# If electing the President by popular vote is a good idea... **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 13, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428 "2015-11-13T00:12:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/1 "2015-11-13T00:12:24Z")
…then why not each party “electing” its candidate by popular vote on a unified national Presidential Primary Election Day? It just seems strange to me that people whine about the Electoral College, but when it comes to suggesting having the primaries on the same day, they tend to respond, “But that would take all of the small states, and the rural areas of the big states, out of the process; the candidates would just concentrate on where most of the people live.” ---
**Author:** ![LarryYT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@LarryYT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LarryYT)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/2 "2015-11-13T00:27:52Z")
It’s best to break it up because it weeds everyone out. If there were just one day, it would be a giant cluster on election day with possibly 10 candidates still around. That’s just my 2 cents. It would definitely be a very very interesting day, though. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/3 "2015-11-13T01:00:57Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > …then why not each party “electing” its candidate by popular vote on a unified national Presidential Primary Election Day? Sounds like a good idea to me, not least because it would shorten the process. We spend **way** too long electing a president. Let the National Primary be 60 days before the general election, and no more. And if no candidate gets a majority, let there be a Runoff Primary 30 days before the general e-day. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/4 "2015-11-13T02:28:59Z")
Who’s this “they” that tends to respond that way? I’ve no objection to putting all of the primaries on the same day. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/5 "2015-11-13T02:44:44Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > …then why not each party “electing” its candidate by popular vote on a unified national Presidential Primary Election Day? > > It just seems strange to me that people whine about the Electoral College, but when it comes to suggesting having the primaries on the same day, they tend to respond, “But that would take all of the small states, and the rural areas of the big states, out of the process; the candidates would just concentrate on where most of the people live.” Most of the country, small states, big states, rural, urban, is already out of the nominating process. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and that’s usually about it. I think the parties should stop pandering to those states and change the process up a bit, but I’m not sure a national primary is the way to do it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/6 "2015-11-13T03:01:25Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Most of the country, small states, big states, rural, urban, is already out of the nominating process. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and that’s usually about it. I think the parties should stop pandering to those states and change the process up a bit, but I’m not sure a national primary is the way to do it. You got a better idea? ---
**Author:** ![ebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@ebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ebb)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/7 "2015-11-13T03:25:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You got a better idea? How about putting the state primaries in chronological order based on their % of voter turnout in the last general election? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/8 "2015-11-13T03:50:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You got a better idea? I’d like to see them change up the order. The early states get a disproportionate amount of attention, and have a disproportionate influence on the nominating process. There may be no way to prevent that, but it doesn’t have to be the same states every time. Maybe they could do it by region; give the northeast the early primaries this time, the northwest four years from now, etc. It would save travel time and money for the candidates, get a greater number of people involved in the process, and bring attention and interest to issues in all parts of the country instead of the same few every time. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/9 "2015-11-13T04:12:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You got a better idea? If it was up to me, we’d have something like a schedule of ten primary days with five states on each day. And then, a year before the general election, the slots would be chosen at random and changed for each election. That way you wouldn’t always have the same states at the beginning of the schedule. And politicians in office wouldn’t be able to spend their term tilting policies towards early primary states in order to build up favor with them. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/10 "2015-11-13T10:45:40Z")
With regard to shortening the election cycle, Bill Maher had a good point last week. You really need a long election cycle with all of the loons that have come out of the woodwork. If you had a shortened cycle, say if the election had been last week instead of a year away, either Trump or Carson would have been the Republican nominee. In the previous election, the early front runner was Herman Cain. His point was that weeding out the loons is a slow process. I don’t know what can be done to change that. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/11 "2015-11-13T11:07:42Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > You really need a long election cycle with all of the loons that have come out of the woodwork. That’s the argument for an essentially parliamentary system: every debate, every policy idea and campaign becomes an element for scrutiny as to whether someone’s leadership material or just a self-promoting nutcase. And the higher up the system they go, the more everything they do will be assessed not only on its own merits but also as an indicator of their chances if the party leadership were to become available. Which doesn’t exclude surprises, but usually means most of the skeletons are all out of the woodwork well before the final day of judgement. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/12 "2015-11-13T15:45:31Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > It just seems strange to me that people whine about the Electoral College, but when it comes to suggesting having the primaries on the same day, they tend to respond, “But that would take all of the small states, and the rural areas of the big states, out of the process; the candidates would just concentrate on where most of the people live.” I have no problem with the Electoral College but the argument I’d use for defending the primary calendar is that it gives underfunded/less known candidates a chance to focus their resources on a few states at a time rather than competing across the entire US. Spreading their resources across the whole nation at once would make it much harder for anyone not self-funding or already supported by a large machine to break into the race. If they CAN get traction in the early states, presumably the resource issue would take care of itself as they gained support. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/13 "2015-11-13T15:55:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You got a better idea? Pick state names out of a hat in the July preceding election year. The schedule would not vary, just the allocation of which states’ primaries will occur on which dates. Optionally frontload the smaller states into the first batch picked, but it should not always be Iowa and New Hampshire and then South Carolina and Nevada. It could be Kansas and Rhode Island followed by Hawaii and Montana or Maine and Kentucky. Then a random 10 states for Super Tuesday. ETA: which is basically the same as several of the preceding suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/14 "2015-11-13T16:15:32Z")
Of course, coordinating state primary schedules would require national, federal, Congressional legislation . . . and that probably would require a constitutional amendment. The present text of the Constitution does not even **mention** political parties or primaries. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/15 "2015-11-13T16:31:29Z")
First of all, the primaries are the internal elections of private clubs. They’ve become such an ingrained part of American politics that we treat them as if they were public processes. Now I would like to see the president elected by popular vote. The fears of regionality don’t make sense and the idea of using the Electoral College to keep us from voting for dumbasses hasn’t worked anyway. But in conjunction with that I’d like to see the political parties private matters removed from public regulation to undermine their influence in the entire political process. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/16 "2015-11-13T17:33:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Sounds like a good idea to me, not least because it would shorten the process. We spend **way** too long electing a president. And this would shorten the process, how? The campaign for the 2016 nomination has been going on throughout 2015. Is that because the first primary/caucus voting is in February 2016 rather than somewhat later in the year? Perhaps, but the fact is we’ve still got a year or more of campaigning before Iowa. Like some bizarre application of Parkinson’s Law, the process has expanded to fill the time available. I’d go the other way, and next time, move the early primaries into 2019, to get some of the winnowing over with earlier. Imagine if Iowa and New Hampshire had already held their caucus and primary, respectively. The organizers of subsequent debates would have hard results to justify leaving Pataki, Graham, Jindal, and Santorum out, and after South Carolina and Nevada voted this month, they could probably drop Paul, Christie, Fiorina, Huckabee, and Kasich as well. Instead, we spend a whole year with a campaign going on, but without any benchmarks to really know whether the polls mean much. Moving the primaries nearer to the election would simply lengthen the silly season, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/17 "2015-11-13T18:20:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Who’s this “they” that tends to respond that way? I’ve no objection to putting all of the primaries on the same day. I have heard some of the early states claim that they do this for the specific reason of getting more input into the process earlier. Making their primaries the same day as everyone else would, they argue, reduce the influence their state has on the elections. But I’m pretty much with the OP. However, the federal government cannot mandate the date of the state’s primary. The Constitute generally gives elections to the states to manage and the dates of federal elections are set in the Constitution. I’m not sure the Constitution even cares if there’s a primary at all as long as the states know who to put on the ballot in November. So… I’m not sure there’s much we can do about it. All that said, the current sense of an ongoing election cycle has little to do with primaries in my opinion. It’s everything to do with the media. The day after Romney lost, the media started speculating, and Republicans started running for President. When you’re a 24/7 news outlet, politics is one of the few things that will get you ratings every day of the year and President is the only single office everyone in the US pays attention to. As another example of the media getting way ahead of itself: Trump isn’t even through the first primary and we’ve still had three months of discussion on who his cabinet might be. Seriously?! :smack: They do whatever it takes to fill up the 10 minutes between commercials. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/18 "2015-11-13T19:29:32Z")
primaries are not governed by the constitutions, that’s why. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2015, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/19 "2015-11-14T02:19:48Z")
> [@ebb](#): > > How about putting the state primaries in chronological order based on their % of voter turnout in the last general election? This would favor the most politicized states where people are most passionate about their preferences. How about the opposite? Or better yet, parliamentary democracy. No king, hereditary or elected. If a party wants to select its MP candidates by primaries, the date of the primary then will be of less significance. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428/20 "2015-11-18T04:02:29Z")
> [@LarryYT](#): > > It’s best to break it up because it weeds everyone out. If there were just one day, it would be a giant cluster on election day with possibly 10 candidates still around. > > That’s just my 2 cents. It would definitely be a very very interesting day, though. Then why don’t we do the general election this way? I think it should be all on the same day, but at the very least both the primaries and general elections should operate on the same basis IMO. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-electing-the-president-by-popular-vote-is-a-good-idea/737428.md?page=2)