It’s almost like we’re actually talking about the same thing. This is fun.
The point is that you have not explained the mechanism whereby the popular vote would actually encompass a majority unless we switched to an alternate voting system as I’ve mentioned and you’ve dismissed. I’m mentioning pluralities because that’s what people who dismiss the EC in favor of a popular vote want: a plurality winner. My point is that, hey, you want a plurality winner, the electoral college isn’t standing in your way.
Yes, there are tradeoffs. Care to explain why we should trade our political equality away? And no, just mentioning “tyranny of the majority” is not an explanation. We aren’t electing a tyrant, we are electing a president. That president doesn’t have dictatorial powers and must work within our constitutional system. So why shouldn’t every American get an equal vote?
I assure you that my belief in majoritarianism is not based on the fact that I think my ideas are popular. Many are not but I believe everyone should be equal and even if I was personally unhappy with the decisions being made I would have the reassurance that they were reached fairly. If they were important decisions, such as the invasion of Iraq, then their foolishness will soon enough become apparent to most people and, since we would have majority rule, we could get rid of the fools in charge.
Sure, cheating is a problem. But you are right, it’s not a reason to keep the EC. Cheating is solved by proper electoral procedures and if we had a national election the natural thing to do would be to have a national set of electoral procedures. Replacing the balkanized and byzantine collection of state procedures we have now would go a long way toward securing our elections. Of course, there is no guarantee this would happen if we abandoned the EC nor is there any reason this couldn’t happen right now.
:rolleyes:
So?
The existence of a status quo does not justify the status quo.
I don’t know what you are referring to. Can you provide any coherent argument in favor of the EC?
As BobLibDem says, a Kerry vote in Texas doesn’t count because all of that state’s electoral power goes to a single candidate even though a significant proportion of Texans will vote for someone else. The decisive election takes place in December when the electors vote. The unit rule ( winner take all ) leaves the pro-Kerry Texan with no say in the vote that matters.
With all due respect, isn’t that a bugaboo? Facts demonstrate that among real democratic countries not a single one ever falls under the tyranny of ‘the largest bloc’. Quite contrary, many smaller parties become disproportionately influential and get to share serious power in political coalitions.
Also, regarding the notion advanced by others that national vote is too messy, isn’t that a common contention of all repressive regimes that Democracy is just too messy? Not calling anyone a brownshirt or a commie, but how can we put limits on Democracy? Messiness needs to be considered as a serious problem, of course, but only to be overcome as a matter of principle.
Besides, some already suggested better alternatives to universal popular vote. Just split the electoral college. Of course, it appears that the worst part of EC lies in collusion of most State Legislatures to maintain ‘winner takes all’ system, and Federal gov’t can’t order States to change that, while gradual change is practically impossible here. What if Texas will split it’s electors and California won’t? Such thing needs to happen at once everywhere or it never happens at all. So we have a bottleneck…
Now, that’s one of the worst ideas I have ever heard then. At least now we have some stability. Under your system, we’d have each state’s legislature making a decision of whether or not to vote that way or by their local votes based entriely upon party loyalties. in other owrds, let us take a sate where somehow the GOP has gained control of the legislsature by one vote. The polls all say the state is going to go Demo in th election however- the legistslature would then vote to go national. Each states legislature would pick which way to go that would benefit their party the most! :dubious: You thne go on to say in th enext post “Replacing the balkanized and byzantine collection of state procedures we have now would go a long way toward securing our elections.” And your idea would Balkanize and make our elections even MORE byzantine!
Everyone here really should read whack-a-mole’s artile he linked to.
The difference is that in these real democratic countries you refer to they have a parliamentary system. The US doesn’t, which is why I consider the US to be a lousy democracy. The US disenfranchises minor parties, and those who would want to be a member of minor parties. And personally, I don’t know that I would necessarily like how things would end up if the US went to a parliamentary system. The big winners if that happened would be that the Libertarians would get some real power. And, surely a religious right party would spring up and get some real power. As opposed to the current situation of the Republicans publicly singing their tune at election time, but when it comes to actual politics selling out the religious right to economic conservatism. I doubt that there are that many anarcho-syndicalists like me we’d get enough seats in the US parliament to have much effect.
The EC turns politics such that we end up with just a chocolate or vanilla party. Those who like strawberry or peach are iced out.
The EC itself doesn’t do this, only the winner-take-all apportionment of its seats adopted by most states.
If you adopted a system where the porportions of the tastes of the voters was reflected in the relative number of Elecors commited to each party, you’d have those other parties represented. I like to think the system I proposed for California encomapsses this notion, although it gives play to political shifts over short periods of time.
After a few elections thrown to the House, voters would realize that they ought to focus more energy on that chamber. They might even learn their Representative’s name. They might get involved with issues of concern in their district in order to find compromises and solutions taht get someone into a House seat that can influence the Presidential outcome their way.
The ultimate result of this might be that the focus is taken OFF the Presidential election. Let’s face it: if you think the President can magically solve problems, or you think that the structure of governmental power ought to be rethought so that the President can move with little or no resistance or fear of comeuppance in order to magically solve problems, then you ought to call a spade a spade and admit (while dancing on the graves of long-dead patriots) that what you really want is a KING. The focus on federal solutions of late is a poison in the nation, IMO.
A strengthening of the EC as a representative body would thus shift the voter’s focus to more local problems, and I can’t think how that would be bad.
As scotandrsn points out, it is not the EC which does this. The problems you face in single-seat elections are greater than in multi-seat elections. It is easy to devise a voting system which allots representatives based proportionately on support with minority parties, but it is impossible to do in a presidential election because there is only one president. We don’t have half-presidents.
Americans currently elect their president on a first-past-the-post system, generally speaking. States’ EC votes goes to plurality winners within the states: whoever gets more votes than any other candidate in a state wins the state’s support, with almost no exceptions. In a single-seat election there really can be only one winner.
Switching to a popular vote over an EC count won’t change that. Contrary to 2sense’s opinions, sticking with a FPTP system tends to create two-party regions. Of course, with multiple regions this does imply the possibility of multiple parties, so some people who support minority parties might find this a boon… except that their minority party still won’t win a plurality, so the election results are not likely to change based simply on moving to a popular vote. Counting systems like the Borda Count can help minority opinions achieve a slightly stronger power, but it requires preferential voting, not FPTP, so we’d need to create ballots where people can vote for multiple people in seat elections.
I assure you that the EC is not standing in the way of minority parties winning the presidency. Unless voting dynamics radically change minority parties will have to find a home in smaller districts like seats in the House or even possibly the Senate where the voting system is not so much against them. In FPTP, the spoiler effect tends to work against multiple parties. Note that as American politics found its legs, we fell into a two-party system: scroll for the list of presidents and party affiliations. This is not because third parties never had any support, but because the mechanisms of winning tends toward a two-party dynamic.
Finally, as mentioned previously by other posters, losing an election doesn’t mean you were disenfranchised.
The EC ideally has only three features: 1) states are allotted votes in some manner, 2) citizens within a state attempt to influence the state’s votes, and 3) the states’ votes are tallied and a winner is determined in some fashion. This is remarkably generic, and is simply a districting scheme. Currently, (re: 1) states are allotted votes in proportion to their population (based on the number of representatives in congress, which is a step function based on population). Currently, (re: 2) a state’s EC votes are based on the plurality winner of the popular vote in that state; some states split their votes, other states give winner-takes-all. Currently, (re: 3) the winner must have a majority of states’ votes.
There is no need to abolish the EC to achieve what detractors wish, more or less. If a plurality winner is decided in (3) and states allocate their votes proportionally in (2), then we effectively have a popular vote winner. Unless the election falls within the small margin where the step-function that governs representatives adds up, the popular vote candidate wins. It remains my contention that if a person who wants a popular vote has a problem with this scheme, they actually have a beef with how they are represented. It is hard to see how they could approve of how they’re represented yet find this scheme unacceptable.
It is also hard to see how third parties are supposed to win the presidency if we switch to a popular vote, so long as the voting scheme stays the same (first-past-the-post). Generally, detractors of the EC leave such details out of their analysis and rely on rhetoric about “one person one vote”. The fact of the matter is that voting is a complicated field of study. Wikipedia has a wealth of information on different voting systems and what they imply, what their strengths are, and what their weaknesses are. It remains true that no voting system is perfect. “One person one vote” has its attraction to some, but it ignores the full story behind voting systems and why there are such a great number of them. “Fair” is not an easy word to define when you actually try to do it. Here is an overview, with links inside to the specifics.
In that case you have another reason to prefer a direct popular election.
I don’t like this idea just as I don’t like early voting. I think a vote should happen all at once. When people vote early they miss the chance to respond to later events. In your scenario there is nothing to stop Rove from withdrawing all the benefits he has offered the state over the first three years to gain support elsewhere in the fourth year. After all, he already picked up 3/4 of the support he could have gotten in Cali.
But this makes no sense. We don’t engage in collective legislating because lawmaking is a long and complex process involving innumerable decisions. Electing a leader, OTOH, is a single decision. Sure people might make their choice based on false assumptions but so might representatives.
I call “Bullshit!”
A quick search of Great Debates shows that I have addressed Hively’s propaganda piece here, here, here, here, and even in this thread where I directly contradict your description of the article. Natapoff’s ideas have not been ignored. They have been repeatedly weighed and rejected. Now, would you care to get down off your cross and try to defend that big steaming pile of crap you seem to find so convincing?
Natapoff’s work stems from a fundamental misunderstanding about what makes elections powerful. An election is powerful only if it fills a powerful position. The election of the president is powerful; the election of the mayor of Podunk, Wyoming is not. An election can have no more, or no less power than this because that is all an election affects. Now, if we arbitrarily assign the value of seven to the power of the outcome of an election with seven voters we can look at formulas for deciding how to divide up this power. A popular vote then would be represented thus:
1+1+1+1+1+1+1=7
Each voter has an equal share ( 1/7 ) of the voting power. Now a hypothetical districted election such as Natapoff discusses ( notice the article only addresses these questions in the abstract. If it actually discussed the system we really use it wouldn’t be able to convey the false impression that everyone, in addition to having more power, can still have equal power ) might be represented as such:
(1+1+1)+(1+1)+(1+1)=7
The point here is that you can divide up the left side of the equation however you wish but the other side always remains the same. There is just no way to give an election more power without changing the affect the outcome has on the political system. The idea that all voters can have more power is chimerical. Some voters can gain more power but only at the expense of other voters. That’s what is happening now with the EC. Some have more, some have less. There is nothing subjective about the unfairness of that proposition. If we were equal, it would be fair. We aren’t so it’s not. Unless, that is, you don’t believe everyone deserves to be equal. If so you should just be honest about your belief and not try to disguise it with a bunch of mathematical mumbo jumbo.
Why should I? We aren’t discussing here any of my proposals or claims. We are discussing your assertion that “It would take a rather extreme case whereby, if all states adopted this method of apportioning their EC votes, the candidate that one failed to represent the simple plurality vote.” That statement is incorrect for the reasons I have given. Reasons you keep ignoring. You know, you would be a lot less confused if you would join me in my fantasy world where you stop introducing crap that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
With all due respect, please stop ignoring the fact that I have already outlined the limitations of such a “solution”.
The Maine/Nebraska system is winner-take-all by congressional district (for the 1 EV corresponding to that district’s Representative) and winner-take-all for the state (for the flat 2 EV for each state corresponding to its Senators). The proposed Colorado system is a proportional system based on the state total.
The former works smoothly enough, and actually increases the advantage of “firewalling” recounts in close cases. The latter would be mess – there would need to be a recount if the vote total were close to any of the rounding-off boundary points between 3-6, 4-5, 5-4, 6-3, etc. If a large (20+ EV state) adopted a proportional system, it would be a mess squared – then, there would be a plethora of recount triggers to determine whether one of the serious third-party candidates had cracked the threshold to get 1 EV out of the pie.
Obviously, if you choose such a ridiculous example that is the case. If you choose a more realistic example, and actually group it like the EC does, you’ll see his argument fall out of the picture.
They can’t. Minority opinions gain power under the EC. In a tight race, voters’ power approaches equality. In a race with one side preferenced, “losing” voters’ power increases. Compared to the situation where the popular vote winner wins, this has the benefit of forcing candidates to appeal to a broader base. If the better you do, for some margin of percentages, increases your detractors’ power, then it clearly must change the way a politician campaigns. In a popular vote scenario, once a person gets one percent of the vote over 50, there is no need to pay attention to the rest. At all. So long as nothing you do pisses off your own constituency, you’re free to be as mean of a bastard as you want. As I’ve mentioned, I see no benefit to this situation. I find it a remarkably poor way to select politicians. That is one of the reasons why.
Mathematically trivial. It is the consequences of this that have importance for the EC. We vote to influence politics. The EC influences how politicians must run: they need to appeal to a wider base.
Actually, there is, since you’ve taken no effort to explain your standard of fairness. Given the number of different voting systems and counting methods, you’ve certainly not managed to explain why yours is the really good one. You keep harping on the idea that the status quo doesn’t support sticking with the status quo or whatever. But we don’t change just because we can. And rhetorical nonsense about “one person one vote” won’t hack it in GD. Write your to the opinion column in your local paper, ok. Come in here and think people will let that sit like a metaphysical fact? No way.
Ah, throwing around one undefined term to justify another. “Fairness is defined as one person one vote, and all votes mean as much as all other votes.” This is certainly one way to define “fair”. Another people have thought up is that minority opinions should be given slightly greater weight so that they are not crushed under the majority… that is isn’t “fair” (dang that word again!) that 51% of the people should be able to effectively oppress the other 49%… that the other 49%'s opinions count, too. How do you suppose you can address that with a popular vote? Obviously, you cannot. So I guess the better question is… why is your definition of “fairness” better than the other? Because you say so? Change for the sake of change?
Well, actually, we were, but ok. I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending your ideas, either.
You have given no reasons. I gave mine in the post addressed to rfgdxm. I have described how to change the EC’s methodology to align itself with the quote you are “addressing”.
Please do repeat it for us poor souls who cannot find it.
For the record:
[ul]
[li] PR has never been “offered” either statehood or independence by the US government. All referenda here in that sense have been local initiatives by one or another governing party trying to push its agenda.[/li][li] Ditto the USVI[/li][li] Cuba was committed to attain independence all along from even before the US landed there[/li][li] Ditto the Phillippines, though it required substantial time and blood to convince the Anglos of that fact [/li][/ul]
You’ve just contradicted yourself. If you’re going to sneer at someone who casts (for example) a Nader or Badnarik vote in Texas, then you must sneer with an equal curl of the lip at someone who votes for Kerry in Texas – both have precisely zero effect on the outcome.
There’s no doubt that it would be Constitutional. It would be Constitutional for a state legislature to decide that the state’s electors shall go to the candidate preferred by the Official State Chicken-Entrail Reader – the decision is explicitly assigned to the state legislature by the federal Constitution.
Washington Post columnist David Broder argues that proportional distribution of electoral votes could easily throw elections into the House–and would have in 1960, 1968, 1992 and 1996–and also argues that direct election with a run-off creates an incentive for minor parties to demand concessions from the leaders in exchange for support.
Personally, I’d worry less about the electoral college if the party standard bearers were chosen by a larger proportion of the voters, maybe along the lines of a national primary. It doesn’t make much sense to me that in both parties most candidates are booted out of the race in New Hampshire and Iowa. In my experience people vote in the presidential election for whoever they consider the lesser of evils. But I’ve observed very few people standing up and seriously saying “-------- [Bush/Kerry/Gore/Clinton/Dole etc.] is the man for our times!”
You know, there are several other Admendments to the Const, like the 14th and such, and if the legislasture actually tried to disenfranchise their electorate like that, I am sure it would be challenged. Voters have rights.
Voters have absolutely zero rights to directly vote for the president. I would be quite legal for a state to change their laws such that the electors would be chosen by the legislature directly. What if all the members of the state legislature decided they’d cast their vote based on what the Official State Chicken-Entrail Reader told them?
I am not convinced that “Math Against Tyranny” justifies the Electoral College as much as it justifies districting in general. If I understand the thesis correctly, it is: Districting increases individual voter power as (a) an election becomes more lopsided and (b) the electorate grows. If you accept this thesis as-is, then the next logical question is what are the ideal districts? The article glosses over this question, but suggests:
I suspect that the states (and DC) do not meet this criteria and I doubt that it could be mathematically proven that they did - particularily throughout time (past and present). So as convincing as the article is, I don’t think it is a cut-and-dried mathematical proof for the Electoral College.
As a side note, I did a rough calculation of the gap in popular vote between the top two candidates from 1940-2000. The average was 9.25%.
I think this is the crux of the issue and gets back to what JamesCarroll meant when he refered to trade-offs. Either we want a system of “one man, one vote” where each person has the same individual voting power. Or we want a Madisonian system that “forces majorities to win the consent of minorities” by redistributing individual voting power. I don’t think there is a system that can meet both of these requirements. I think a debate of the EC requires us to identify and agree on which of these basic requirements we want most.
Um, my plan is an attempt to fit a direct popular election into the current constitutional framework. That is, it wouldn’t change the Constitution, which I encourage you to go and read again. If you do you will see that the stability we have now is based solely on politics. The Constitution leaves state legislatures free to choose electors in any manner they choose ( though if they do hold an election the antidiscrimination constitutional amendments as well as federal election regulations do apply ). In South Carolina, for instance, the state legislature simply chose the electors themselves up until the Civil War.
I have already pointed out that a district system “solves none of the problems of the unit system and while it is harmless enough in states with small and relatively homogenous populations like Maine and Nebraska it would be a different story in larger states where gerrymandering is the norm. As a for instance, I live in the battleground state of Pennsylvania but I, like nearly all Pennamites, live in a district biased in favor one major party or the other. Under a district system we would be in safe districts and our swing state would be worth a mere 2 electoral votes.”
As Hazel has already alluded to here, as well as in the past, there is no reason to abandon the “firewalls” when moving to a direct popular election. Elections would still occur in states, counties, and precincts so if we keep the current system of tabulating the votes accordingly there is no reason we would have to recount the entire country for a problem that occurs only in certain places. And as I have already pointed out here, the fiasco in Florida in 2000 shows that “firewalls” can’t prevent mistakes in certain places from turning the outcome of the election.
And what is wrong with recounts? Maybe we should always have them. Why not have an accurate count as possible even if it doesn’t effect the outcome?
Look, I don’t know what the problem here is. I can’t seem to communicate with you for some reason. I’m trying to avoid blaming this on poor reading ability or deliberate obtuseness on your part but you are making it difficult. It’s bad enough you seem incapable of grasping what seem to me to be simple enough statements but now you are misrepresenting my beliefs to others. Please don’t. We are here to fight ignorance and not to spread it, remember?
Now clearly I do understand that “First Past The Post” elections sustain the 2 Party System. I’ve said so in reply to you in both post #33 and post #45. Do you not know what a “plurality election” is? If not, it’s an election that can be won with a mere plurality or the same thing as FPTP.
Do you even understand what we want? We ( or at least me and some others I’ve seen call for the same thing ) want equality for all citizens. Not more. Not less. Just equality. For everyone. Please explain how we may have this without abolishing the EC.
Obviously you don’t understand the thrust of Professor Natapoff’s work. I don’t know if this is another manifestation of your comprehension problem or if you are just spouting off without bothering to read the article but Natapoff is arguing, or trying to make us believe anyways, that not just some voters gain more electoral power in a districted election but that ALL voters do. Here’s a quote:
'Natapoff agrees that voters should have equal power. “The idea,” he says, “is to give every voter the largest equal share of national voting power possible.” ’
Now you evidently do understand that it isn’t possible to increase any voter’s electoral power without decreasing someone else’s because you say just below the sentences I quoted that all voters can’t have more power. So what is the problem?
Now it is my turn to ask what fantasy world are you living in? Here in the real world the US is in the final stretch of a close presidential election using the EC. Are the candidates spending time appealing broadly to as many Americans as possible? Hell no. They are using their resources where they will actually do some good: here in Penna, in Ohio, in Florida, and in a few other battleground states.
The problem is that being a mean bastard will piss off your own supporters. Americans care about what happens to other Americans. This is why Bush was trying to duck the Anti Gay Marriage Amendment. Not many gays were going to vote for him anyways but supporting it makes him look mean and that costs him votes from nongays. Why do you think Bush isn’t allowing pictures to be taken of the bodies coming home from Iraq? Do you think he is afraid the dead soldiers will vote against him?
Also, your post ignores the reality that only a foolish candidate indeed would do things to jeapardize their chance of electoral success. A politician staring at a poll giving them a one point lead is going to do their best to not do anything at all that might piss of any potential supporter.
The benefit to having an election where everyone has an equal vote is that everyone has an equal vote.
Are you serious!?!
Of course I explained my standard. I said, “If we were equal, it would be fair.” Moreover, you even quoted that sentence and replied, “Ah, throwing around one undefined term to justify another.” So even if you don’t agree you did understand that I was trying to explain.
I did explain. It makes us equal. I also noted that the argument isn’t valid for those who “don’t believe everyone deserves to be equal.” So how do you feel about equality? Or is that question too metaphysical for you?
You seem to have little clue what my ideas are. And the bit of selective quoting of my words that you are replying to here is misleading. If we include the next sentence it becomes, ’ We aren’t discussing here any of my proposals or claims. We are discussing your assertion that “It would take a rather extreme case whereby, if all states adopted this method of apportioning their EC votes, the candidate that one failed to represent the simple plurality vote.” ’
So yes, we have discussed some of my claims but this part of the discussion is all about your assertion. You made it and I explained why it was false in post #33. You quoted that part of the post and said some shit that had nothing to do with it. I pointed that out and explained again why your claim was wrong in post #45. You claimed you would let the rest of the discussion go and that you would just address this part but, of course, you went on to do nothing of the sort. In post #56 I pointed out you were still missing the point and explained yet again why your original claim was incorrect. You said it almost sounded like we were talking about the same thing and then complained I hadn’t explained something that we weren’t even talking about. In post #68 I told you we weren’t discussing that nonsense but rather your original claim. You again denied reality and now here we are.
So, are you ever going to get around to addressing my argument about why your original claim is false? There’s no point in trying to hide what happened, you know. It’s all right there for anyone to see.
I would be happy to explain again for New Iskander or someone else and even to you once I see some evidence that something, anything, that I say seems to be getting through to you.
