"Five U.S. presidents, including two since 2000, have won the White House despite losing the popular vote. A plan to ensure majority rule is gaining strength."
âThe current system presents a growing threat to the peaceful transition of power. It also strips us of our individual power,â said Robert Reich, a University of California at Berkeley public policy professor and former labor secretary. âIf youâre a New York Republican or an Alabama Democrat, presidential candidates have little incentive to try and win your vote under the current system.â
Mandate inflation (where winning a squeaker of an election is seen as a ringing endorsement by the people rather than a reason to pause and moderate the agenda) is a separate problem in this country, one that we would have regardless of how we elect the executive branch. We see it at every level of government. Winner takes all, loser loses everything.
Yes, and not just in the USA. Proportional representation would tend to alleviate that problem but the USA system would have to be radically overhauled in order to introduce proportional representation.
I hear it commonly regarding Clinton. But I think that's a different scenario. The general crowd of ultra conservatives I know don't see it that way though. Oddly they do think Trump has a mandate 'because rules of the game'. I also don't doubt there would be an equal outcry if Hillary had won the electoral college and lost the popular vote, but those outcrying would be different.
Again, I think this is just a visible symptom of a larger problem with our elections and the overall representativeness / health of the system. Not sure what the tipping point is, but it feels like there are a large (near 50%) swath of people that won't be happy / respect the next election. I don't think there is any way that is good for our country.
Mandate inflation (where winning a squeaker of an election is seen as a ringing endorsement by the people rather than a reason to pause and moderate the agenda) is a separate problem in this country society, one that we would have regardless of how we elect the executive branch. We see it at every level of government. Winner takes all, loser loses everything.
Small edit above. I agree it is a different problem, but it is intertwined.
I hear it commonly regarding Clinton. But I think that's a different scenario. The general crowd of ultra conservatives I know don't see it that way though. Oddly they do think Trump has a mandate 'because rules of the game'. I also don't doubt there would be an equal outcry if Hillary had won the electoral college and lost the popular vote, but those outcrying would be different.
Again, I think this is just a visible symptom of a larger problem with our elections and the overall representativeness / health of the system. Not sure what the tipping point is, but it feels like there are a large (near 50%) swath of people that won't be happy / respect the next election. I don't think there is any way that is good for our country.
Mandate inflation (where winning a squeaker of an election is seen as a ringing endorsement by the people rather than a reason to pause and moderate the agenda) is a separate problem in this country, one that we would have regardless of how we elect the executive branch. We see it at every level of government. Winner takes all, loser loses everything.
In Wyoming primaries, voters can select which party they want to belong to on the day of voting at the polling place. This year we had a crowded race for governor in the GOP primary, with 2 of the front runners being pretty right-wing or just plain nuts. Several thousand Democrats re-registered as GOP that day, and the more moderate candidate in the race won the primary by a margin of about that same amount. If either of the more hardcore candidates had just dropped out, it's clear that the other would have won the primary, and both of the losing candidates seem to agree that that would have been preferable to what actually happened.
So now there's a movement afoot to prevent these last-minute changes. I get it; they think their party should be immune to outsiders doing what they do, but it also proves that they have zero interest in representing all of the people; or even all of their party. Only the ones who enthusiastically voted for them matter; everyone else can suck it. See also: 45
I hear it commonly regarding Clinton. But I think that's a different scenario. The general crowd of ultra conservatives I know don't see it that way though. Oddly they do think Trump has a mandate 'because rules of the game'. I also don't doubt there would be an equal outcry if Hillary had won the electoral college and lost the popular vote, but those outcrying would be different.
Again, I think this is just a visible symptom of a larger problem with our elections and the overall representativeness / health of the system. Not sure what the tipping point is, but it feels like there are a large (near 50%) swath of people that won't be happy / respect the next election. I don't think there is any way that is good for our country.
Mandate inflation (where winning a squeaker of an election is seen as a ringing endorsement by the people rather than a reason to pause and moderate the agenda) is a separate problem in this country, one that we would have regardless of how we elect the executive branch. We see it at every level of government. Winner takes all, loser loses everything.
Yes, initially it was largely about keeping the heavily populated states from dominating elections. Has there been a presidential election where the Democratic candidate won without winning a relative majority of the votes? Some theorize JFK, but it's kind of sketchy. I believe that in 1824, all four candidates were from the same party (Democratic-Republican Party).
I hear it commonly regarding Clinton. But I think that's a different scenario. The general crowd of ultra conservatives I know don't see it that way though...
Bill Clinton won both elections by a "relative majority" (the most votes or "plurality") of the popular vote, but not a "simple" majority (more than 50% of votes cast - almost in 1996). The lack of 50% was due largely to our old buddy, Ross Perot.
The bigger issue is not the legitimacy of the election results as much it is that candidates strategize to win particular states rather than win the country at large, which makes the needs and desires of the few drive the entire political process for the many. The argument for the EC is that candidates would strategize to win cities and ignore small populations w/o it. That is a very legitimate argument to keep it. We need another solution, and that may be for a major revise of the EC rather than eliminating it. Of course this is also a problem with Congressional representation, especially in the Senate. For that reason, personally, I'd like to see (for example) Wyoming, Montana & Idaho made into one state, N&S Dakota made into one state, RI & CT perhaps as well... and DC and PR given representation (or maybe reducing small population states to having 1 Senator). But I know that's completely pie in the sky.
No, it was a mechanism to keep big/populous states from dominating little/sparsely-populated states.
Electing the president by popular vote is pitched nowadays as a moral imperative that The People Must Have Their Way, but that's a thin tissue over the fact that it happens to disadvantage one political faction at the moment. If the shoe were on the other foot the Electoral College would be a Sacred and Inviolable Constitutional Protection Keeping Us From Tyranny.
There was no outcry about the unfairness of all this when Democrats were winning the presidency, even without a majority.
Yes, initially it was largely about keeping the heavily populated states from dominating elections. Has there been a presidential election where the Democratic candidate won without winning a relative majority of the votes? Some theorize JFK, but it's kind of sketchy. I believe that in 1824, all four candidates were from the same party (Democratic-Republican Party).
I hear it commonly regarding Clinton. But I think that's a different scenario. The general crowd of ultra conservatives I know don't see it that way though. Oddly they do think Trump has a mandate 'because rules of the game'. I also don't doubt there would be an equal outcry if Hillary had won the electoral college and lost the popular vote, but those outcrying would be different.
Again, I think this is just a visible symptom of a larger problem with our elections and the overall representativeness / health of the system. Not sure what the tipping point is, but it feels like there are a large (near 50%) swath of people that won't be happy / respect the next election. I don't think there is any way that is good for our country.
No, it was a mechanism to keep big/populous states from dominating little/sparsely-populated states.
Electing the president by popular vote is pitched nowadays as a moral imperative that The People Must Have Their Way, but that's a thin tissue over the fact that it happens to disadvantage one political faction at the moment. If the shoe were on the other foot the Electoral College would be a Sacred and Inviolable Constitutional Protection Keeping Us From Tyranny.
There was no outcry about the unfairness of all this when Democrats were winning the presidency, even without a majority.
Yes, I agree; initially it was largely about keeping the heavily populated states from dominating elections. Has there been a presidential election where the Democratic candidate won without winning a relative majority of the votes? Some theorize JFK, but it's kind of sketchy. I believe that in 1824, all four candidates were from the same party (Democratic-Republican Party).
There was no outcry about the unfairness of all this when Democrats were winning the presidency, even without a majority.
That has not happened since 1824, and that was the only time it happened. Whereas we now have had two pretty bad presidents win the electoral (Bush arguably since Florida was never fairly counted) without winning the popular. And in both cases, they've proceeded as if they had a mandate without any regard for the majority of people who did not vote for them.
That's sort of what the electoral college was in the first place right? A way to keep the proles from getting out of hand and electing their own leader? So now it's just a question of who is it impeding?
No, it was a mechanism to keep big/populous states from dominating little/sparsely-populated states.
Electing the president by popular vote is pitched nowadays as a moral imperative that The People Must Have Their Way, but that's a thin tissue over the fact that it happens to disadvantage one political faction at the moment. If the shoe were on the other foot the Electoral College would be a Sacred and Inviolable Constitutional Protection Keeping Us From Tyranny.
There was no outcry about the unfairness of all this when Democrats were winning the presidency, even without a majority.
Yeah, that's what I said . Seriously, you don't think that was set up to tilt the scales a little? Even if the premise were just to 'balance' the scales, it speaks to what the feared bias of the time was.
Well, I'd say that to the republicans it is "a Sacred and Inviolable Constitutional Protection Keeping Us From Tyranny". And they were the ones complaining when the Democrats were winning without a majority (in a 3 way race).
I don't doubt the Democrats will change course when the dynamic shifts, but so will the Republicans (as I'm sure the whigs did too). I do see a problem brewing when the majority of voters lose on a repeated basis. Regardless of the basis for the system, that is a recipe for a large set of the population to lose faith, and that would be bad.
I see a larger problem with the general system we have of primaries and two (non elected) party apparatuses, and a couple of tiny / minimally representative states, completely controlling who the nominees are. I really think the original justifications for Iowa and New Hampshire's first vote systems are no longer supportable. We need a system where everyone has access and ability to vote, and can do it without impediment or undue influence.
That's sort of what the electoral college was in the first place right? A way to keep the proles from getting out of hand and electing their own leader? So now it's just a question of who is it impeding?
No, it was a mechanism to keep big/populous states from dominating little/sparsely-populated states.
Electing the president by popular vote is pitched nowadays as a moral imperative that The People Must Have Their Way, but that's a thin tissue over the fact that it happens to disadvantage one political faction at the moment. If the shoe were on the other foot the Electoral College would be a Sacred and Inviolable Constitutional Protection Keeping Us From Tyranny.
There was no outcry about the unfairness of all this when Democrats were winning the presidency, even without a majority.
Lots of talk about doing away with the Electoral College lately. I remember someone (most likely Lazy8) laying out why it's there and why we need to keep it, but I wasn't able to find that discussion. So here we go. This came past my FB feed yesterday and I have some issues with it but the math/statistics is beyond my ability to dispute any of this...
I may have pointed out where it came from (the sovereignty of individual states in a federal system) but I don't defend it as Right&Properâjust the system we happen to have.
I'd hasten to point out to our overseas friends that parliamentary systems (which many of them are stuck with, and thus regard as Right&Proper) frequently result in heads of state with even less of a popular mandate than our system due to coalition governments.
If the states (remember them?) want to apportion their Electoral College votes according to the popular voteâor any other schemeâthey are welcome to do so. Only Maine and Nebraska have schemes other than winner-takes-all and they aren't perfectly proportional, just allocated by congressional district for a finer-grained picture.
The scheme currently popular among sour grapes states is to create a compact among states to apportion their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. I predict this will last until the popular vote is won by someone other than a Democrat, and Democratic states (and all who have signed on so far voted Democratic in the last presidential election) end up having to cast their electoral votes for a candidate very unpopular within their own borders.
This scheme is a transparent attempt to produce a particular outcome. Once it becomes an impediment to that result it will be abandoned in search of some other way to achieve that goal.
That's sort of what the electoral college was in the first place right? A way to keep the proles from getting out of hand and electing their own leader? So now it's just a question of who is it impeding?
Lots of talk about doing away with the Electoral College lately. I remember someone (most likely Lazy8) laying out why it's there and why we need to keep it, but I wasn't able to find that discussion. So here we go. This came past my FB feed yesterday and I have some issues with it but the math/statistics is beyond my ability to dispute any of this...
I may have pointed out where it came from (the sovereignty of individual states in a federal system) but I don't defend it as Right&Proper—just the system we happen to have.
I'd hasten to point out to our overseas friends that parliamentary systems (which many of them are stuck with, and thus regard as Right&Proper) frequently result in heads of state with even less of a popular mandate than our system due to coalition governments.
If the states (remember them?) want to apportion their Electoral College votes according to the popular vote—or any other scheme—they are welcome to do so. Only Maine and Nebraska have schemes other than winner-takes-all and they aren't perfectly proportional, just allocated by congressional district for a finer-grained picture.
The scheme currently popular among sour grapes states is to create a compact among states to apportion their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. I predict this will last until the popular vote is won by someone other than a Democrat, and Democratic states (and all who have signed on so far voted Democratic in the last presidential election) end up having to cast their electoral votes for a candidate very unpopular within their own borders.
This scheme is a transparent attempt to produce a particular outcome. Once it becomes an impediment to that result it will be abandoned in search of some other way to achieve that goal.
Lots of talk about doing away with the Electoral College lately. I remember someone (most likely Lazy8) laying out why it's there and why we need to keep it, but I wasn't able to find that discussion. So here we go. This came past my FB feed yesterday and I have some issues with it but the math/statistics is beyond my ability to dispute any of this...
Isnt lazy from some small town state? Seems there may be bias.
He's actually from Montana, which is just below the threshold necessary to add a second US Representative ergo a 4th Elector, so his influence is quite a bit less than mine. And Ptooey's.
Keep the electoral college. The rest of the rich democratic world has gone to proportional representation. The USA must remain EXCEPTIONAL. And paternalistic. And continuously sell its own citizens short.
ScottFromWyoming wrote:
Lots of talk about doing away with the Electoral College lately. I remember someone (most likely Lazy8) laying out why it's there and why we need to keep it, but I wasn't able to find that discussion.
. Seriously, you don't think that was set up to tilt the scales a little? Even if the premise were just to 'balance' the scales, it speaks to what the feared bias of the time was. 