Electoral college

[gilliam]

New York voted for Hillary overall by 59% of total votes.

Trump got 35% but it wasn’t just 4 boroughs that did it. Westchester and Nassau counties went to Hillary as did Rockland and Ulster counties, as did Albany county. The more populated areas voted for Hillary.

I don’t know if dividing by counties is the way to look at it if every vote counts. If we look at it that way, Maricopa county in AZ would rule the state (or LA county in CA)

 

[ProVobis]

I don’t think she went for the popular vote instead of the electoral vote. What I think happened is that her campaign relied on the ‘rust belt’ vote going to her as it has gone to the Democrat in the past. Trump was a different kind of Republican though and he convinced enough voters there to vote for him to win the states. That is all he had to do to win the election.

If you change the election rules so the candidate would have to win the popular vote instead, then you would see very different election campaigns. Both candidates would try to appeal to the center majority and they would try to appeal across the entire country with a lot of campaigning in the large population areas.

I’m not sure Hillary (or any left wing candidate) would be the kind of candidate that would win those voters. Trump (or Bush for that matter) on the other hand is a populist-centrist at heart and would probably receive a lot of votes in such an election.

I also think a 3rd centrist party may be able to break out.

Maybe but this thread is about working around the electoral college. It would take an amendment to abolish it and I see absolutely no chance of that happening before 2020.

 

[Michael68]

Well, it was an interesting discussion.
Not sure why anyone is interesting in talking about HRC, or feels the need to make gratuitous insults.

I’m sorry, haven’t been on the forum for a month now.

 

[ProVobis]

Excellent discussion.

The Electoral College prevents the whole United States from being dominated by California, Chicago and only four of the five boroughs of New York City.

This is really about blame-finding for Hillary’s loss of the election in which the rules specify the Electoral College while she pursued the easier goal of the popular vote [California, Chicago and NYC.]

Take a look at the following illustration:

townhall.com/political-cartoons/2016/12/19/147260

Just an aside here, but do you really think it’s that easy to win in places where your opponent’s name stands out in the center of the most populated areas?

 

[gilliam]

Maybe but this thread is about working around the electoral college. It would take an amendment to abolish it and I see absolutely no chance of that happening before 2020.

I agree, but it is really fun to speculate

 

[JonNC]

Well, it was an interesting discussion.
Not sure why anyone is interesting in talking about HRC, or feels the need to make gratuitous insults.

I think the point is that had HC won the EC, even if she hadn’t won the popular vote, we wouldn’t be discussing it, since most constitutional conservatives would not argue against it .

That said, I think it is a great conversation regardless of what precipitated it.

 

[ProVobis]

I also think a 3rd centrist party may be able to break out.

Probably more of a chance if they receive some or even fractional electoral votes.

 

[JonNC]

In theory the states can do this. But even this mechanism relies on a super majority. So the individual state really has no power.

States working together may have power. However if you study the passage of the 14th amendment this isn’t even the case. After the southern states failed to vote for the 14th the congress simply declared those states to no longer be states. Consequently their votes were ignored. Not only their votes were ignored but their existence for calculating the total number of states was ignored.

Two states rescinded their vote in the affirmative for the amendment. The federal government chose to count the affirmative vote in order for the measure to pass. In the southern states the federal government used its military to force affirmative votes.

There is no reason to not think the federal government would do the same today. So while a mechanism to restrict federal power exists the federal government can simply chose what votes to count, invalidate states who vote in a way it disagrees with and again use its military to force a particular vote. History has confirmed the federal government can and will do anything to stop states from exercising any sovereignty.

This scenario would produce a type of civil war, where states would simply not comply

 

[dvdjs]

I think the point is that had HC won the EC, even if she hadn’t won the popular vote, we wouldn’t be discussing it, since most constitutional conservatives would not argue against it .

That said, I think it is a great conversation regardless of what precipitated it.

I agree. But when ideas are dismissed as rank partisanship: sad.

 

[ProVobis]

I agree. But when ideas are dismissed as rank partisanship: sad.

The opinion of those who didn’t vote should be given more weight, but that’s my opinion.

 

[JonNC]

I agree. But when ideas are dismissed as rank partisanship: sad.

No argument. And it goes both ways. Too bad, too, because a lively discussion like this thread is always more entertaining and enjoyable.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I don’t see where such labeling is helpful to the discussion.

Trump himself has built on the very infrastructure which you seem to despise. Is it any wonder Republicans are skeptical of his plans?

But I digress. The point I’m trying to make is that the electoral college can be manipulated to produce the outcome you wish. It’s not a left- right thing to do want it takes to win the next election.

Sent PM on the first two points.

The electoral college is not manipulated. ALL of the candidates knew the game well before the election and all of them played to the electoral college, not the popular vote, because winning the electoral college was seen as the best bet for candidates to achieve their goals.

 

[ProVobis]

Sent PM on the first two points.

The electoral college is not manipulated. ALL of the candidates knew the game well before the election and all of them played to the electoral college, not the popular vote, because winning the electoral college was seen as the best bet for candidates to achieve their goals.

They knew it as a “winner take all” EV. But it can be manipulated in future elections not to be. Two states have already done that.

The popular vote provides for no such “winner take all” by the states.

 

[Tomdstone]

ALL of the candidates knew the game well before the election

Is it a fair game?

 

[SuperLuigi]

They knew it as a “winner take all” EV. But it can be manipulated in future elections not to be. Two states have already done that.

The popular vote provides for no such “winner take all” by the states.

I have no problem dividing EV by Congressional districts. This would also reduce the impact of voter fraud by several factors.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Is it a fair game?

It is fair in terms of what the candidates knew. Both Clinton and Trump (and even McMillan) campaigned on the premise of the electoral college.

It’s also a pretty good system that prevents both tyranny of the majority and the minority.

 

[JonNC]

They knew it as a “winner take all” EV. But it can be manipulated in future elections not to be. Two states have already done that.

The popular vote provides for no such “winner take all” by the states.

There’s nothing wrong with what Maine and Nebraska do. We can easily count each district, award electors by district then the two electors for the senate seats state wide.

The plan some are suggested whereby states award all of their electors to the candidate who wins in national popular vote undermines the constitution, federalism and the states, not to mention disenfranchising voters in those states, and should be opposed.

An interesting article about apportionment of electoral votes.
quora.com/If-electoral-votes-were-apportioned-not-winner-take-all-based-on-a-states-popular-vote-would-the-outcome-of-any-election-since-1960-been-changed

 

[didymus]

It is fair in terms of what the candidates knew. Both Clinton and Trump (and even McMillan) campaigned on the premise of the electoral college.

It’s also a pretty good system that prevents both tyranny of the majority and the minority.

We already have a tyranny of the minority because the big states are underrepresented in the House of Representatives which means the small states are overrepresented in the EC.
The fix would be to implement the Wyoming Rule:

The Wyoming Rule is a proposal to increase the (United States congressional apportionment - Wikipedia) so that the standard representative-to-population ratio would be that of the smallest entitled unit, which is currently Wyoming.[1] Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, each U.S. state is guaranteed at least one representative. If the disparity between the population of the most and least populous states continues to grow, the disproportionality of the House will continue to increase unless the House (whose size has been fixed at 435 since 1913) is expanded.
There are two ways of determining the Wyoming Rule size of the House. One is by dividing the total population of the United States by the population of the smallest unit, which is then rounded to the nearest whole number, and this number of seats will be divided proportionally between states. The other method is dividing the populations of individual states by the population of the smallest one and then rounding those numbers to the nearest whole number. In this article, the latter method will be used unless otherwise specified.

A total of 568 House seats would have been required to implement the Wyoming Rule based on the 2000 Census results.[2] However, the decade leading up to the 2010 United States Census saw Wyoming’s population increase at a greater rate than that of the U.S. as a whole; as a result, the required House size to implement the Wyoming Rule was reduced to 546. The wide disparity in population among the states combines with the cap on House membership to lessen the effective representation for people who live in more populated states. The most glaring example is California, which, according to the 2010 Census, had a population (37,253,956), approximately 66.1 times that of Wyoming (563,626). Yet, because of the cap on House membership, California has only 53 representatives to Wyoming’s one. Therefore, under the Wyoming Rule, California would have 13 more House members than it currently has. Another example of the dilution of voting power can be seen by comparing the most populous state with only one representative, Montana, to Wyoming. A vote by one of the 989,415 residents of Montana is worth only 0.5697 of the vote of a resident of neighboring Wyoming.
While a larger House size will generally result in the smallest and largest districts being proportionally closer in size, this is not always the case. Therefore, in some cases, the Wyoming Rule may actually result in an increase in the ratio of the sizes of the largest and smallest districts. For instance, after the 1990 Census and with a House size of 435, the largest district (Montana’s at-large district) had 799,065 residents, 76% larger than the smallest district (Wyoming’s at-large district with 453,588 residents). The Wyoming Rule would have given a House size of 547 in 1990 if the former method of seat apportionment been used. With that size, the largest district (North Dakota’s at-large district) would have had 638,800 residents, 92% larger than the smallest districts (Delaware’s two districts, at approximately 333,084 residents each).

This would make the Electoral College fair but I doubt those who are singing its praises would care for the results.

 

[JonNC]

We already have a tyranny of the minority because the big states are underrepresented in the House of Representatives which means the small states are overrepresented in the EC.
The fix would be to implement the Wyoming Rule:

This would make the Electoral College fair but I doubt those who are singing its praises would care for the results.

Actually, I have no problem with this.

Jon

 

[ProVobis]

I have no problem dividing EV by Congressional districts.

This would just duplicate the HR election, plus the 2 at-large votes, with changing redistricting. What’s wrong with percentages of the overall vote? It seems that would be the easiest and it would give the 3rd party candidates a bigger role to play and quite possibly increase turnout. Or do we have to stamp out 3rd parties by all means?