The Electoral College

[newtogolf]

The Electoral College compounds the problems of voter fraud because it adds another layer to the process.  

While chads present their own problems, paper based audits are the only way to validate the real count as computers can't be trusted.  Hacked voting machines strategically placed in certain districts can sway an electoral college vote much more easily than a popular vote.  

[Chilli Dipper]

18 hours ago, jamo said:

Why is that an improvement though?

It seems to me that every different proposal is just "different." They all try to be more equitable to one group and are thus less equitable to another group. I don't see how any of them can be considered more equitable than a popular vote. 

I see three main arguments against a national popular vote. One is the federalism issue that has been brought up already; I don't think that makes a strong case for why the Electoral College is better. A second argument to make is that if the presidency was decided by a popular vote, candidates would have little incentive to campaign outside of major population centers, and that issues that are important to more rural parts of the country would be ignored. That's a slightly better argument than the federalist one: the rebuttal would be that campaigns would just spend more money to make up the geographic difference, but making presidential campaigns even more expensive is not a particularly positive outcome, either.

In my mind, the biggest point is that a candidate winning the popular vote while losing the Electoral College is a very uncommon occurrence; it's happened only four times in American history. None of those cases indicate a structural failure of the Electoral College, which I'd define as an election where a candidate who wins the popular vote by a clear margin (at least one percentage point, if not two) with either a majority or a high-40s plurality, but loses the electoral vote by a not-close margin in the tipping point states. A multi-candidate, regionalized election like 1824 would require a runoff for legitimacy, while a coin-flip election like 1888 or 2000 would trigger nationwide recounts and legal challenges that would make Bush v. Gore seem quaint.

[drmevo]

3 hours ago, newtogolf said:

The Electoral College compounds the problems of voter fraud because it adds another layer to the process.  

While chads present their own problems, paper based audits are the only way to validate the real count as computers can't be trusted.  Hacked voting machines strategically placed in certain districts can sway an electoral college vote much more easily than a popular vote.  

When has fraud ever swayed an electoral college vote that we know about though? I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I've always been under the impression that the rate of fraud is so low it is statistically insignificant.  And most "fraud" turns out to be human error or something non-malicious. Spoiled ballots would have a much larger effect. 

[iacas]

6 hours ago, Chilli Dipper said:

A second argument to make is that if the presidency was decided by a popular vote, candidates would have little incentive to campaign outside of major population centers

People keep saying that, but that already happens now, no? The states with low populations also have a fairly irrelevant number of electoral votes.

How many serious visits do you think Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming get? They of the massive total of… 41 electoral votes. For 12 states. That's 14 electoral votes less than California alone. Only three more votes than Texas.

Seriously, it's not like candidates make a regular event of visiting towns of 3300 people.

6 hours ago, Chilli Dipper said:

None of those cases indicate a structural failure of the Electoral College, which I'd define as an election where a candidate who wins the popular vote by a clear margin (at least one percentage point, if not two) with either a majority or a high-40s plurality, but loses the electoral vote by a not-close margin in the tipping point states.

I think the fact that, for example, voting Republican in California or Democrat in Texas means your vote is completely wasted is a failure of the electoral college.

Why should a state that's 60/40 Democrat vote 55-0? That's over 20% of the votes needed to become President.

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

People keep saying that, but that already happens now, no? The states with low populations also have a fairly irrelevant number of electoral votes.

How many serious visits do you think Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming get? They of the massive total of… 41 electoral votes. For 12 states. That's 14 electoral votes less than California alone. Only three more votes than Texas.

Seriously, it's not like candidates make a regular event of visiting towns of 3300 people.

I think the fact that, for example, voting Republican in California or Democrat in Texas means your vote is completely wasted is a failure of the electoral college.

Why should a state that's 60/40 Democrat vote 55-0? That's over 20% of the votes needed to become President.

No that doesn't happen right now.  Candidates do not ignore small states, they ignore states that are foregone conclusions.  They do little to no campaigning in California.  And it was big news last week that Hillary set up shop in Texas because it was only done once they realized it became a possibility for the dems.

If they went to only popular, I could see that it would switch from battleground states to just large population areas.

Wouldnt that also create a large advantage for the dems/libs too, since they tend to have pretty good control over the densely populated areas?  It would be much easier for them to mobilize their voters because they would have a lot less traveling to do.  (If this last point is dumb, it's because I just spit it out immediately after it popped in my head without thinking it through for too long ;))

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

No that doesn't happen right now.

Prove it. Just saying "no that doesn't happen right now" isn't proof. Now, I don't live in Maine or South Dakota, and I don't follow politics, so maybe you can. So go for it. But my hunch is they don't visit those states very often.

I never said they visited California all the time. I just said it's unfair that millions of people can vote R in CA or D in TX and their vote counts for bupkis.

13 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

If they went to only popular, I could see that it would switch from battleground states to just large population areas.

What's wrong with that?

Again, why should California's millions of Republican voters count for naught, or millions of Texas Democrats? You don't think focusing on a few key states like we've seen lately - the battleground states - while ignoring California and (until you prove otherwise) Maine and South Dakota is a "bad" thing?

13 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Wouldnt that also create a large advantage for the dems/libs too, since they tend to have pretty good control over the densely populated areas?

You say that like you think I care one way or the other.

In 2012 Obama won the race 332-206 (a 61.7% majority), despite winning the popular vote by less than 4%.

In 2008, it was 365 to 173 (67.8%), despite again winning the popular vote by 7.2%.

---

In other words, it seems to me that it will increase the value of every vote, while simultaneously turning every state into a "battleground" state. Whether one campaign works to get every vote they can out of Maine and South Dakota, 

Low voter turnout in states that typically go hard one color or the other? This could change that. Even 20,000 more votes out of California Republicans or Texas Democrats will matter. Those folks in Maine and South Dakota feel ignored? Guess what - even Maine still has a registered voter population of nearly one million people. Their voices could be heard… perhaps more so than they are now with their whopping three electoral votes.

[toto]

In the 2012 general election campaign

38 states (including 24 of the 27 smallest states) had no campaign events, and minuscule or no spending for TV ads.

 

More than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the only ten competitive states.. 

Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa). 

The biggest cities are almost exactly balanced out by rural areas in terms of population and partisan composition.

16%  of the U.S. population lives outside the nation's Metropolitan Statistical Areas.  Rural America has voted 60% Republican. None of the 10 most rural states matter now.

16%  of the U.S. population lives in the top 100 cities. They voted 63% Democratic in 2004.

The population of the top 50 cities (going as far down as Arlington, TX) is only 15% of the population of the United States.

              

Suburbs divide almost exactly equally between Republicans and Democrats.

A nationwide presidential campaign of polling, organizing, ad spending, and visits, with every voter equal, would be run the way presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all methods. The big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami do not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida.  In the 4 states that accounted for over two-thirds of all general-election activity in the 2012 presidential election, rural areas, suburbs, exurbs, and cities all received attention—roughly in proportion to their population.

                                              

The itineraries of presidential candidates in battleground states (and their allocation of other campaign resources in battleground states, including polling, organizing, and ad spending) reflect the political reality that every gubernatorial or senatorial candidate knows. When and where every voter is equal, a campaign must be run everywhere.

 

With National Popular Vote, when every voter is equal, everywhere, it makes sense for presidential candidates to try and elevate their votes where they are and aren't so well liked. But, under the state-by-state winner-take-all laws, it makes no sense for a Democrat to try and do that in Vermont or Wyoming, or for a Republican to try it in Wyoming or Vermont.

[Chilli Dipper]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

People keep saying that, but that already happens now, no? The states with low populations also have a fairly irrelevant number of electoral votes.

How many serious visits do you think Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming get? They of the massive total of… 41 electoral votes. For 12 states. That's 14 electoral votes less than California alone. Only three more votes than Texas.

Seriously, it's not like candidates make a regular event of visiting towns of 3300 people.

Depends on whether the state is "in play." New Hampshire, for one, receives a very disproportionate amount of campaign resources for a state that has only four electoral votes. As do Iowa and Nevada, for six electoral votes. Trump has made several visits to Maine since clinching the nomination in pursuit of the vote allocated to the more R-friendly congressional district there.

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I think the fact that, for example, voting Republican in California or Democrat in Texas means your vote is completely wasted is a failure of the electoral college.

Why should a state that's 60/40 Democrat vote 55-0? That's over 20% of the votes needed to become President.

One thing I don't like about the Electoral College is the "winner take all" allocation of votes that most states use, so I'd actually agree with you on that. I like the "two at-large votes, plus one vote for every House district" method used in Maine and Nebraska, but that comes with a big caveat of needing partisan influence removed from the map-drawing process before it should be implemented on a national scale. Also, expanding the House so that no district has a higher population than the smaller entitled district (a.k.a. Wyoming), but that's diving too far into into civics geekdom for this thread.

For the presidency to be viewed as legitimate, elections need to reach a majority result, either directly or indirectly. With that in mind, the national popular vote is the worst way to determine a winner, because a closely-contested race essentially guarantees that no candidate gets a majority. There are alternative ways for a popular vote to reach a majority result, but I think it's more feasible to reform the indirect means to majority we already have.

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Chilli Dipper said:

For the presidency to be viewed as legitimate, elections need to reach a majority result, either directly or indirectly.

You say that as if it's a fact. It's not.

My high school class president won with 40% of the vote one year. There were four candidates. Her presidency was legitimate.

[drmevo]

 

20 minutes ago, iacas said:

Prove it. Just saying "no that doesn't happen right now" isn't proof. Now, I don't live in Maine or South Dakota, and I don't follow politics, so maybe you can. So go for it. But my hunch is they don't visit those states very often.

 

I live in NH. Trust me, the candidates are here a lot. I think the biggest factor, as others have mentioned, is whether or not it's a battleground state.

[jamo]

2 minutes ago, Chilli Dipper said:

For the presidency to be viewed as legitimate, elections need to reach a majority result, either directly or indirectly. With that in mind, the national popular vote is the worst way to determine a winner, because a closely-contested race essentially guarantees that no candidate gets a majority. There are alternative ways for a popular vote to reach a majority result, but I think it's more feasible to reform the indirect means to majority we already have.

Do you mean per the Constitution (i.e. if no one gets to 270, the House votes), or just in a general meaning that the public wouldn't accept the results? 

If it's the former, sure, that's a power that the House probably wouldn't want to secede, though it's been many years since it's needed to decide an election. But I don't see any reason the public would feel that way if they had prior knowledge of the system. 

[Chilli Dipper]

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

You say that as if it's a fact. It's not.

My high school class president won with 40% of the vote one year. There were four candidates. Her presidency was legitimate.

We've had two four-way presidential elections where the leading candidate got 40 percent of the vote. The first was decided by the House of Representatives; the second immediately resulted in a civil war. Majorities are pretty important.

 

8 minutes ago, jamo said:

Do you mean per the Constitution (i.e. if no one gets to 270, the House votes), or just in a general meaning that the public wouldn't accept the results? 

If it's the former, sure, that's a power that the House probably wouldn't want to secede, though it's been many years since it's needed to decide an election. But I don't see any reason the public would feel that way if they had prior knowledge of the system. 

Both. It's not a coincidence that the term "corrupt bargain" is used to describe the two times Congress has had to intervene in presidential elections. Then consider how many Republicans believe Ross Perot lost them the 1992 election, or how many Democrats believe Ralph Nader cost them the 2000 election.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Chilli Dipper said:

We've had two four-way presidential elections where the leading candidate got 40 percent of the vote. The first was decided by the House of Representatives; the second immediately resulted in a civil war. Majorities are pretty important.

I disagree, and don't think you can compare the modern world to the world of Abraham Lincoln.

1 minute ago, Chilli Dipper said:

Both. It's not a coincidence that the term "corrupt bargain" is used to describe the two times Congress has had to intervene in presidential elections. Then consider how many Republicans believe Ross Perot lost them the 1992 election, or how many Democrats believe Ralph Nader cost them the 2000 election.

So? That was under an election with with electoral votes. They may have felt differently if it was a different vote style.

Plus, Republicans are apparently wrong:

Quote

The effect of Ross Perot's candidacy has been a contentious point of debate for many years. In the ensuing months and years after the election, various Republicans asserted that Perot had acted as a spoiler, enough to the detriment of Bush to lose him the election. While many disaffected conservatives may have voted for Ross Perot to protest Bush's tax increase, further examination of the Perot vote in the Election Night exit polls not only showed that Perot siphoned votes nearly equally among Bush and Clinton,[4] but of the voters who cited Bush's broken "No New Taxes" pledge as "very important," two thirds voted for Bill Clinton.[5] A mathematical look at the voting numbers reveals that Bush would have had to win 12.2% of Perot's 18.8% of the vote, 65% of Perot's support base, to earn a majority of the vote, and would have needed to win nearly every state Clinton won by less than five percentage points.[6]

And also…

Quote

President Bill Clinton was renominated by acclamation and faced Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole in 1996.[1] Ross Perot once again ran an independent campaign.[1] Once again, as in 1992, exit polls suggested that Perot's impact on the vote was negligible.[12] However, it once again kept Clinton from getting 50% of the national vote.

Did the U.S. have a problem with either of Clinton's presidencies, as he failed to achieve a majority in either of them?

And finally: http://disinfo.com/2010/11/debunked-the-myth-that-ralph-nader-cost-al-gore-the-2000-election/ .

[Golfingdad]

53 minutes ago, iacas said:

Prove it. Just saying "no that doesn't happen right now" isn't proof. Now, I don't live in Maine or South Dakota, and I don't follow politics, so maybe you can. So go for it. But my hunch is they don't visit those states very often.

I never said they visited California all the time. I just said it's unfair that millions of people can vote R in CA or D in TX and their vote counts for bupkis.

What's wrong with that?

Again, why should California's millions of Republican voters count for naught, or millions of Texas Democrats? You don't think focusing on a few key states like we've seen lately - the battleground states - while ignoring California and (until you prove otherwise) Maine and South Dakota is a "bad" thing?

You say that like you think I care one way or the other.

In 2012 Obama won the race 332-206 (a 61.7% majority), despite winning the popular vote by less than 4%.

In 2008, it was 365 to 173 (67.8%), despite again winning the popular vote by 7.2%.

---

In other words, it seems to me that it will increase the value of every vote, while simultaneously turning every state into a "battleground" state. Whether one campaign works to get every vote they can out of Maine and South Dakota, 

Low voter turnout in states that typically go hard one color or the other? This could change that. Even 20,000 more votes out of California Republicans or Texas Democrats will matter. Those folks in Maine and South Dakota feel ignored? Guess what - even Maine still has a registered voter population of nearly one million people. Their voices could be heard… perhaps more so than they are now with their whopping three electoral votes.

I'm not arguing with you, I'm simply throwing out ideas as to what might be the rationale behind some things.

One answer as to "what's wrong" with just going straight popular vote could be exactly the same reason the Senate even exists.  If we want a true "one man, one vote" system then the representative house would all that was necessary.  But we don't because that marginalizes too many large portions of the country because they are not population dense.

Again, these aren't my reasons.  I could give a damn - Im in SoCal so I'd probably benefit from that type of switch.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Golfingdad said:

One answer as to "what's wrong" with just going straight popular vote could be exactly the same reason the Senate even exists.  If we want a true "one man, one vote" system then the representative house would all that was necessary.  But we don't because that marginalizes too many large portions of the country because they are not population dense.

But we have both a House and the Senate.

Yet the way we elect the President is more like the House… except that every representative is from the same party and has to vote the same way.

So why not award the two (Senate) votes to the popular winner, and then divide up the others (the House votes) by the percentage. California might be 2 (Senate) + 60% * 53 = 32. So 34 Democrat, 21 Republican.

[Chilli Dipper]

20 minutes ago, iacas said:

But we have both a House and the Senate.

Yet the way we elect the President is more like the House… except that every representative is from the same party and has to vote the same way.

So why not award the two (Senate) votes to the popular winner, and then divide up the others (the House votes) by the percentage. California might be 2 (Senate) + 60% * 53 = 32. So 34 Democrat, 21 Republican.

The problem is that the process of drawing the congressional districts is highly politicized. Democratic House candidates won over 1 million votes than GOP candidates in 2012, yet Republicans kept a solid majority of seats. If all the states allocated their electoral votes by the ME/NE system, Obama would have lost despite winning a popular majority.

It's probably the ideal solution, but not before a push for anti-gerrymandering reforms.

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Chilli Dipper said:

The problem is that the process of drawing the congressional districts is highly politicized. Democratic House candidates won over 1 million votes than GOP candidates in 2012, yet Republicans kept a solid majority of seats.

That's not relevant to what I said. I didn't suggest apportioning anything by districts. I took the whole state.

[Chilli Dipper]

Just now, iacas said:

That's not relevant to what I said. I didn't suggest apportioning anything by districts. I took the whole state.

So proportional, rather than by district. I missed that detail.

A proportional system has its own set of issues. A 60-40 margin in California could be allocated like that, but what about a state like North Dakota, which only has one House seat? A minor party in California could be entitled to an elector with only 2 percent of the popular vote.