I see why people may think it’s better to get rid of it now. People generally are more informed than they used to be. It used to be the only time you heard about any politics was when you would travel to town to get a newspaper, now everybody gets everything through the internet.
I think the plebs are capable of making sound decisions on behalf of the country. I mean the peoples will can’t be any worst than billionaires electing anti-semites who think only rich white men should have good jobs.
The electoral colleges purpose was to have informed people make sound decisions on behalf of everyone. It’s now filled with deplorable savants who make idiotic decisions. Plus americans love democracy, they love to feel entitled to an opinion in their government. With all the ruckus from bernie sanders and trump, I believe the masses are ready and willing to get rid of the electoral college because they feel it undermines their precious democracy.
I’m sure there are plenty of basic arguments as to why we need an electoral college, but I find it a bit odd in this century two democratic candidates have won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. All things considered, it’s just another barrier between establishment politics and the will of the people.
The cost of keeping it isn’t great enough - there are numerous democracies based on parliamentary systems in which the Head of State is appointed or even if elected, has largely ceremonial powers.
If the executive powers in your country were not held by your president but instead your House majority leader (and he or she would have to face two elections - the people in his district and the other members of his party in the House - neither of which involves every voter in the country), you’d still have a workable system with freedom etc. It turns out “checks and balances” and a tripartite system is not strictly necessary.
Anyhoo, you’re stuck with the Electoral College for now, because you’re not being (seriously) punished or hampered by it, hence it doesn’t get “selected out” in the evolutionary process of your country.
I like the Electoral College - the way it is supposed to keep the big states from dominating the smaller ones, etc. I would like to see the actual human electors removed from the process and have each state just submit their electoral vote. That would avoid the second stage drama over faithless electors and whether they should overturn the results.
It should be removed. It was created out of fear of democracy a long time ago, we should be over that by now. It doesn’t serve the people well, solid red and blue states are ignored in the elections and the battleground states end up selecting the president. Small states have enough of an advantage in the senate, they don’t need a handicap in the presidential election also.
It seems to be better for the few to rule the many, I won’t go into who the ruling class should be - or is, just that it seems like that is a better system historically. The EC sets up that system that also has the illusion of democracy to appease the masses under the rule of others. Perhaps it does not matter who the ruling class is, just that there is one, this way you have a system of authority and span of control where the lesser control the greater.
You have a touching, but totally misplaced, view of humanity. People in groups tend to be short-sighted and stupid.
Here in Colorado, we have three constitutional amendments that conflict with each other–all passed by initiative (i.e., the people). In this most recent election, we added another amendment raising the minimum wage. In the same breath, we voted down a tax increase from one of the local school districts–an increase that would have helped pay the extra wages that the school district will now have to pay.
I’ve never been to California, but I hear that they have the same problems.
Our electoral are short sighted and stupid. More specifically, special interest groups have very short sighted and stupid positions that are only to benefit them. Thanks to modern politics, corruption and corporatism has overthrown reason and sound judgement.
It’s my belief we’re better off letting the masses have more of an opinion than allowing the same set of republicans/democrats to continue making decisions that are definitely not thought out or planned for the longterm. I know there is countless reasons for this, such as political opposition which forces short term policies in hopes someone else will fix them for the longterm. I still believe people generally informed enough to have sound judgement, especially considering the people have no political ties, they’re just people. There is no billion dollar corporations paying off 10 million people.
The people are capable of self governing, bureaucrats is not mandatory. People can make sound decisions on behalf of their society and the world. Those in power are not excluded from the inherit problems found in man. If anything they are more prone to being exploited and having their “sound” judgement tampered with.
Getting the small states to support the necessary Constitutional Amendment would be a tough sale. Go ahead - tell Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, etc. to give up some of their power and influence.
Personally - I would like to see the states go away from their All or Nothing style. Give an electoral college vote with each Congressional district, and two for the state as a whole. Eliminate the whole state dump of ballots. But that is just me.
To emphasis my point. Over 47% of republicans do not believe climate change has had impact on the world. Over 70% believe climate change is not man made or caused by humans. Despite countless real time evidence and proof they still dismiss this.
Myron Ebell who has a degree in philosophy, economics, and political science thinks climate change is not real. Trump is apparently going to put him as head of the “Department of Environmental”. Can you really make the claim this guy is a result of a working/effective system where we elect people to make sound decisions on behalf of us?
An alternative of a constitutional amendment is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. A number of states have adopted legislation to pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, even if their own state went the other way, once enough states have joined the compact to control a majority of electoral votes. That would construct “popular vote winner wins” without eliminating the electoral college.
It is popular among non-swing states, whose concerns are not addressed currently by presidential candidates because they don’t have to, since winning a state 60-40 and winning 70-30 makes no difference.
Amendment 69 was a vote for a single-payer health care system. This quote from Colorado Public Radio says it all.
Amendment 71 was written because it is too easy to change our state constitution. So did they do something sensible like raise the required number of votes to 60% or 2/3? Of course not. The energy companies wrote the measure so that 2% of voters in every Senate district has to sign the petition. This way the oil/gas frackers only have to fight it in a couple of areas to prevent us from even having the right to vote of it. Because of this local communities cannot regulate the energy companies e.g. ban fracking in city limits.
It doesn’t have to be, at least not to the extent it is now. We had a choice between two plutocrats this year. There was one candidate who wasn’t a plutocrat but more than half of the half of the people who vote on who the candidates are chose a plutocrat instead. Democracy allows people to make choices, including bad ones. If you have a better way to do it then let us know.
Which is why – popular myth to the contrary – we don’t have a democracy. We have a republic. Democracy is nothing more than mob rule with a veneer of civilization on top.
Every one of those that are complaining how bad the electoral college is are the very ones that would be cheering about how good it is had it been their candidate who won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. It is more of a good thing than it is a bad thing. As said before it gives lesser populated states more of a voice.
… and they’re all high-population states that would benefit from that change. What a shocker.
A more realistic goal towards making the EC vote look more like the popular would be to get more states to divvy up their EC votes the way Maine and Nebraska do. Except all the big states would likely oppose it …
The only way I see the Electoral College being eliminated is if the 2 party system breaks down completely and we see multiple presidential elections in a row where 3 or more major candidates win electors causing nobody to get a majority thus throwing the election to Congress. Bonus points if the House fails to elect a President more than once and one of the VP candidates end’s up in the Oval Office. Even we’d probably see the Electoral College modified rather than completely abolished.
I think that’s a terrible idea given how badly gerrymandered the House of Representative is. Personally I’m in favour of a direct popular vote (& not just b/c of what happened last week), but I’d be satisfied with having each state award it’s electors in proportion to the popular vote in-state. I think that would allay concerns by the smaller states of losing influence since their votes would still be weighted more than larger states, but on the flip side the fewer electoral votes each state has the greater the discrepancy between it’s popular vote & it’s electoral assignment (the smallest states would always end up splitting their electoral vote 2 to 1 for example).
