Show of Hands

The whole reason we have an electoral college is because originally, getting and counting every single vote was practically impossible. Then we got cars and computers, so we really have no need for it any more.

I do, I just think a popular vote would be more in line with our goals as a nation

I agree redwolf. I believe the electoral college system is best for our country. Only downside really is that it enforces a 2 party system.

And that it makes my vote worthless.

That is a baseless accusation not backed up by facts. This is otherwise know as an ad hominem argument and is logically invalid.

Oh you're right... I just ran out of space type my dissertation.

Who are you talking to skacey

Redwolf started off with an ad hominem attack

The people are more important than the state's.

States are people. The geography doesn't vote.

States are not people, give me a SCOTUS document, Constitutional reference, or even a revolutionary pamphlet declaring that to be true.

I just gave you everything you need. A state is just a group of people, organized by geography.

A state is not a person, I am a person, but because I live in Massachusetts if I voted for Romney my vote won't count.

Immaterial. The fact remains that the Electoral College system protects the rights of people living in small states.

Not really, as a republican in a small smurf state I am not represented.

Small referring to population, not geography, again. Your complaint is that you are a Republican on a coast, outnumbered and feeling ignored. My point is that everyone between Illinois and Idaho can be ignored in policy making, with direct election.

Elaborate please, I don't know how that could be true

In the last several elections, the decision was made by a handful of swing states. Unless you live in one of those states, your vote didn't count unless you agree with most of your neighbors.

Skacey nailed it.

Me too!

We aren't a pure democracy, nor should we be

We should be a direct democracy, the people of this nation should be able to express themselves to the full extent of the law.

A good number of people couldn't pick the vice-president out of a line up. Do you really think people are that informed?

I'd be hesitant to ever live in a mob rules society.

The you belong in China, pick one democracy or autocracy.

*then

I think you need to read up on issues of pure democracy to understand why our system was set up as a federal democratic republic.

And just a hint... Most communist countries started as a "democratic" revolution.

It's a democratic revolution over totally different principals. If you think popular vote and communism are in anyway connected you need to retake government class. I know why some people dislike it but the current system is not free.

I'd rather live in a system in which the village idiot is included than the big government nation we currently reside in.

Communism is inherently tied to democracy.

Also our problems of an oversized federal government are tied to the decline in states' rights over the last 120 years. It isn't who rules, it's that it's too centralized and distant from the people. Government starts at the local level.

Communism is an economic system, if you are a direct democracy you are not necessarily communist, that is a simple assertion.

Communism is a socioeconomic philosophy that seeks an egalitarian classless society. Democracy is therefore a large part of that vision.

Communism is NOT an economic system, however when put into practice it turns into a centrally planned economy.

And I'm not arguing that if you believe in direct democracy you believe in communism. I was just saying that communism is associated with pure democracy when "you no longer own this, it is owned by the PEOPLE" mob rule takes over.

It really depends on what type of communism we are talking about. Are you comparing eliminating private property and eliminating the EC??? You say "mob rule" like its some kind of sin to count people's votes.

No, I'm saying eliminating the EC gets rid of states rights. I was trying to highlight issues of democracy when talking about mob rule. While I don't think our govt would nationalize companies based on public opinion, I do think...

I do think we are seeing the "free lunch" problems of democracy where politicians "buying" votes with programs... Aka people should vote for me since I gave them Medicare part D/free healthcare/etc... Instead of what's best for our country.

How does it destroy states rights?
If we are debating direct democracy: the constitution would stop people from nationalizing businesses
If we are talking about EC: its just a corrupt system that perpetuates the two party system.

I also see the benefits as a problem, but the reason people want them are because politicians have figured out the system and are tempting them with it. In order to stop them from destroying our democracy we need to adapt.

How would it stop them? They own/owned General Motors?

The adaptation to fix the problem of democracy was the Constitution.

I don't think I understand what you just said.

Although now we have a problem of the two party system. How we fix that I have no idea... the problem would be getting rid of it since it is purposefully been built into our laws over 200 year. Then how would we keep it that way when they're gone...

I was saying how would the Constitution stop them. Most would just ignore it, but our interpretation of the commerce clause is so broad now it wouldn't stop them.

We've already had the government owning GM... Not nationalizing but similar.

SCOTUS would stop them, there are checks and balances.if it makes you feel any better the Feds sold a big part of GM to a Chinese company. EC protects the two party system, eliminate that and it would make significant progress toward a 3 party system

Eliminating the electoral college and moving toward a national presidential election would solve none of those problems. Getting rid of the two party system is very complicated. Also I already outlined why the EC is like it is...

The facts are EC is a tool of the two party system.

That made no sense. You admit candidates are currently only campaigning in swing states, ignoring the rest of the country. And cities only about for 1 in 6 votes so that claim is manifestly false.

Flick: I live in a semi rural area, it's not that hard to go to the city and see a speech if you really want to.

A semi-rural area is much different than a rural area. You are maybe an hour from Boston. Texas is much bigger than Mass. They could be hours from the nearest big city.

And veritas, it made sense in the sense that the needs of small states and areas other than major cities would be disregarded. As of now, cities still get the attention of politicians even though they may not campaign there because they still need

The votes. Without the EC, campaigners wouldn't need the support of farmers and rural areas, and they would be much more willing to screw them over.

This conversation is all wrong. The system was set up to protect individual state's rights. The state governments are technically deciding how the electoral votes are cast.

JGB: yeah that's exactly the way it was set up. It's right there in the preamble to the Constitution:
"We the States"
Oh... Wait, it's not.

It doesn't say that but the states' rights is a huge basis of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the articles of confederation (that failed since it left the federal govt powerless). You know originally Senators were state chosen right?

They still are chosen by the state, just by all the people and not a small oligarchy.

It was up to the state legislature, which was chosen by the people. However that Senator would have been more interested in protecting the state level government's authority if chosen by the state legislature.

They would have been more interested in protecting the state legislatures special interest groups. The job of senator was notoriously corrupt which is why they changed the law with an amendment

And it's gotten better? Politicians now win elections by convincing 51% they can get a free lunch on the backs of the 49%.

Which is why we need more democratic reform.

HAHAHAHA!!! More democratic reform??? Government is not the answer. It never has been. Our Founders saw government as a necessary evil, that's why they established the Constitution in such a way to limit what it could do. Read our Founding....

Documents and you will see that. It's limited government. I never saw a Democrat win 49 states in 1984....

Flick: i don't mean democratic reform as in the democratic party. I agree government is not the answer that's why I want to reduce the reach of government by initiating a popular vote.

Okay, well you're still wrong. We're not a democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic.

Okay, that doesn't mean we are forced to have a corrupted electoral college.

And how is the electoral college corrupted? They vote based on popular vote from each state.

Just so we're clear... You're vote for president is statistically insignificant either way. It is literally impossible for 1 vote to decide a national election.

The two party system ruins it. It creates an EC that only represents certain states. It does not adequately represent the will of the people. EC leads to gerrymandering. EC forces a two party system and the integrity of the electors is questionable.

JBG: But right now it counts for 0. I want it to count for 1.

And out Founders established a two party system because any additional parties would add corruption and complicate the system.
And yes, your vote does matter. It matters more than you know.

Flick... Whoa, not true in the least bit.

Skinner, Id suggest you read up on the constitution, the federalist papers and such and then you'll understand why it is how it is.

Flick: that's not true Washington hated all political parties and heavily warned against them in his farewell address.
www.original-republican.com/george-washington-on-the-danger-of-political-parties/

Yes it is true JGB. Look at 2012 as a perfect example. People didn't show up to vote and we ended up with 4 more years of Obama. Another example is 1992 where a third party played a major role. Without Perot, Bush would have won a second term.

Skinner I'm well aware if Washington's views. He wasn't our only Founder. He was a part of a team of people who formed this country.

No, originally there were supposed to be no political parties. Political parties developed mostly out of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist debates/issues between Jefferson and Hamilton.

I know. It was determined that political parties were inevitable. Also a necessary evil that couldn't be omitted.

Determined by whom?

Determined by whom?

Good Lord... I'm done with this debate.

It wasn't determined by any individual. It was, as you said, started by the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debate.

JGB: you're being a downer.

Skinner, I think you're well intentioned but I don't think a popular vote is "the fix" and the founders discussed why.

The parliamentary system would actually be better for a popular vote with runoffs requiring >50% majority and getting 3rd...

Flick: then no one ever determined them to be a necessary evil.

Our system of government did. You can't have a nation run by the people without parties because not everyone has the same ideologies.

parties involved but that would be a complete revisioning of our government and scraping the structure of our government part of the Constitution. That's a bigger debate.

No, political parties are bad, they control individual representatives and make it harder for them to represent their constituents. Even if parties were necessary their should be more than two.

Skinner, parties are not a good thing, but they are necessary. Having more of a bad thing will only complicate and corrupt the system.

I disagree competition has always proven to be a good thing, while oligopolies are horrific.

We're talking about government.... Not private industries. You can't make it work that way.

Those same principals can apply to government

No they can't.... Industries are supposed to grow, government is not. Government and industry are supposed to be opposites.

The government will not grow by establishing a third party or destroying the EC, in fact it is liable to shrink.

..group can be elected. You end up with a parliament with many small unique interest groups. Forming a government or governing in general can be difficult. Examples Israel.

You can't get elected president that way. For congress, proportional representation is the best way, IMO.

I like the winner takes it all, it forces a candidate to appeal to everyone in the district. I like Kay's suggestion splitting into more districts. Big states like TX or CA, it seems unfair they each are one district.

What's the goal of that, though? 1) less gerrymandering and 2) making votes more equal. The popular vote ELIMINATES gerrymandering and completely equalizes everyone's vote so that citizens from Wyoming's votes aren't worth 5x as much as Californians'

For my understanding...
You are suggesting that instead of winner takes it all in each of the 50 states, there are 435 districts?

What I mean is that Illinois has 20 electoral votes. It would be more fair to distribute those based on percentage of the popular vote of the state.

Although 435 districts would accomplish the same thing.

@kay If the goal is to make everyone's vote worth the same, the popular vote is by far the fairest.

Kay, I like it.

I actually agree with you Veritas to an extent. But, I think an overhaul of the electoral system would happen before its complete elimination.

That's extremely dangerous. The possibility of abuse ( eg gerrymandering ) is far too great.

You might be right. Gerrymandering could be a problem with too many districts. But, I don't think it would be a problem if they were distributed by popular state vote.

Gerrymandering is for the house seats. I don't think the poll suggest changing that. Or am I getting your comment wrong?

Yea, you are right. Latter half still applies

That's true.

Candidates don't go everywhere. The candidates were in in swing states like Ohio. Obama didn't really need to go to California or Massachusetts. Romney didn't need to go to Texas or Alabama.

55% of all campaign visits and spending by the Obama and Romney camps during the last 3 months before the election were spent in FOUR states. Clearly if what you're saying was the goal of the EC, it has failed spectacularly.

Ok not everywhere but it still "forces" them to campaign in more areas and in rural areas. No one area holds a vast majority of the electoral votes. There were several swing states instead of them campaigning just along the upper east coast.

They can't just campaign in cities if that's what you're saying. The 100 most populous cities combined only make up less than 20% of the total population.

1.bp.blogspot.com/-gL59uIJScr8/Ts1J_D6q1KI/AAAAAAAABEs/HovKXX4Jn5E/s640/US+Population+Density.png

That is a population density map which shows where the candidates would campaign.

But those spikes are still less than 20% of the total pop. Besides, under the EC, you only need to win 25% of the popular vote to win the election. Campaigning just in cities wouldn't for the pop vote, and it's still better than the current system.

They may account for less than 20% of the population, but why would they campaign outside of those spikes since if they campaigned other places there would only be 5% of the population? Since all states get three guaranteed votes in the college and

they just get more from population it gives a disproportionate power to the smaller states giving the candidates more incentive to campaign there than if it was popular vote they would have far less incentive to campaign there.

Before I even address that, the current system is self-evidently far worse. Only 18 states received visits AT ALL during that time period.And I don't understand how the fact that Obama visited your city makes everyone much more likely to vote for him

I think campaigning doesn't just involve visits. During a presidents first term with the popular vote system, if they are trying for reelection, why would they do anything to help Wyoming? or anything that would help rural areas?

Or urban areas if there are more people in rural areas.

The masses aren't the ones deciding in the current system?