Boxer Introduces Bill To Abolish The Electoral College

[LiamQ]

And I believe that no fewer than 48 states have determined the President, something that probably would never be possible without the electoral college.

Actually, I think this is bad information. Please disregard this, as I can’t edit the message any longer.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The electoral college gives voters in smaller states more of a “per capita” share in each electoral vote than it does in larger states.

This is true, but it is true because of the fact that every state gets two Senators, regardless of their population. I did say that the existence of the Senate was the thing that protected the rights of small state. Let’s see how that plays out in your example:

So while there might be “little” difference, however one chooses to define that, there is nonetheless a difference. And that difference happens to give smaller states more of a voice than they would otherwise have.

Let’s look at West Virginia, which has something like 1,254,525 registered voters and 5 electors, giving that state an elector-to-voter ratio of 1 to 250,905.

Compare this to California, which has more than 18,200,000 registered voters (more than the entire population of 46 states) and 55 electors, giving that state an elector-to-voter ratio of something like 1 to 330,909. (I couldn’t find more precise stats.)

So while West Virginia has 11 times fewer electors than California, this is an improvement over the 14.5 times fewer voters they happen to have. And each voice has more of an impact on which set of electors happens to be chosen by that state.

Not that it makes any difference in this case, but I would suggest that it is more appropriate to consider the population of the state instead of the number of registered voters. And I would further revert to the 2010 census because that was the last census that determined the number of house members from each state. The reason I choose to use the population is that the legislators and the President represent all the people in their constituency - not just the ones who vote or are registered to vote. But as I said, it does not matter in this case because the comparison you cite is roughly the same whether we use the population or the number of registered voters. So from 2010 we have:

CA: 37.35 million
WV: 1.85 million (a ratio of 20.18 : 1)

And as you point out, WV has 5 electors and CA has 55, a ratio of 11:1. So WV gets almost twice the representation per capita as CA, which supports your point. But now let’s dig deeper. The number of electors is equal to the number of Senators (always 2) plus the number of House members (proportional to the census population). Therefore we would expect the population ratio to be represented in the House membership. In this case we have 53/3 = 17.667, which is still not the expected 20.18:1. But here I think the discrepancy is due to roundoff errors and the fact that the number of representatives must be a whole number. If we reduce WV to 2 reps instead of 3, we would get a rep ratio of 53/2 = 26.5, which is way too high for the population ratio. So 3 is closer to being representative. If electors were assigned based only the the number of representatives, the per capita number of electors would be about the same in all states. The only discrepancy would come from roundoff errors in calculating the number of reps as a whole number. Sometimes, as we see in WV, the roundoff favors the small state. Sometimes not. But when we add in the extra 2 for the Senators, the small states always do better than the large ones. Adding 2 to 53 does little for CA, but adding 2 to 3 for WV almost doubles their representation.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

So the Electoral College seems to have been well thought out.

And the bicameral system also seems to have been well thought out.

Although, the Senate was SUPPOSED to be picked by the State legislatures to provide greater diversity.

So, let us repeal the 17th Amendment.

 

[GEddie]

So the Electoral College seems to have been well thought out.

And the bicameral system also seems to have been well thought out.

Although, the Senate was SUPPOSED to be picked by the State legislatures to provide greater diversity.

So, let us repeal the 17th Amendment.

I don’t think that diversity was the goal in the selection of the Senators. Diversity wasn’t a “thing”, politically, until the 2000s.

Methinks the goal was simply to put another hedge between governance and direct democracy. That would have made sense in the founding generation, but not so much now.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I don’t think that diversity was the goal in the selection of the Senators. Diversity wasn’t a “thing”, politically, until the 2000s.

Methinks the goal was simply to put another hedge between governance and direct democracy. That would have made sense in the founding generation, but not so much now.

ICXC NIKA

Democracy was to be avoided, which is why we got a Republic.

The nearest demonstration to democracy in our times would be Ferguson, Missouri.

 

[ringil]

As unhappy I am to see Trump as the next President- we should keep the system we have.

 

[GEddie]

Democracy was to be avoided, which is why we got a Republic.

The nearest demonstration to democracy in our times would be Ferguson, Missouri.

So violent rioting and Democracy are the same? Somehow I doubt even the most aristocratic of the Founders would agree with you.

ICXC NIKA

 

[jtav]

I don’t think that diversity was the goal in the selection of the Senators. Diversity wasn’t a “thing”, politically, until the 2000s.

Methinks the goal was simply to put another hedge between governance and direct democracy. That would have made sense in the founding generation, but not so much now.

ICXC NIKA

Yes, the Founders were, by our standards, elitist snobs. Most of us wouldn’t have met the property requirements to vote. Hamilton wanted an elected monarch. It wasn’t until Jackson that populism was a real force.

 

[commenter]

I don’t think that diversity was the goal in the selection of the Senators. Diversity wasn’t a “thing”, politically, until the 2000s.

Methinks the goal was simply to put another hedge between governance and direct democracy. That would have made sense in the founding generation, but not so much now.

ICXC NIKA

Not so much now? We already have lots of affirmative action type programs, set asides,
etc, all of which interfere a little with Direct Popular Selection. A certain magnet school guarantees at least 30% of seats for racial minorities. A police department has a quota for hiring women officers, which means a given woman has a much better chance of getting hired than an equally qualified man. There is “affirmative districting” in some places, where districts are drawn in such a way as to ensure some minorities are likely to get elected.

The Electoral College is a kind of Affirmative Action program to ensure people in smaller states are not ignored. In a way the founding fathers were more prophetic than they realized. They did not know that the media would become super powerful, and heavily concentrated in a few corporations, all in large cities. In NY City you can take a short walk and view the headquarters of half the media power in the continent.

Kansas does not have such neighborhoods. Kansas does not have power over NY City in ways that NY City has power over Kansas. The Electoral College balances some things out.

 

[GEddie]

The EC does not negate the influence of the larger states. All it does is slant the game board very slightly.

Even with the EC, when do POTUS candidates spend all kinds of time or money in AK, or RI, or WY or HI?

The EC has its uses, for example, national recounts are eliminated; but state influence is not equalized.

We should not confuse party alignments (which are nowhere in the USCON) with the EC.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Monte_RCMS]

So violent rioting and Democracy are the same? Somehow I doubt even the most aristocratic of the Founders would agree with you.

ICXC NIKA

Look up Democracy.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. Democracy can easily amount to mob rule, which is why a republic is thought to be superior. A republic that combines representative government with a constitution can help prevent the mob from trampling on others’ inalienable rights.

monticello.org/site/jefferson/democracy-nothing-more-mob-rule

 

[commenter]

Look up Democracy.

Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. Democracy can easily amount to mob rule, which is why a republic is thought to be superior. A republic that combines representative government with a constitution can help prevent the mob from trampling on others’ inalienable rights.

In recent years, the “2 wolves” would be the supporters of expanded government, and the large corporations, especially the Media. The “sheep” would be everybody else. We have seen how the wolves have offered federal funds to supplement some program at public schools. Then the feds keep expanding regulations on how those federal funds can be used. Then they apply regulations to everything going on in the building where any kind of federal money has been used, even for unrelated purposes.

Thus a school district that accepts funds for pencils gets told how they must reconfigure their bathrooms. And if they choose to skip the federal funds, local people still have to pay for every other district through federal taxes.