and candidates ignore them (except for fundraising).

[Chemisse]

2. I think it is. One person, one vote.

For years my vote for president was meaningless, since New Hampshire (where I live) always voted Republican. Things have changed here - luckily - but it should never be that way in the day and age where we actually could (and do!) tally every single vote.

[Pab Sungenis]

3. Yes.

It gives too much weight to the voters of smaller states. A vote in Wyoming, for instance, carries 3x the weight as my vote here in New Jersey

[supernova]

7. Yes, get rid of the electoral college

Reference: Every state gets one electoral college vote for every member of congress in both houses. My state, NC, has 13 representatives and two senators, so we get 15 electoral college votes.

In the days when news was slow to travel and a good chunk of the general public was illiterate, then the electoral college made sense. In the age of instantaneous mass media, it doesn't make sense.

[Jack Rabbit]

8. Yes

I would also say that, as a Californian, my state is giving up more than a small state by going to the direct election of the President and Vice President since the candidates are more likely to spend time in California than Wyoming as things stand now. With direct election of the national ticket, every individual vote counts equally.

[librechik]

9. Yes, it's a relic of slavery and serves to preserve the confederate states

with all their modern-day flaws

[boston bean]

10. There are plans in individual states to make the Electoral College ineffectual w/o a Constitutional

amendment.

See here:

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

[Angry Dragon]

12. Thanks for the link

How are you voting??

[coalition_unwilling]

11. Actually, getting rid of the Senate makes equal sense, as California

gets exactly the same number of senators (2) as a relatively unpopulated state like North Dakota or Montana. It means that residents of Montana and North Dakota get representation in the Senate way out of proportion to their numbers in the country.

The U.S. Senate is not fair under any system purporting to be based on 'one man, one vote.'

[RebelOne]

13. Yes, yes and yes. n/t

[edhopper]

14. Since it usually comes out the winner of the popular vote wins

why add the extra layer. It also makes certain swing States more important and candidates bow to much to issues that might not be important to the majority in the other States.

Also G W Bush is reason enough. Once a catastrophe like that happens, it is time to change.
Of course we live in America, where we can't seem to change anything no matter how bad the results.

[boxman15]

15. YES

It's time to give the people a direct say in choosing the president. People are MUCH more informed now than they were in 1787.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

16. Yes, but it will never happen.

The small states would never let it happen.

[Nye Bevan]

18. No, because I don't trust the red states not to cheat, which is mostly impossible with the EC

With the Electoral College it is a given that the Republican will win all of the electoral votes in Texas (to take an example). In a popular vote system, however, if the Democratic candidate has a small lead, I would not be surprised if a few thousand extra Republican votes were "discovered" deep in the heart of some true red counties. And bear in mind that these kind of shenanigans are much easier to pull off in rural Republican-leaning areas than urban centers that tend to lean Democratic where there is much more scrutiny.

[Angry Dragon]

21. If they fudged numbers it would not help as much

as it does now. All the democratic votes would count.
It might be better for Texas.

[Nye Bevan]

22. "All the Democratic votes would count"? I'm not that trusting.

I don't trust the red states not to "lose" votes from Democratic areas and "discover" votes in Republican ones. With the EC there is no incentive for that at all in the deeply red states. But with a popular vote system, every precinct in the country is a potential opportunity for cheaters to help their guy.

[Angry Dragon]

29. If all the electoral votes go repub now

then the democratic votes do not count at all

[Warren Stupidity]

19. yes abolish that crap: direct election by popular vote.

And no plurality wins either. The winner needs a majority using any of the standard runoff mechanisms.

[Lunacee2012]

23. I think we should.

I don't know exactly how though. I just think it's odd how someone can win the popular vote and still lose the election.

[customerserviceguy]

32. What's not odd about it

is that when the Constitution was ratified, states' rights were considered more important than individual rights. We're stuck with it, for better or for worse.

[Maven]

24. Yes, definitely.

[provis99]

26. yes, and I want to get rid of the undemocratic Senate, too.

[Douglas Carpenter]

27. especially in the current situation - it is totally possible that President Obama could win by

millions of votes officially and still lose the election because of this crazy 18th century system

[Chan790]

28. No and the reason is the legitimacy of the election.

I wrote a thesis on this in college and learned some things that were concerning...like the margin of error in the national tabulation is around 3%. Different people doing multiple recounts including rejection of spoiled ballots consistently come up with totals that can vary by as much as 1M votes. (There were verified and peer-validated matrices of the 2000 vote-tabulation showing Bush national wins as large as 100000 votes.) No national tabulation total with a difference smaller than that MoE could ever be considered legitimate or certifiable.

That fancy number you see on CNN, etc. is a best-guess based on a median from approximately 30 national tabulations weighed against likelihood-scores (the further from the median they fall, the less they weigh into the "official" national tabulation.) and factoring in statistical sampling. It's no more accurate than your average telephone poll.

Is the EC a pile of crap? Yes. But a national direct election is unworkable.

[Warren Stupidity]

45. that is the oddest argument

as it is election fraud can be used to capture the presidency by focusing efforts on stealing a relatively small number of votes in one or two key states, collecting all of those electoral votes in the process. Direct election would make it much harder to steal the election, but you instead wish to retain the status quo because of the fraud issue. I think you have it completely backwards.

[customerserviceguy]

31. Whether it is or not, it's essentially impossible

To get rid of the EC, you need a Constitutional amendment. Since those need ratification by 3/4 of the states, all it takes is 13 sparsely populated states to put the kibosh on the idea. That's assuming you can even get the supermajorities through Congress necessary to pass an amendment.

Ain't gonna happen.

[boston bean]

35. It's true that it would be unlikely to happen, but...

the EC can be bypassed and some states have signed on to do just that.

See the link in post #10.

[customerserviceguy]

38. Yes, they have voted to abdicate their own rights

And the Rethugs would love it. Can you imagine the GOP getting dozens of electoral votes from solid-blue states' rural areas, while trading off a handful of urban districts in the red states?

While they can indeed give up a valuable Constitutional right, the sparsely populated states would never go for scrapping the EC.

[JoePhilly]

50. think about PA ... it is Philly to the East, Pitt in the West and ALABAMA in the middle.

Do you want to split PA's votes ... while states like Alabama DON'T do so?

This is why the GOP pushes this in BLUE states, and not in RED states.

[doc03]

34. YES

[Taverner]

36. Not any more

The EC was good at a time when state's rights were necessary

Ever since the Civil War, they haven't been...

[McCamy Taylor]

37. Yes, if we all get rid of it.

[RainDog]

39. yes n/t

[RainDog]

40. I want my vote to count in the presidential election, not my state's vote

my state doesn't represent me.

the electoral college keeps conservatives in office and makes presidential candidate veer to conservatism.

[aaaaaa5a]

41. Yes... the electoral college gives way too much power to States with small populations.

The electoral college is very unfair to larger more populated states. On a per capita basis, residents in Montana, South Dakota and Idaho have votes that carry way more value than votes from people in California, Florida, New York and Texas.


Its a terrible system.

[dana stevens]

42. No Way!! Electoral College Keeps True Democracy from Happening!!

The founding fathers were extremely leery about full on Democracy and the tyranny of the majority. Historically a true Democracy can not last long, and ultimately degenerates into a tyranny quite quickly.

The framers knew this and were very knowledgeable about Democratic tendencies. Their goal, in creating our Constitutional Republic, was to make sure that a true Democracy would have a tough time taking hold. That was the primary reason for the creation of the Electoral College.

James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 51: "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."

Does anyone remember Plato's Republic? His primary reason for writing such was to argue against Democracy.

[one_voice]

43. yes.

[arely staircase]

44. abso - fucking - lutely

does the name George W. Bush ring a bell?

[madokie]

46. I would say no

It was put in to begin with to keep a few high population states to have an edge in who is elected as President. If there were no electoral college then small states wouldn't have much of a chance of having a President from their state from being elected.
Its fine as it is. The problem we have is black box voting and criminals running the elections in some states. Get rid of those two and our elections will be fair and honest once again.

Leave the electoral college as it is is my answer.

[Angry Dragon]

47. Kick for the morning

[jtrockville]

48. Something else: instant run-off

I think instant run-off would provide a better system, regardless of what we do with the electoral college.

[demosincebirth]

49. We should have dumped it 100 years ago.