The Electoral College

[iacas]

Before we begin, a warning.

Warning: Though we disallowed political threads a few weeks ago, and while this thread is about politics, it's not really super-"political" in the partisan sense. It should not cause conflict. The topic will either be closed and/or people will be given warnings if they make political posts.

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The electoral college has never made sense to me. Democrats almost always win California, and get 55-0 votes, despite getting only about 60% of the popular vote (and who knows whether that gap would have been narrower had Republicans had a reason to turn out and vote).

It blows my mind that we can have a system that's so lopsided in this sense. Now, I think some states don't cast all of their votes for one person, but most do (I think), and it creates situations where you can win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote, sometimes by big margins.

What are the downsides to Instant Runoff voting? I'm not into politics at all, but in the little I've ever looked into it, it seems like a legitimate way to elect a candidate.

What are your thoughts on how we elect presidents in the United States? How do other countries do it, and what can we learn from them?

Remember the warning, please. This is not about the current race or really even any particular race.

[14ledo81]

This is a very interesting topic. If you don't live in the "battleground" states, your vote is probably meaningless.

[CarlSpackler]

I don't know why we need the electoral college in the modern era. We could easily go with the popular vote. I'm thinking the electoral college was needed back before we had communication systems, so electors were elected to go to D.C. and cast a ballot on behalf of their state. It could also be set up by congressional district instead of winner take all by state except Maine and Nebraska. 

8 minutes ago, 14ledo81 said:

This is a very interesting topic. If you don't live in the "battleground" states, your vote is probably meaningless.

I just moved from 1 battleground state to another. 

[iacas]

1 minute ago, CarlSpackler said:

I don't know why we need the electoral college in the modern era. We could easily go with the popular vote. I'm thinking the electoral college was needed back before we had communication systems, so electors were elected to go to D.C. and cast a ballot on behalf of their state. It could also be set up by congressional district instead of winner take all by state except Maine and Nebraska.

Right. That's how I understand it - back when we had to elect people who knew better to represent us, because communication was poor.

It's an outdated method of electing a president. Which party has more to lose by changing it, though? NY/CA tend to go Democrat. Texas tends to go Republican, right?

[Hardspoon]

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

Texas tends to go Republican, right?

The last Democrat to win Texas was Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The Electoral College "bumps up" the influence of minority groups (not minorities in the sense of race, just in terms of demographics) focused in a single state. It gives farmers in the Midwest (for example) a relative advantage against urban populations in cities. The argument is that this makes politicians appeal to a wider range of the population.

The technical argument for it is that it significantly decreases the possibility and the logistics of a recount. Just imagine if the situation in Florida with Bush and Gore was extended to the entire US. Disaster.

 

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

The technical argument for it is that it significantly decreases the possibility and the logistics of a recount. Just imagine if the situation in Florida with Bush and Gore was extended to the entire US. Disaster.

That makes sense, but I also don't think that's not a problem that can be overcome. Florida was a perfect confluence of:

• old people
• poorly designed ballots
• tech that's 16 years old now
• a very close race in that state

If you want to keep the electoral votes, why not just apportion them based on the percentages, rounding to whole votes? California might be 35-20, but that's "fairer" than 55-0. No?

Or do you think the electoral college is great and can't be improved upon, John?

[Golfingdad]

I think I saw a map accompanying a poll the other day that led me to believe that there is only one (Nebraska??) State that does proportional votes.

I could be wrong though.  :)

EDIT:  Quick Wiki search seems to show that Maine also (I was correct about Neb) breaks down their votes, but the other 49 "states" (counting DC) are all to the winner.

I think the whole thing is a bit outdated and unnecessary at this point, but I dunno.

[Hardspoon]

20 minutes ago, iacas said:

If you want to keep the electoral votes, why not just apportion them based on the percentages, rounding to whole votes? California might be 35-20, but that's "fairer" than 55-0. No?

Nebraska and Maine do that. I actually think that's a better system...it allows states to manage voting tech and still avoids the "nationwide recount" problem.

It's worth noting that there is no direct voting system that can't create crazy paradoxes (where the candidate who loses would have been preferred by more people than the winner). Ranked-choice has this same issue.

Personally, I don't like the Electoral College system because it encourages a two-party system, which I think is detrimental overall.

[Gator Hazard]

This sums up what I remember reading about it a long time ago:

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/

 

Basically in that day and age, they were politely saying that they couldn't trust an uneducated public who may not be capable of electing the right candidate with the information they had.

[JonMA1]

Has there been an election in the history of the US when the the electoral college didn't reflect the popular vote?

I believe Bill Clinton won with less than 50% of the popular vote in 1992(?) because of almost 20% of the popular vote going to Ross Perot. But Clinton still received more than each of the other candidates.

In any event, I don't know that it serves any real purpose and puts in place the possibility of an election result that does not reflect what the people want.

[drmevo]

 

 

8 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

Has there been an election in the history of the US when the the electoral college didn't reflect the popular vote?

Yes, at least one - Bush v. Gore in 2000. Gore won the popular vote.

I've always heard that one reason for the existence of the EC was that it forced politicians to campaign in less-populated states. Otherwise, candidates would spend all their time and energy in states with the highest populations. Not sure how true that is. I think our system needs to be updated, though.

The Instant Runoff model is a really interesting one. The problem is that our two parties control the system and they don't want to see it change to include more parties. It will take a lot of effort for that to happen. 

 

Edited October 22, 2016 by drmevo

[drmevo]

Hopefully this gets merged...

Here's a paper on some drawbacks to IRV: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/irv.html

Basically, you can see some wacky results where the most popular candidate doesn't win, etc.

Edited October 22, 2016 by drmevo

[jamo]

48 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

Has there been an election in the history of the US when the the electoral college didn't reflect the popular vote?

I believe Bill Clinton won with less than 50% of the popular vote in 1992(?) because of almost 20% of the popular vote going to Ross Perot. But Clinton still received more than each of the other candidates.

In any event, I don't know that it serves any real purpose and puts in place the possibility of an election result that does not reflect what the people want.

In addition to 2000, it happened in 1824, 1876, and 1888. 

[boogielicious]

I would add that the electoral college, in some respects, prevents the more populous states from controlling the results of national elections. I don't think a straight vote count would necessarily be better. States like CA, TX, FL, NY could have a greater influence on the results just because of their size. Imagine candidates only campaigning in those large states and ignoring the low population ones. You wouldn't feel your voice was being heard.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/population.shtml

 

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

I would add that the electoral college, in some respects, prevents the more populous states from controlling the results of national elections. I don't think a straight vote count would necessarily be better. States like CA, TX, FL, NY could have a greater influence on the results just because of their size. Imagine candidates only campaigning in those large states and ignoring the low population ones. You wouldn't feel your voice was being heard.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/population.shtml

Those states are largely ignored already. Some get only 3, 4, 5 electoral votes. It takes 11-15 of them just to make up for CA.

And since CA would not be 55-0, gaining ground in those states may matter more.

[boogielicious]

Just now, iacas said:

Those states are largely ignored already. Some get only 3, 4, 5 electoral votes. It takes 11-15 of them just to make up for CA.

And since CA would not be 55-0, gaining ground in those states may matter more.

Agree, but it follows the original ideas of each state representing itself. CA decides who CA wants for president, senate and congress. They only submit one result representing all CA. I'm not saying I approve of the system, I am only stating the intent behind it.

[drmevo]

2 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Agree, but it follows the original ideas of each state representing itself. CA decides who CA wants for president, senate and congress. They only submit one result representing all CA. I'm not saying I approve of the system, I am only stating the intent behind it.

And another issue with IRV is it means that all vote-counting needs to be centralized, as I understand it. Logistically, that would be a huge challenge for a country the size of the US.

[Lihu]

On 10/21/2016 at 11:32 PM, Gator Hazard said:

This sums up what I remember reading about it a long time ago:

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/

Basically in that day and age, they were politely saying that they couldn't trust an uneducated public who may not be capable of electing the right candidate with the information they had.

Good read.

On 10/22/2016 at 9:05 AM, iacas said:

Those states are largely ignored already. Some get only 3, 4, 5 electoral votes. It takes 11-15 of them just to make up for CA.

And since CA would not be 55-0, gaining ground in those states may matter more.

The electoral college would probably be better if they didn't have that all or nothing type of result for each state. They should simply count up all the electoral votes and the highest number wins.

Not sure it would change that much though.

Edited October 23, 2016 by iacas
removed the politics in the spoiler