I’d hope that both sides would see that it’s something good for the country to replace a very poorly written law by a more sturdy one. But you’re right that the chances of Congress putting the need of the country ahead of their immediate agenda and profit are nearly insignificant.
There was previously bipartisan support for getting rid of the EC.
In the current situation though, it depresses black/ minority influence as well as urban in general and gives a huge advantage to the current GOP, so there’s obviously no longer a bipartisan push to get rid of it.
If you get rid of the electoral college and move to a popular vote, isn’t that better for democrats? I thought the EC overweighted smaller, more rural states with their minimum number of electors.
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Really? Seriously? Where have you been the last 6 months?
[quote=“GTFan, post:7241, topic:3532, full:true”]
It was a generic you, not you specifically.
And you’re ignoring the fact that the claims were being summarily dismissed long before there was any court action. And the mere act of taking legal action has been ridiculed and denounced. The result of court cases has been pretty immaterial to the prevailing attitude.
By “better”, do you mean “equal”?
Edit:and it’s not Gop vs Dem… before the party inversion with the transit of racists, it was Dixiecrat Democrats in a similar position to current TrumpOP.
I’ve been here. I’m not going to do it. But if you want to tally up the appearance of the word baseless in this thread (exempting the last 3)… you will see an overwhelming obsession of complaining about “baseless” and not people stating baseless.
If you mean more the definition and also including any and all discussion of the claims being meritless and thus damaging the country by pretending they aren’t completely unsubstantiated, that’s your subjective determination that they actually are baseless, and that’s a completely different thing. They remain meritless.
It’s not about it in this thread. It’s how the legacy er far left er completely unbiased main stream media refers to any claims that Trump or Trump supporters make about possible election fraud. See for yourself.
https://www.google.com/search?q=baseless+election
It’s just like the coordinated media propaganda to describe the BLM riots as “peaceful protests” even when stuff was burning to the ground behind the reporters. The word “Riots” was no longer allowed by the Associated Press.
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Sorry. I use it as shorthand for all the arrogantly dismissive outrage at the mere suggestion that something might be amiss. Paraphrasing, as it may be.
Google it, and you get numerous, near-daily headlines from major media outlets going back months.
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Currently it’d certainly favor democrats since the popular vote has gone to democrats for many cycles now. You could make arguments either way whether it’s better to represent small rural states more than they should be statistically vs. better reflecting the majority of voters. But allowing that disproportionate representation is currently helping elect presidents who do not have the approval of the majority of the country by a long shot. Trump was heavily hindered in his term by the fact that he never had the backing of the majority of the country, partially due to this disproportionate representation. It’s kinda hard to start your term with 40% approval (Feb 2017) and have an average approval through your presidency of 41%. Was it due to the EC only? No, but it played a significant part in handicapping him in that regard.
For me the decision should focus more on which system disenfranchises the least amount of voters. EC is horrible in many ways in that regard IMO. Each election cycle, it boils down to candidates only focusing on a dozen or so swing states. Speaking of the small rural state, when did Trump or Biden campaign in Montana or Wyoming? Neither in 2016 nor in 2020 because those are deep red states, that rubber stamp the GOP candidate each year regardless of who it is. Same with most of the coastal states which basically always vote Democrat. In the 2020 cycle, 33 states had no campaign events whatsoever. A dozen state received 96% of the attention. Two states accounted for nearly 40% of the campaign events. The concerns of voters in these 33 states are essentially overlooked because they won’t matter for the outcome. In addition, the simple majority vote in each state really reinforces the two party system. What’s the point of ever voting for a third party candidate in the EC system?
Straight majority popular vote is not much better IMO. I think it’d shift the focus from purple swing states to large population states. Why bother campaigning in small states when you might only sway the equivalent of 1% of the population of CA? Maybe you could make the case that it’d effectively disenfranchise less voters on the balance. But would campaigning really expand from the 10-15 states it’s currently limited to each cycle? I’m not so sure. Plus it still would not solve well the issue of third/fourth party candidates. You know they still have little chance to get elected but with simple majority they may be even more of a spoiler than currently while still not forcing the main candidates to compromise on their platform. Ranked voting popular vote may be an option to help alleviate this and help smaller political forces gather momentum over several cycles.
I think proportional electoral college vote allocation by states based on each state’s own popular vote would do well. It keeps the benefits of the EC while encouraging broader more centrist platforms and doesn’t give tons of power to a handful of marginal “swing” states.
Of course in any given year, this change is against the interest of the ruling party to maintain power (all or nothing, might as well keep it “all” for us and “none” for you), so don’t hold out hope for it getting passed at the state level.
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Larger markets are more expensive to advertise in.
I think that would make a lot more people feel that their vote matters. Since it wouldnt be winner take all, a vote for the losing candidate, even in a landslide, could still land a EC vote.
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I’d be fine with that too. Although no matter what, you’d still have to give an edge to the party having won the majority for states having even number of votes and close results. Minimum for candidate winning the most votes would be half the EC votes +1 rounded down.
And it’d make fighting over fraud much less dramatic too. Think about GA this year. Even with giving the edge to the candidate with most votes, it’s 16 votes would be split 9-7. Winning the state would only flip 2 votes instead of 16. Most swing states would become a +/-2 vote affair making focusing on that specific state much less worth it than currently.
I wonder how the EC map would look like though. Would it not mirror the national popular vote so that -currently - only Dems can become POTUS? Either way I like the idea that even in a state where you’re the minority, your vote would still count to win at least a delegate or two.
As long as the proportionality is per entire state, not per congressional district since that’s just begging for more gerrymandering. Also makes fraud in a specific district more likely to affect the results than when diluted over all the state.
EC Map for 2012 and 2016 for various per state scenario would be quite different but not have changed the outcome in these elections, just much closer numbers overall. So mobilization of the electorate all across the country but especially in large state could make a big difference. It could make emphasis on just swing states less important but I feel that it’d still shift emphasis to larger states. Any state with 3 votes would still not be given the time of day since it’d likely split 2-1 no matter what. But rallying your troops - even in a losing effort in that state in CA or TX - could basically make or break the election.
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Somebody didn’t behave like a good, responsible counsel:
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Why couldnt the EC votes be split 50/50?
I think I’d prefer allocating EC votes to individual districts, if not for that exact issue. Plus, it’d be keeping the same goalpost just at a different spot on the field - so the complaints today would remain complaints.
But even in larger states, electoral college votes would still have to be gained one by one. No more winning a few additional votes to get the whole pie; you’ll have to appeal to the same number of people in a large state to get an additional EC as you would in a small state. You’d actually have more to gain from a marginal increase in a small state than you would from that same increase in a large state.
I dont know how we got on this subject, but it’s interesting to think about.
Gerry_____
You did notice the part you cut off, where I said “if not for that exact issue”?
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