# Why is there still an Electoral College in 2024? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 8, 2024, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017 "2024-04-08T18:06:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/41 "2024-04-08T20:49:56Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > It’s the EC that’s never been done by any other country, and maybe there’s a reason for that. Not correct: > **[10 Countries Besides the U.S. That Have Electoral Colleges](https://people.howstuffworks.com/10-countries-besides-us-have-electoral-colleges.htm)** > > A handful of other countries have electoral colleges, but they're very different in function and purpose from the one that decides U.S. presidential elections. You are blaming the Founding Parents of making a mistake by not thinking about something that you, with hindsight, now see clearly. But you are making a mistake by not thinking of other problems: > [@dolphinboy](#): > > There are rules for those cases. And those rules, which you have not thought through, have resulted in an “unfair” result in many cases. People were as cross about those results as you are about Trump. Saying “there are rules for those cases” does not mean the results would be fair or pleasing for you. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/42 "2024-04-08T20:57:43Z")
> [@Uncommon\_Sense](#): > > The girls always voted for some place warm and sunny and the boys always voted for downhill skiing. A more apt comparison would be the girls voting for somewhere warm and sunny, and the boys voting to get a family colonoscopy. Still want to even things out for the family? ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/43 "2024-04-08T20:57:50Z")
Wow, OK, that went over your head. Let’s look at it this way. Have you traveled much across this country? We basically have 50 states that act almost like 50 different countries, (in more ways than one) using 1 federal government as the common denominator. I would not like to live in such a place if all of our federal elections boiled down to what California and New York thought was best for everyone. The EC helps mitigate that scenario. It’s not a perfect system, and improvements should be open for debate. But I’m pretty confident that an overall “majority wins” election scenario would only be favored by those that thought they would always win, and we wouldn’t want that for our democracy either, would we? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/44 "2024-04-08T20:59:31Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I do not understand why some people think “majority rules” is less fair than “minority rules”. The difference is that the philosophy of tyhe purpose of the national government is vastly different today than it was over 200 years ago. Back then the view wasn’t that there was one large national government with 50 states acting allow for some local control. It was that there were 13 entirely separate entities, that were allowing themselves to be placed under an umbrella government to help settle disputes between them, prevent them from getting to far out of line and provide a structure for adminstrating coordinated endevors, e.g. national defense. You should think of the early US, more like a combination of NATO and the EU. If the EU ran totally on the basis of population, Latvia’s interests would be totally neglected, unless it was given extra delegates beyond their proportional population. Where the founders really dropped the ball was to fail to anticipate the rise of the party structure, and the importance of national politics. Political interests of individuals no longer segregate so much by state, but now depend on which one of two parties the individual associates with and this. So the motivation of making sure that individual states interests are respected in no longer relevant. What matters most is which of the two conglomerates of interests associated with the parties should have primacy, and divvying up the power by what are now more or less arbitrary state boundaries distorts that evaluation. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/45 "2024-04-08T20:59:37Z")
👋 I do. And I live in a small state. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/46 "2024-04-08T21:03:13Z")
It’s not a matter of what anyone wants, it’s a matter of what’s fair. I don’t live in California, but if I was a MAGA, I wouldn’t be happy that everyone gets to decide their state and federal legislators, but everyone gets one vote, and the candidate with the majority wins. I could move to Oklahoma or some other red state and my candidate would always win. Life’s rough for some people when you live in a democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/47 "2024-04-08T21:05:06Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > [@Uncommon\_Sense](#): > > > > The girls always voted for some place warm and sunny and the boys always voted for downhill skiing. > > A more apt comparison would be the girls voting for somewhere warm and sunny, and the boys voting to get a family colonoscopy. > > Still want to even things out for the family? Are you saying that Biden is the colonoscopy? 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/48 "2024-04-08T21:05:20Z")
> [@Uncommon\_Sense](#): > > But I’m pretty confident that an overall “majority wins” election scenario would only be favored by those that thought they would always win, and we wouldn’t want that for our democracy either, would we? Seems to work in elections for every other office in this country, from Senator and Governor and Representative down to city commission and school board. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/49 "2024-04-08T21:05:44Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > If the reverse had happened to Trump, I would be saying exactly the same thing. Limited government is more important than a slight majority ruling over a slight minority. And Trump is a demagogue. So there’s no way I would complain if Trump wins the popular vote while losing the electoral college. And that’s possible! When 538 starts running their simulations, they probably will show it as at a small possibility this coming November. Something similar occurred five years ago in Canada: [Conservatives win popular vote but lose election](https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal-election-2019/conservatives-win-popular-vote-but-lose-election-1.4649651) ---
**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:** [April 8, 2024, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/50 "2024-04-08T21:07:15Z")
> [@Uncommon\_Sense](#): > > Let’s say your household growing up had 4 boys and 6 girls among the children. Your parents would offer the 10 of you a chance to vote for the next vacation you took as a family. The girls always voted for some place warm and sunny and the boys always voted for downhill skiing. Since the girls outnumbered the boys, you never went downhill skiing. Now, let’s say that the votes were based so that each bedroom got 1 vote. 3 Bedrooms were divided as such (2 boys), (2 boys, 2 girls), (4 girls). Now you have a better chance of going downhill skiing, since the room with (2 boys, 2 girls) has a chance of swinging the over-all vote. Not exactly the same as the EC (or even close…) but the premis is similar. The 1 bedroom/1 vote method evens things out for the family. Let’s say our country has three races; White, Black, and Asian. We’ll assign all the voters to these three groups. Then the individuals in each group will vote and whatever the majority of individuals vote for will be considered to be the unanimous choice of the entire group. Then the three groups will gather together and cast their three group votes. And whoever gets the majority of those three votes wins. Basic democracy, right? So in the next presidential election, 120,000,000 White people vote for Smith and 70,000,000 White people vote for Jones. 25,000,000 Black people vote for Jones and 15,000,000 Black people vote for Smith. 12,000,000 Asian people vote for Jones and 7,000,000 Asian people vote for Smith. That’s a total of 142,000,000 people who voted for Smith and 107,000,000 people who voted for Jones. But let’s ignore the people who voted for the losing candidate in their group; 120,000,000 voted for Smith and 37,000,000 vote for Jones with 70,000,000 votes for Jones and 22,000,000 votes for Smith not being counted. Then the groups meet and cast their three votes; one for Smith and two for Jones, who is elected President. Did that even things out for the country? Is it still democracy? Everyone’s vote should be equal and everyone’s vote should be counted and the person who gets the most votes should win the election. That’s democracy. ---
**Author:** ![anny\_m](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@anny\_m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anny_m)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/51 "2024-04-08T21:09:47Z")
I’ve said it before and despite the fact that almost no one agrees with me, I’ll say it again: Remove the cap on the number of members of the House and you’ll remove some of the inequities caused by the Electoral College without needing to amend the Constitution. There are about 600,000 people in Wyoming. Give each state one Rep for every 600,000 people. The House would have 559 members. (For example, California would now have 65 reps instead of the current 52.) Adjust as needed with every cenus, I’m not sure a House of Reps with 559 members would be more unwieldy than one with 435, but if necessary modern technology can help. For example, establish a schedule where Reps work from home 1/3 of the time, with the schedule set so that over the 2-year term every Rep is in DC with every other Rep at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/52 "2024-04-08T21:10:38Z")
Biden won the the popular vote. ---
**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:** [April 8, 2024, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/53 "2024-04-08T21:16:23Z")
The Electoral College is undemocratic. The Founding Fathers knew that it was undemocratic. That was deliberate, because they feared too much democracy. They thought that if we had too much democracy, we’d end up with leaders like George W. Bush or Donald Trump. You’ve got to remember, what we have is basically the beta-test version of democracy. Considering what they knew and where they were coming from, the Founders did a great job. But those who came after them were able to do much better. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/54 "2024-04-08T21:17:04Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > I don’t live in California, but if I was a MAGA, I wouldn’t be happy that everyone gets to decide their state and federal legislators, but everyone gets one vote, and the candidate with the majority wins. Depending on _where_ you were to live in California, you could well be in a MAGA-friendly district, meaning that your state representatives, and your U.S. Representative, woul likely be Republicans. California is not uniformly liberal, and has, in recent memory, sent Republicans like Devin Nunes, Darrell Issa, and Tom McClintock to the House. Doesn’t help much with statewide elections, the Senate, or the presidential ticket, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/55 "2024-04-08T21:19:42Z")
> [@anny\_m](#): > > Remove the cap on the number of members of the House and you’ll remove some of the inequities caused by the Electoral College without needing to amend the Constitution. I think this is a fine idea, but perhaps it needs to be taken a step farther, in that the electoral vote of each district goes to the winner of the election within that district. The overall winner of the state also gets the two Senate EC votes. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/56 "2024-04-08T21:21:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The Electoral College is undemocratic. The Founding Fathers knew that it was undemocratic. That was deliberate, because they feared too much democracy. They thought that if we had too much democracy, we’d end up with leaders like George W. Bush or Donald Trump. That would include the Senate as well. Oh, and everyone who argues against the election of sheriffs or judges is arguing against too much democracy. ---
**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:** [April 8, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/57 "2024-04-08T21:31:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The Electoral College is undemocratic. The Founding Fathers knew that it was undemocratic. That was deliberate, because they feared too much democracy. Another factor was that it was 1789. Under the Articles of Confederation that had been running the country prior to that, the states had been much more powerful and all of them had existing strong governments. The backers of the new Constitution had to sell the idea of turning more power over to a single central government to people who were living under a decentralized system. The electoral college was one of the bones they threw to them. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/58 "2024-04-08T21:32:52Z")
That is the veritable pitfall of the EC. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/59 "2024-04-08T21:33:41Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > I think this is a fine idea, but perhaps it needs to be taken a step farther, in that the electoral vote of each district goes to the winner of the election within that district. The overall winner of the state also gets the two Senate EC votes. Nebraska and Maine do exactly this. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2024, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017/60 "2024-04-08T21:38:13Z")
In a discussion on another forum over whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s third section applies to the President, there was a debate over whether the presidency fell under the heading of “office”. Someone pointed out that technically it IS an appointed office: the president is “appointed” by the Electoral College, who ARE explicitly mentioned in the 14th. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-still-an-electoral-college-in-2024/1000017.md?page=4)