The Electoral College

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Bill Door]
That’s an interesting theory you have. Is it your contention that the land itself supported President Bush in the 2000 election? I don’t see anything else that would support your contention that the surface area of the rural parts of the country is somehow relevent. So how should we break this down? How many more votes would you get for living in the country?

As I’ve said in the past, the rural areas have enjoyed an almost unconscionable advantage, with the residents of the 22 least populous state in the union (Wyoming through Iowa) having 95 electoral votes between them compared to the 55 California has, and California has 2 million more people than in those 22 states.

All we have to do is make the number of electors equal to the number of congressman. In that case the 22 least populous states would have 33.8 million people and 50 electoral votes. California would have 36 million people and 53 electoral votes. See, it’s just as easy to do it fairly.
[/QUOTE]

No. My contention is simply that our nation is made up of a collection of states. None of the small states agreed to unilaterally disarm in the face of states with larger populations. If that was ever proposed, the smaller states would not have ratified the constitution.

It wouldn’t have worked in 1776, and it won’t work now. Your contention that California should trump the will of 22 other states is unconscionable to me.

And you are missing the fact that the rural states only have an advantage if they vote together as a block. California has 55 electoral votes. Wyoming has 3. Who has the advantage? You make it sound like it is equal when it grossly is not.

Only when a candidate is one that the rural states almost unanimously agree on is this “unconscionable” advantage put into effect. If these 22 states were split 11 to 11, then thier votes would have no effect. It’s just when candidates, usually Dems, ignore the small states that they unite and do and should have the power to stop it. It is what the founders envisoned..

22

Personally, I like the electoral college just fine the way it is. If it were ever to go to a vote, I would vote to keep it as is. I don’t hoild with tinkering with it, not one bit.

23

[QUOTE=jtgain]
(snip)It is what the founders envisoned..
[/QUOTE]

You know the founders envisioned a lot of things that were and are nonsense. The electoral college was designed to be unfair, and you write to explain that because the people who have an unfair advantage like it, it somehow is fair. I know that the small states will not give up their advantage, and why should they? I just get tired of them pretending that they don’t have one.

24

[QUOTE=Bill Door]
You know the founders envisioned a lot of things that were and are nonsense. The electoral college was designed to be unfair, and you write to explain that because the people who have an unfair advantage like it, it somehow is fair. I know that the small states will not give up their advantage, and why should they? I just get tired of them pretending that they don’t have one.
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Again: California 55, Wyoming 3. Please explain the “advantage” that Wyoming has.

It doesn’t. Only if almost ALL of the small states stand together does that even amount to something. And it should. If a candidate for president does something so bad that ALL of the small states unanimously reject him/her, then the system works..

25

[QUOTE=jtgain]
Again: California 55, Wyoming 3. Please explain the “advantage” that Wyoming has.

It doesn’t. Only if almost ALL of the small states stand together does that even amount to something. And it should. If a candidate for president does something so bad that ALL of the small states unanimously reject him/her, then the system works..
[/QUOTE]

Once more, Wyoming has one elector for each 170,000 registered voters. California has one elector for each 657,000 registered voters. 170,000:1 versus 657,000:1. That’s almost a 4:1 difference. You don’t have to be Steven Hawking to realize that that is not equitable.

26

[QUOTE=Bill Door]
Once more, Wyoming has one elector for each 170,000 registered voters. California has one elector for each 657,000 registered voters. 170,000:1 versus 657,000:1. That’s almost a 4:1 difference. You don’t have to be Steven Hawking to realize that that is not equitable.
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Saying it isn’t equitable isn’t quite the same thing as saying Wyoming has an advantage over California. So please, how does this give Wyoming the advantage?

Marc

27

[QUOTE=jtgain]
It is what the founders envisioned..
[/QUOTE]

No. It isn’t. The Electoral College came out of a committee, and virtually none of the committee members liked it at all. Many of the men influential in developing the early nation thought that the Electoral College would consist of men chosen by whatever means the states selected would argue amongst themselves and choose the person they thought would be the best president. That actually worked the first two times, Washington being chosen unanimously. The third time, however, it did not. Adams barely beat Jefferson, and there was much displeasure about the way it worked.

28

[QUOTE=MGibson]
Saying it isn’t equitable isn’t quite the same thing as saying Wyoming has an advantage over California. So please, how does this give Wyoming the advantage?

Marc
[/QUOTE]

Wyoming doesn’t have an advantage over California, each individual residing in Wyoming does. So tell me, how is the process improved by giving people living in states so unappealing that almost no one else wants to live there additional electoral votes?

You run your own state so poorly that people are moving out in droves. It is apparently considered close to uninhabitable by most of the population, so here’s some extra influence on the federal level?

29

[QUOTE=Bill Door]
So tell me, how is the process improved by giving people living in states so unappealing that almost no one else wants to live there additional electoral votes?

[/quote]

Senate representation is the way it is, in part, to ensure that the smaller states aren’t bowled over by the more populous states. It’s all part of that sharing power thing our federal form of government was suppose to accomplish. So Wyoming has more Senators per capita, explain to me exactly how this gives each individual in Wyoming a greater advantage over those living in California.

Do you have a cite that people are leaving Wyoming in droves or that it is a poorly run state?

Marc

30

I understand what you are saying. However, consider it a price for having a United States.

You are under the impression that there is ONE country here. That we all are the same.

This is a dangerous assumption. Our country is too vast and too diverse for this to be true.

If you start dismissing the ‘States’ part of the ‘United States’ then you run a real risk of politically alienating vast tracks of land. They will start to get irritated at the dominance of the small number of large population states. Then, since they really aren’t part of the United States anymore, they will want to go their own way.

Fragmentation between the large states and the small.

So…why do we have a House instead of just a Senate? Well, If you just had a Senate, then reverse the above. The large states would feel it would be better to be on their own rather than domianted by the small states.

The House/Senate is a great comprimise.

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You are also confusing arithmetic with power. Sure, the Wyoming person has much more a ‘percentage’ than a CA voter as your calculation shows. However, the CA voter still has more POWER.

An example… Let’s say you have a corporation with 3 people owning shares. The motion passes if 51% of the shares vote a certain way. Let’s say it’s split 49%/49%/2%. The 49% arithmetically has much more…24.5 times more. However, they all have EQUAL power. 2 out of three wins.

Now, take the above and have 4 people… 40%/30%/25%/5%. Now, the 5% has 1/8 the vote the 40% does…but has NO POWER. The 5% makes no difference. The other 3 have equal power.

I have no cite but I remember articles that stated that the United States system still favors large states. The smaller states still have some power, but relatively less than they should even though arithimetically they are ‘overrepresented’

It’s not as simple as dividing Bill Door.

31

If you want to make representation fairer in the Electoral College you just need to start adding seats to the House of Representatives. It isn’t a constitutional concern that caps the number of seats at 435, that was a decision made about one hundred years ago. All the States with large populations would get even more congressmen if we didn’t cap it at 435 total House members. The fact that certain States will always get a minimum of three means the EC will never be perfectly “fair” in regard to population/vote ratio, but adding more members to the House in the “usual” manner would assuage most of the concerns of people who think large States are currently getting a raw deal.

We could even use the “Wyoming plan.” Which would set the size of a Congressional district such that one district would be equivalent to the total number of persons in the smallest State in the union. This would set the size of all Congressional districts to Wyoming’s population, 493,000 or so. Wyoming would still have three electoral votes (and one House member), and California for example would go up to 69 House of Representative members (the total House would go up to something like 560 members.)

This would also mean, that at least in the House, each Congressman would be representative of roughly the same sized constituency. Since a few States are so small people a few House members have constituencies several hundred thousand persons smaller than the "norm.’

32

Keep the EC. Just redraw the state lines so each state has an equal population. If a state resists, let them secede.

33

[QUOTE=Blalron]
All that amendment says is that no state can be unequally represented in the Senate. If the Senate is abolished, there is no unequal suffrage.
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Er, no. The wording is “no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate”. Obviously, if there is no Senate, then every state has been so deprived.

34

Keep the EC as is. It’s indisputable.

Of course, I acknowledge that this is axiomatic to me–no locality should be forced to cede completely its interests to the tyranny of some remote majority–in the same way that it’s axiomatic to others that the popular vote should always prevail (the most votes have to “win,” right?). That’s where these discussions go round and round and round. Every answer is correct relative to a given axiom.

35

[QUOTE=Steve MB]
Er, no. The wording is “no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate”. Obviously, if there is no Senate, then every state has been so deprived.
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To play devil’s advocate, if the Senate was abolished, then California would have 0 votes in the Senate and Wyoming would have 0 votes. 0=0 so no state would be deprived of equal suffrage.

But I still stand by my earlier point. It was agreed that one house of the national legislature would be equally represented..