I called your post stupid, yes. I specifically didn't call you stupid, and I went out of my way to say that I wasn't impugning your motives. But instead of stupid (which is generally an insult) I should have said ignorant (which I wholeheartedly do not believe is an insult when used properly). So I will apologize for saying stupid. Now, are you actually interested in discussing? Do counties matter?
I am just going to leave this here (part two)
- Thread starter hailtoyourvictor
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I called your post stupid, yes. I specifically didn't call you stupid, and I went out of my way to say that I wasn't impugning your motives. But instead of stupid (which is generally an insult) I should have said ignorant (which I wholeheartedly do not believe is an insult when used properly). So I will apologize for saying stupid. Now, are you actually interested in discussing? Do counties matter?
Because there are 50 states in the union with vastly different wants and needs, so a national election for the United STATES should not be so disproportionately balanced to the most populous states. Some weight makes sense. The weight of a popular vote does not.
^ so instead they pander to Florida, Ohio, sometimes Pennsylvania, and depending on the year maybe a few other states (and Clinton's campaign was terrible in part because she did not pander to Wisconsin, Michigan, and B1G country at all). Any system will pander to where the swing votes are, period. So the EC doesn't solve any problems, it just shifts them around.
States are made up of counties in which people live, which often have vastly different needs. Cook County (Chicago) and McLean County (169,000 people and largest county by land area in IL) have vastly different needs. Does some weight make sense for counties re: statewide office? Again, how far down?
You say this minutes after questioning my opinion that pandering would be worse if the popular vote won elections.
I would love to see counties be considered in a similar way as an electoral college. I'm from an area where wolves are getting to be a big problem.
The top part of Michigan there has a population of 311,000.
Detroit alone has a population of 673,000.
Michigan has a population of 10 million.
Here is a map of wolf/dog conflict in Michigan:
Wolf population by year in Michigan:
From what I can gather, the current wolf population is about:
Upper Peninsula: 650
Lower Peninsula: 1
When I went to school in the lower peninsula, it was shocking to see how many Michigan residents didn't even realize the Upper Peninsula was part of Michigan. They don't know about or care about the U.P.'s problems and the U.P. doesn't have enough voting power to fix their problems.
Thankfully a Republican led Michigan government finally stepped in to help the problem.
It would be different, but not necessarily worse because any system will chase/pander to swing votes. My posts are entirely consistent.
See above.
But I think it's more crucial when talking on a national level because we are talking states that are over 3,000 miles apart on the mainland alone.
I also think it's crucial because the country was formed as a union of individual states. Were states formed the same way? I don't know.
I would love to see counties be considered in a similar way as an electoral college. I'm from an area where wolves are getting to be a big problem.
The top part of Michigan there has a population of 311,000.
Detroit alone has a population of 673,000.
Michigan has a population of 10 million.
Here is a map of wolf/dog conflict in Michigan:
Wolf population by year in Michigan:
From what I can gather, the current wolf population is about:
Upper Peninsula: 650
Lower Peninsula: 1
When I went to school in the lower peninsula, it was shocking to see how many Michigan residents didn't even realize the Upper Peninsula was part of Michigan. They don't know about or care about the U.P.'s problems and the U.P. doesn't have enough voting power to fix their problems.
Thankfully a Republican led Michigan government finally stepped in to help the problem.
I applaud your consistency. Would you go lower? Neighborhoods or households for county level?
I think a lot of people consider UP to be lower Canada/upper Wisconsin in all but its official status. I went to school in Flint (for less than a year), and made it to UP a couple of times, and UP is the best part of the state, imho. Reminds me of Green Bay area Wisconsin.
It would be worse because each side would be forced to pander to groups they wouldn't need to before. Left = 2nd amendment people, NRA more specifically . Right = pro choice people. Just one example each.
Thank you for the examples! It's an interesting argument, but as someone who has rarely lived in a swing state (I guess MN in 2000 and NV in 2004 were sorta swing states), I think it would just shift an existing problem elsewhere. But I get your point.
I don't think going that low is critical. The more narrow you get the more common the needs of the whole are.
When you went to Flint, did you know or care about the wolf situation in the U.P.? Because literally no one I met did.
And yes, the U.P. should be part of Wisconsin. It's already chalk full of Packer fans.
Not necessarily. The issue is swing votes, which are largely found in suburban areas, not urban (or rural) ones. That suburban focus already happens now, but it's concentrated in a few key swing states.
Actually, let me clarify. What do you mean by pandering? I'm thinking campaigning and the types of soft promises that politicians don't keep. I don't think actual policy would change much, if at all, because that's largely party platform (which is national) based. It might shift pork spending (ugh) from swing states to, say, NY, but I don't think so because last I looked pork spending was tied to influential Congressmen (swing votes in Congress, or guys like Ted Stevens in Alaska), not presidential swing states.
I think it would be worse because government would pander to the most densely populated areas.
I think back to a report I did on health care in South Korea. They had (have?) a problem with doctors having no incentive provide (even sometimes basic) services outside of the main city because of how much pull Seuol has when it comes to everything. When you give cities (or states) too much power many other parts of the union can suffer.
Pandering as in you find what the issues the biggest cities/states want fixed and campaign on those while not caring much about the problems in smaller cities, states, or rural areas because the juice isn't nearly worth the squeeze.
Then isn't the obvious answer to have layers of government, federal state and local? That way the local government can deal with a local issue, and represent those people. I don't think the answer to different states having different needs is to give smaller states more control over the federal executive through disproportionate representation (which is antithetical to all the ideals behind our nation). I think the better answer is tighter control/emphasis on the 10th Amendment and little laboratories of democracy rather than diluting such a fundamental right from millions of citizens (it may cancel out somewhat, but any D in a solid R state and any R in a solid D state is diminished).
I did not know about the wolf issue, but I was cramming math/physics/engineering/CAD the whole time (and discovering beer).
We can agree to disagree, then, because the issue isn't # of voters, it's # of swing voters. I don't think there's as much juice in the urban orange as you do. And right now no one panders to non-swing states, so it's just moving the problem to another area. I think it's just inevitable, and that each vote should count the same.
Trump happened to win more counties and more states. The only thing that matters in determining victory is who had more electoral votes.
The popular vote and Electoral College have been split a total of 5 times ever, none between 1888 and 2000. It's easy enough to claim that the support and dissent would reverse itself if the split was reversed, but the fact is the only 2 times it has happened in any living person's memory is 2000 and 2016, when Republicans won the EC while losing the popular vote. There are no examples to the contrary, so speculating about it is just avoiding what we know we have.
Let's see if we can at least agree on this....
People of the lower peninsula don't need wolf management because there are no (maybe 1?) wolves south of the Mackinaw Bridge. Given the info you have in this thread coupled with us agreeing that it's not an issue that affects people of the lower peninsula, would you agree that a statewide popular vote on wolf management could screw over the U.P.?
^ "screw over." That's quite a loaded term (should statewide money go to a local issue? that's also loaded, of course, but from the other side), but aside from that I suppose that yes, a statewide vote will likely result in candidates that support policies that affect the majority of the people. That's democracy. (your example also doesn't work unless there are enough "EC" votes, which seems unlikely here). I'll note your example is quite black and white, which (as I have argued before) is not so clear re: EC/states because the divide (in policies and increasingly in politics) is urban/rural. So at best EC is a very crude proxy for supposed small state interest. But it doesn't even do that well at its supposed purpose (setting aside that it massively distorts votes in a way that effectively disenfranchises millions).
Consider Montana. In terms of presidential politics, no one GsAF about Montana. It's reliably red, and it's 3 electoral votes. If the EC is eliminated, no one GsAF about Montana because there's only 1.05m people (and therefore few swing votes). Same for every small state; eliminating the EC will not increase the incentive to chase swing votes in rural Nebraska because it's drops in the ocean. So go ahead and just eliminated about 30 states for which the EC does nothing. (you can use Delaware, same result, for a blue example)
Now consider Florida's Pinellas County, which has roughly 970,637 people. Trump won 48.6% to 47.5%. Pinellas County alone could have swung Florida, which would have swung 29 electoral votes. That's more than Alaska, Delaware, DC, Montana, ND, SD, Vermont, Wyoming, and one of (HI, ID, ME, NH, RI, NE, NM, WV) combined. Under the EC, one county in Florida is potentially worth as much as 9 states (DC not a state, but you get what I mean) combined. That's highly distorting, and that doesn't help those small states one bit. Instead, it just shifts the inflection points to swing states, and not small states, at the cost of literally diluting votes in other places.
Now, how does shifting the focus of presidential elections to Ohio, Florida, PA, and to a lesser extent places like Colorado, Virginia, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and North Carolina help Montana? ND? SD? Wyoming? Vermont? WV? It doesn't, really. But it does ensure that voters in those states have disproportionate impact on presidential elections. The R in NYC is as helpless as the D in Oklahoma. If your real focus is state level issues, the better solution is focus on the 10th Amendment. The EC is a poor solution.
Consider Montana. In terms of presidential politics, no one GsAF about Montana. It's reliably red, and it's 3 electoral votes. If the EC is eliminated, no one GsAF about Montana because there's only 1.05m people (and therefore few swing votes). Same for every small state; eliminating the EC will not increase the incentive to chase swing votes in rural Nebraska because it's drops in the ocean. So go ahead and just eliminated about 30 states for which the EC does nothing. (you can use Delaware, same result, for a blue example)
Now consider Florida's Pinellas County, which has roughly 970,637 people. Trump won 48.6% to 47.5%. Pinellas County alone could have swung Florida, which would have swung 29 electoral votes. That's more than Alaska, Delaware, DC, Montana, ND, SD, Vermont, Wyoming, and one of (HI, ID, ME, NH, RI, NE, NM, WV) combined. Under the EC, one county in Florida is potentially worth as much as 9 states (DC not a state, but you get what I mean) combined. That's highly distorting, and that doesn't help those small states one bit. Instead, it just shifts the inflection points to swing states, and not small states, at the cost of literally diluting votes in other places.
Now, how does shifting the focus of presidential elections to Ohio, Florida, PA, and to a lesser extent places like Colorado, Virginia, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and North Carolina help Montana? ND? SD? Wyoming? Vermont? WV? It doesn't, really. But it does ensure that voters in those states have disproportionate impact on presidential elections. The R in NYC is as helpless as the D in Oklahoma. If your real focus is state level issues, the better solution is focus on the 10th Amendment. The EC is a poor solution.
Screwed over by the population that doesn’t know anything about the problem voting on whether or not the problem should be dealt with, while the people that face the problem don’t have enough voters to vote for a fix.
^ right, but I don't think an EC style system helps you there unless UP has a lot more people than I think it does. I think you'd get the equivalent of an EC and popular vote beat down. Liked the too long gif, though!
I love lib pouting over things like electoral college...its basically the ole we want to change the rules to help us until they dont.
Example...whaaaa electoral college is stupid!
So you're saying nixon should have been president over JFK? Nixon won the popular vote. Oh no that's different!
You're saying Hillary should have been the nominee in 08, not Obama? She won the pop vote in the primary. Oh no no no.
Same thing with the supreme court.
"There nothing that says there has to be a limited number of justices."
Right, so trump could load it up with his own picks now. No that's different!
"The justices need term limits!"
But just last week you were writing articles how fiesty Ginsberg is and her workout routine...shouldnt we go ahead and push her out? "No...that's not fair!"
Its comedy, really.
Also, not really relevant to this thread..but has anyone ever noticed how much of a dumbass Kamala Harris is?
With this Rent relief act anyone who spends 30% of their income on gets a tax credit. She proclaimed "what are you going to get to spend your money on!" Yeah feelings! I'll tell you what they'll spend it on....rent! It's called inflation..if property owners now know ppl will get more money theyll just raise rent. It's the same reason healthcare went up...the same reason tuition keeps going up..
When people could get loans at any amount schools took advantage and tuition sky rocketed...they know theyll get their money.
These people seriously cant be this stupid. Government solves nothing...they're too stupid to realize the answer isnt the govt continually dishing out more money...its working to lower costs.
Example...whaaaa electoral college is stupid!
So you're saying nixon should have been president over JFK? Nixon won the popular vote. Oh no that's different!
You're saying Hillary should have been the nominee in 08, not Obama? She won the pop vote in the primary. Oh no no no.
Same thing with the supreme court.
"There nothing that says there has to be a limited number of justices."
Right, so trump could load it up with his own picks now. No that's different!
"The justices need term limits!"
But just last week you were writing articles how fiesty Ginsberg is and her workout routine...shouldnt we go ahead and push her out? "No...that's not fair!"
Its comedy, really.
Also, not really relevant to this thread..but has anyone ever noticed how much of a dumbass Kamala Harris is?
With this Rent relief act anyone who spends 30% of their income on gets a tax credit. She proclaimed "what are you going to get to spend your money on!" Yeah feelings! I'll tell you what they'll spend it on....rent! It's called inflation..if property owners now know ppl will get more money theyll just raise rent. It's the same reason healthcare went up...the same reason tuition keeps going up..
When people could get loans at any amount schools took advantage and tuition sky rocketed...they know theyll get their money.
These people seriously cant be this stupid. Government solves nothing...they're too stupid to realize the answer isnt the govt continually dishing out more money...its working to lower costs.
Maybe so, but I think there would be much more hope trying to get northern (lower) Michigan counties to buy into wildlife control than having to out-popular-vote the densely populated thumb. Without convincing the highest populated areas the popular vote is futile for the U.P. Weight the counties similar to a EC and there would be more of a chance.
I don't think the POTUS can do what you think the POTUS can do.
really, that's your response? Of course the president has limitations on what he can do, but its not hard to understand that it is possible to ratify the constitution. Especially if it's a straight pop vote and one party is able to gain the 75% needed. Actually, never mind, theres no point in even having the discussion if your incapable of either understanding, or accepting that your opinion might be wrong.
A conservative brought up the EC in the OP. The discussion has primarily focused on adjustments to the EC. No one is crying about anything. You're taking it to a far lower level of discourse.
The 1960 election was close, but Nixon did not win the popular vote. 2000 and 2016 are the only times since 1888 that the President-elect did not win the popular vote.
Primaries are quite different. They are staggered from state to state, and delegates are tallied after each one. That's the only "score" anyone is aware of moving forward. People don't pay attention to the total vote count in the primaries.
What references are those?
That's the base, disrespectful term you have for a woman who graduated from one of the most exclusive and prestigious HBCUs in the country, has a law degree, and has served as a DA and AG prior to being elected to the Senate.
JFK won the popular vote, although there were some very weird vote rules in Alabama, and there are some methods of counting whereby JFK slightly loses the popular vote. It's not a great example. And no one here is saying that past elections should be overturned; the EC was the rule in place at the time. The argument is about what the presidential election system should be going forward. Your argument is a strawman.
The Judiciary Act of 1869 says there can only be 9 SCOTUS Justices (specifically, a Chief Justice and 8 Associate Justices). Aside from a brief moment during FDR's presidency, that's been essentially unchallenged and bedrock to our nation for nearly 150 years. Changing this would be a monumental moment in American political history, and in any event has no chance of passing.
Maybe your writing is just not clear, but it appears that you believe that it is possible to ratify the Constitution by a 75% popular vote... of something (it's really not clear). To amend the Constitution requires either (i) 2/3 of both the House and Senate or (ii) 2/3 of state constitutional conventions AND, if the measure passes either of those, the approval of 3/4 of state legislatures. All of those entities - House, Senate, and state legislatures (note they also are in charge of state constitutional conventions) - are already elected through popular votes (and have been since 1913), and none of them involve the electoral college or presidential vote.
If at any point either of the two parties is able to gain enough popularity to get those numbers, then the difference between direct presidential popular vote and EC is nullified because it would be a landslide win in either situation due to how these things correlate. What you're proposing is entirely irrelevant to the discussion about the electoral college, which only comes into play during close presidential elections. In other words, this is some sort of irrelevant boogeyman argument.
Note also that Rs have a built in advantage for a constitutional amendment over Ds, at least in the current political climate, because Rs have a political advantage in a higher number of states (whereas Ds are more concentrated in larger states). Because a constitutional amendment requires ratification by 38 (maybe 37, forgot if you round up or down) states regardless of size, Rs have an advantage. In other words, even if this was relevant at all to the discussion, it is even more unlikely than you present it to be.
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I posted about it in response to someone else, so it wasn't clear that I was responding to Jace. I posted below in (hopefully) a clearer way.
Edit: words r hrd
I apologize if I wasn't nearly as clear and well spoken as you are! I'm not being sarcastic, you have an amazing ability to convey your thoughts through words that most dont have.
No what I meant was the 75% it takes in the house and Senate plus the 75% of states (although, now that I think about it, I may be wrong about the number of states. It might be 2/3 of the states?).
When I mentioned how a straight pop vote could make that drastically easier to attain, is because once a party has 51% of the representative vote, it would be simple to start changing laws to make that number easier to grow from 51% to 75%.
***edit
I just reread your post and I see where you said it was only 2/3 vote in both houses? If that's correct then I stand corrected on the 3/4 number I had thought. Actually, that would mean it would be even easier for my original thought to happen.
I also wanted to say that I'm not trying to ignore the other points you made here. I'm at work right now and cant give these points the attention needed to answer right now. When I sit down tonight I'll respond again, because although I agree on some things, I think your either ignoring, or dismissing other issues that are very important.
Thank you for the kind words. I write/argue for a living (attorney), so I hope I'm good at it! I see now where you were going, and I wasn't trying to be insulting but just saying that I wasn't sure what you were arguing. My overall point is that because EC v. popular vote only really matters in close elections, and the political climate in close elections means that it is exceedingly unlikely bordering on impossible to have the numbers for a constitutional amendment, then the ability to the amend the constitution is irrelevant to the EC debate.
