The Electoral College

[toto]

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states) (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled. 

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that no matter where they live, even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate.  Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

 

The National Popular Vote bill was approved this year by a unanimous bipartisan House committee vote in both Georgia (16 electoral votes) and Missouri (10).

The  bill has passed 34 state legislative chambers in 23 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 261 electoral votes, including one house in Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), The District of Columbia, Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), Oklahoma (7), and Oregon (7), and both houses in California, Colorado (9), Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

The bill has been enacted by the District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (19), New Jersey (14), Maryland (11), California (55), Massachusetts (10), New York (29), Vermont (3), Rhode Island (4), and Washington (13). These 11 jurisdictions have 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

NationalPopularVote

[Hardspoon]

Just now, toto said:

Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled. 

Please stop copy/pasting the same shit over and over.

Also, don't hold your breath for NPV:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/why-a-plan-to-circumvent-the-electoral-college-is-probably-doomed/

[iacas]

58 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

Please stop copy/pasting the same shit over and over.

On top of that, and per the PM I've already sent you… this is a golf site. If you're only here to talk about NPV, please find another site to talk about it. This is, first and foremost, a place to talk about golf.

[Golfingdad]

7 hours ago, iacas said:

A vote for a Republican president in California doesn't matter, just as a vote for a Democrat president in Texas.

Another way to phrase my disagreement with this idea: It's not that either of these votes "don't matter," it's simply that the guy they wanted LOST.  They matter just as much as any other vote.

If 2012 was only a national vote, would you say that all votes in the country for Romney didn't matter?  Of course not.  (You also wouldn't suggest that both guys should be allowed to make presidential decisions proportionate to the amount of vote they received ;))

And to go back to those people who would be convinced to go to the polls because now their vote mattered when it didn't before ... if they were so easily swayed by the idea that knew their guy was going to lose their state, wouldn't it stand to reason that they'd also be easily swayed be the idea that their guy would lose their country?

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Another way to phrase my disagreement with this idea: It's not that either of these votes "don't matter," it's simply that the guy they wanted LOST.  They matter just as much as any other vote.

I disagree. The vote doesn't matter. They could have stayed home and the same result would have occurred. It's a foregone conclusion (currently) that CA will be blue, and TX will be red.

If your state isn't a battleground state, and the winner is a foregone conclusion, whether you vote for the president or not doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the winner wins by a thousand votes or all of the votes: they're getting all 55 or 34 electoral votes or whatever.

7 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

If 2012 was only a national vote, would you say that all votes in the country for Romney didn't matter?  Of course not.

It's not a foregone conclusion.

When a hockey team is down 7-0 with 60 seconds left, they don't pull the goalie. It's a foregone conclusion that they've lost. What they do is irrelevant to the win/loss status of the game.

7 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

And to go back to those people who would be convinced to go to the polls because now their vote mattered when it didn't before ... if they were so easily swayed by the idea that knew their guy was going to lose their state, wouldn't it stand to reason that they'd also be easily swayed be the idea that their guy would lose their country?

No.

The elections in certain states are, again, foregone conclusions. Nationally, that's rarely true.

[Golfingdad]

29 minutes ago, iacas said:

I disagree. The vote doesn't matter. They could have stayed home and the same result would have occurred. It's a foregone conclusion (currently) that CA will be blue, and TX will be red.

If your state isn't a battleground state, and the winner is a foregone conclusion, whether you vote for the president or not doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the winner wins by a thousand votes or all of the votes: they're getting all 55 or 34 electoral votes or whatever.

It's not a foregone conclusion.

When a hockey team is down 7-0 with 60 seconds left, they don't pull the goalie. It's a foregone conclusion that they've lost. What they do is irrelevant to the win/loss status of the game.

No.

The elections in certain states are, again, foregone conclusions. Nationally, that's rarely true.

You said "they could have stayed home and the same result would have occured" in regards to theoretical Republican votes in California but then immediately follow that with saying votes for Romney would've mattered.  Those two arguments are directly at odds with each other.  And regarding your last graphic, things aren't much different nationally:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html?_r=0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/24/donald-trumps-chances-of-winning-are-approaching-zero/

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

You said "they could have stayed home and the same result would have occured" in regards to theoretical Republican votes in California but then immediately follow that with saying votes for Romney would've mattered.  Those two arguments are directly at odds with each other.  And regarding your last graphic, things aren't much different nationally:

Drew, I honestly don't know what you're talking about at this point, and I don't know where we got off track, either.

Fact: R can stay home because the outcome in CA is decided. >99.9% is a pretty large number. It's beyond "virtual certainty."

Fact: The presidential race, nationwide, is and likely never will reach that level of certainty. If it did, yeah, the thousand people who were going to vote nationally for the losing candidate could stay home. Their votes (for the presidency) wouldn't matter. Even Gary Johnson will probably get over <0.1% of the vote (538 has him at 5.7%).

Things are quite a bit different nationally:

Let's not make this about current politics, though, please, as I said in the OP.

[newtogolf]

While it's different, what's the harm is apportioning the electoral college votes based on percentages of popular vote.  Why wouldn't we want our states electoral college votes to reflect the true desire of the people?  

[drmevo]

I think it comes down to the smaller states sort of holding the larger ones hostage on this. They want the attention and the influence.  They will have much less if we have either a popular vote or proportional EC votes, so it's not in their interest to change. If only the non-swing states switched to proportional votes, and the swing states decided not to, they'd have even more influence, right? 

[newtogolf]

17 minutes ago, drmevo said:

I think it comes down to the smaller states sort of holding the larger ones hostage on this. They want the attention and the influence.  They will have much less if we have either a popular vote or proportional EC votes, so it's not in their interest to change. If only the non-swing states switched to proportional votes, and the swing states decided not to, they'd have even more influence, right? 

The smaller states would still have the same number of electoral college votes it's just a matter of how they are allocated.  The proportional vote should eliminate the entire concept of swing states.   While the states have some power today in the POTUS election, a states power is in representation in the House.  

Any power that the States feel the receive from candidates during an election is the type of corruption we want to eliminate. Candidates shouldn't be allowed to promise states support or special considerations for ensuring the electoral college delivers all their votes to them.  

[drmevo]

20 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

The smaller states would still have the same number of electoral college votes it's just a matter of how they are allocated.  The proportional vote should eliminate the entire concept of swing states.   While the states have some power today in the POTUS election, a states power is in representation in the House.  

Any power that the States feel the receive from candidates during an election is the type of corruption we want to eliminate. Candidates shouldn't be allowed to promise states support or special considerations for ensuring the electoral college delivers all their votes to them.  

I agree, in theory more proportional allocation of votes would be great. I'm just talking about the reality of the situation we have before us. Since the candidates would probably not campaign in the (current) swing states as heavily or make as much of an effort to appeal to them in their campaign promises, and since the states decide how to allocate their own votes, the swing states will probably not agree to change how they allocate.

By the way, I guess I shouldn't equate "swing states" with "smaller states," but I think the most-populous swing state is Florida and none of the rest compare to a CA, NY, TX, etc. in terms of EC votes.

Edited October 25, 2016 by drmevo

[saevel25]

You have to ask who benefits from the winner take all method? The two parties who can lock in guaranteed electoral votes and isolate states to make it easier to focus a campaign. It's not the states who care admit maintaining the status quo.

[iacas]

24 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

It's not the states who care admit maintaining the status quo.

The states have the power to change it (which, I suppose, is why some have signed on with that NPV thing - including California, oddly enough.)

So if they wanted to, they could. But haven't.

(If the NPV thing gets close, I could see some states perhaps backing out…?)

[Elmer]

11 hours ago, iacas said:

I disagree. The vote doesn't matter. They could have stayed home and the same result would have occurred. It's a foregone conclusion (currently) that CA will be blue, and TX will be red.

If your state isn't a battleground state, and the winner is a foregone conclusion, whether you vote for the president or not doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the winner wins by a thousand votes or all of the votes: they're getting all 55 or 34 electoral votes or whatever.

It's not a foregone conclusion.

When a hockey team is down 7-0 with 60 seconds left, they don't pull the goalie. It's a foregone conclusion that they've lost. What they do is irrelevant to the win/loss status of the game.

No.

The elections in certain states are, again, foregone conclusions. Nationally, that's rarely true.

Just my opinion, but All votes matter!
Some people gave their lives to gain the right to vote!

A blue vote in a red state is simply canceled out, but it still matters. It is still your right to vote. It is still how how our election process works, it is a part of our history as a democracy.

I look at it like this. 9 birdies followed by 9 bogies brings you to even.
But you still had 9 birdies!
DO you not play golf because the bogies cancel out the birdies?

YMMV!!!!

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, Elmer said:

Just my opinion, but All votes matter!
Some people gave their lives to gain the right to vote!

A blue vote in a red state is simply canceled out, but it still matters. It is still your right to vote. It is still how how our election process works, it is a part of our history as a democracy.

I don't think anyone's diminishing the importance of your right to vote, or what it means, etc.

6 minutes ago, Elmer said:

DO you not play golf because the bogies cancel out the birdies?

That's not a good analogy, because every stroke not only counts, but actually and literally contributes to the final result.  Every CA Republican could fail to vote for the presidential race and nothing would change about the final result.

I'll spare us all from me trying to come up with a golf analogy akin to voting for the minority party in a state that's ">99.9%" the other way.

[Golfingdad]

17 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'll spare us all from me trying to come up with a golf analogy akin to voting for the minority party in a state that's ">99.9%" the other way.

Tiger Woods attempting to play in the 2016 Safeway Open?

How about a tennis analogy:  A set is a set.  It doesn't matter how they're won, just that they're won.  The final score could be 6-0, 6-7, 6-0, 6-7, 6-7.  The guy who won 3 sets moves on even though he only won 21 games (counting the tiebreakers as a game) to the other guys 30 games.

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Tiger Woods attempting to play in the 2016 Safeway Open?

How about a tennis analogy:  A set is a set.  It doesn't matter how they're won, just that they're won.  The final score could be 6-0, 6-7, 6-0, 6-7, 6-7.  The guy who won 3 sets moves on even though he only won 21 games (counting the tiebreakers as a game) to the other guys 30 games.

Comparing it to athletics fails because actions that take place earlier affect the later things that take place. Strategies, fatigue, injuries, plays… it's played out over time. A vote does not.

Also, there's no player opposing a voter. Not legally.

And I'm being as glib about it as I figure you are, too.

P.S. "Glib" is the wrong word there, but I'm hoping you'll know what I mean. "Joking" isn't quite right either. Anyway, I'm not being serious in discussing an analogy.

[Golfingdad]

35 minutes ago, iacas said:

Comparing it to athletics fails because actions that take place earlier affect the later things that take place. Strategies, fatigue, injuries, plays… it's played out over time. A vote does not.

Also, there's no player opposing a voter. Not legally.

And I'm being as glib about it as I figure you are, too.

P.S. "Glib" is the wrong word there, but I'm hoping you'll know what I mean. "Joking" isn't quite right either. Anyway, I'm not being serious in discussing an analogy.

Yup.  Snarky maybe?

P.S.  In Regards to my Tiger comment ...