The General US Politics Thread

Wait, you mean which election, the presidential one?

I live in a 60-million country where the president is elected in direct vote, so adressing the concerns:

1. Requires constitutional amendment
   • That's the biggest problem: The reps won't ever let this through given the latest tendencies in winning the popular vote.
2. Small states lose advantage
   • See next.
3. Weaken federal system since states would lose role in choosing president
   • Huh? States shouldn't take over their people here anyway, since the president is at the federal level, which concerns all citizens directly.
4. Too great a load in election process, candidate would have to campaign strenuously in every state
   • At the federal level, where it's actually at is the national TV debates. This is not a local election nor should it be treated as one.
5. Spur ballot box stuffing , voter fraud
   • I don't see how that would change from the current system.

Edit: I don't understand the utility of an electoral college for its own sake, people elected only for the promise they'll vote for the candidate you want (and accountability because I guess it only works when their vote isn't secret). Sounds a lot like a fifth wheel to me.

• We do have an electoral college here, but only for our senate, and it's composed mainly of mayors, not "dedicated voters".

edited 21st Mar '14 8:34:52 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

It's also worth noting that currently elections are mostly decided by "swing states", so it's not like states get equal representation under the current system either...

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Exactly. Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico are basically the only states that matter right now. You might see plays for some lean-swing states (like Michigan or North Carolina), but that's usually about it.

For ego-stroking purposes, candidates will also go through big states that are solidly in their favor.

Getting rid of the electoral college would make that worse, not better. If we went to a strict direct election, then candidates would have little incentive to do anything but campaign up and down the major cities of the coasts, where the majority of the country's population is. You think places like Wyoming (with only 3 of the 538 electors, or 0.56%) are screwed now? If we went to direct elections, they'd have 563,626 of 308,143,815 total population (by the 2010 census), or 0.18% — even less reason for candidates to care about the people living there.

No, if you wanted to make the electoral college more representative, you'd get rid of state laws that make states winner take all, where whoever gets 50%+1 of the votes gets the whole state in the electoral college. Instead, make the results proportional by state, so that if Adam gets 60% of a state with 10 electoral college votes and Bob gets 40%, Adam gets 6 votes and Bob gets 4 votes.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

If we went to a strict direct election, then candidates would have little incentive to do anything but campaign up and down the major cities of the coasts, where the majority of the country's population is.

Assuming that they are also the majority of the swing population, that is. Besides, the "swing state" thing creates the same problem in different packaging.

edited 21st Mar '14 8:47:11 AM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Right, you haven't fixed the issue either way; you've just moved it around a bit. Also, why should a person in Wyoming have their vote count more than a person in New York?

edited 21st Mar '14 8:55:32 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Also, while it's hard to find data that local, I do not get the impression that even within swing states presidency candidates campaign exclusively within large cities, which makes the idea that they would do so on a union-wide level even more questionable.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I think most people except hard-core Republicans agree that the system as it is now is unfairly in their favor. The problem most people seem to get is how to make it more balanced for high population, mostly coastal and interior blue states to have their fair share without making the West totally irrelevant.

Frankly, I'm wary of getting ride of the Electoral College simply because I've observed many liberals make it very clear without actually saying it, that they really do think places like Wyoming and Idaho should be made irrelevant because they disagree with their viewpoints, and have a hard time taking people who say they want fair representation and democracy but also think individuals who live in small states with different political leanings should be almost entirely ignored.

Look, it's very simple. Should one citizen's vote count more than another's? If it should, then why? What is it about Wyoming that makes it worthwhile to let the people there have more say on a per capita basis than the people in California or New York?

If this diminishes the power of Republican-leaning states, then it means they were getting an undue share of it to begin with.

edited 21st Mar '14 9:31:11 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Because large cities have the numbers to massively swing national policy that can be utterly disastrous for anything that isn't a super-dense urban hellscape.

Hell, even just in Oregon you get Portland blindly passing statewide policy obviously targeted to local urban aid that massively fucks over most of the East, and a good part of the south.

edited 21st Mar '14 9:38:29 AM by Pykrete

I never got the obsessing with proportionality. Who cares if a vote in Wyoming technically counts more than in California because they have fewer people. The end result is that California still has a much much bigger real influence than Wyoming most likely ever will, and Wyoming still has a pretty minuscule importance. Focusing on that always did seemed more like a symbolic issue that too much time was wasted on to me.

And that, when people say New York voters are short changed, the mean New York City, and really couldn't careless about how the rest of the state voted (which is usually Democratic for the rest of the state too, but that's not the point).

True, very hard to find a balance here.

edited 21st Mar '14 9:42:21 AM by KBSL

As opposed to rural voters taking resources from the cities? You're describing a problem that isn't solved by giving rural voters more say than city voters. It just swings the other way, letting a handful of farmers dictate how the state runs things.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Given that the overwhelming majority of "a handful of farmers" nationwide are still ludicrously outnumbered by a whopping two cities on opposite ends of the country, much less an additional megalopolis that takes up the better part of New England, I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that.

Our problems right now are coming from an openly corrupt legislature in incestuous relationships with business and media, not a handful of farmers.

edited 21st Mar '14 9:44:53 AM by Pykrete

Because federal governance affects state governance. Some national issues affect things on a state-by-state basis, such as proposing federal laws that overrule state laws. Let's say that a presidential candidate proposes a new, strict gun control law. If you live in California, a very populous state that already has tight gun control laws, you don't care one way or the other, because your state laws are already stricter than the proposed federal law. If you live in Wyoming, a low-population state with more permissive gun laws, though, you probably care a lot. So why should the 38 million people in California be able to the half-million people in Wyoming what their laws should be? The electoral college system is a compromise between individual issues and state issues of that kind.

Incidentally, allowing for proportional representation in electoral college votes would get rid of swing states. Swing states are only a thing because swaying a relatively few people in states with large, closely-divided populations can result in huge gains in the electoral college, due to the winner-take-all system. If getting that magic 50%+1 majority in a given state didn't automatically result in winning all of that state's electoral college votes, then swing states wouldn't be a thing anymore.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

proportional representation in electoral college votes

As in, that the college is selected in a proportional fashion and then selects the President?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

As in what (I think) Nebraska does. Split each state's electoral votes by state popular. This would keep the extra sway of smaller states while evening them all out a bit more and reduce overcampaigning in Ohio and Florida.

Of course, that would have much the same problem as a straight popular — all campaigning would immediately move to New England, California, and Texas. But a little less bad in that there's still a good 60 or so disproportional votes to pick up out in the sticks.

edited 21st Mar '14 9:53:14 AM by Pykrete

Nebraska splits its college seats between districts.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The extra two are popular. So we're both right and wrong.

edited 21st Mar '14 9:55:03 AM by Pykrete

The thing with the small states is that while their votes count more per-capita, it still really doesn't count for much, especially in a winner take all system. One vote in a populous swing state, or even a populous solid state, counts for a hell of a lot more, because it gets you one vote closer to unlocking some double-digit number of electors rather than a mere three.

I do think proportional electors would be the best way to do it, because then turnout and campaigning does truly become nationally important. There's a lot of red in California and a lot of blue in Texas that it would be worthwhile for a presidential campaign to swing through and get more of that proportion.

Just keep it strictly proportional, though. I remember the PA GOP floating out this ludicrous "congressional district = electoral vote" system that would let the gerrymandered electoral districts decide which way the electoral votes swung, because while PA voted for Obama, only 5 of 18 districts went democratic, and they figured it was unfair for all of these arbitrarily assigned people to have their "voice" trampled upon because some crummy majority figured it was better to vote for the black guy.

edited 21st Mar '14 10:00:17 AM by Ogodei

Pykrete, can you give specific examples of the things you're talking about? Not future scenarios or general trends, but specific legislation happening right now that we can look at to see why it would be a bad idea.

I ask that because every time this thread turns to discussing proportional voting, someone says what you say, but no one ever goes into the details. And I find that working in generalities tends to result in unprovable assertions that just bog the discussion down. I'd like to see the philosophy nailed down to the reality, for a change.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

Also, regarding

does something similar happen in swing states as well?

edited 21st Mar '14 10:08:06 AM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

As in, a state's electors are proportional to that state's election results, rather than winner take all. So if a candidate won 60% of a given state's votes, then 60% of that state's electoral college electors would be put aside for him, rather than all of them.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

In regards to the small town farmers not getting a fair chance. Why do they deserve special treatment? Ideally we should do whatever helps the greatest number of people and harms the least. If the people in the big cities far outnumber them then their needs should probably be considered first. That doesn't mean we should completely disregard them of course but that's what the various Representatives and Senators are for. They are the ones that represent their state and the interests of its people. The president represents the interests of the entire nation and as such no one state should have an inherent advantage over another.

Ogodei: The PA thing brings up another bit of idiocy in that while only a third of the districts were won by Democrats more than 50% of PA citizens voted for them. That shit is ridiculous and it is why I will never let go of wanting a proportional representation system for the House. It just makes things more fair because the interests of the state are better represented.

edited 21st Mar '14 11:03:39 AM by Kostya

Pretty much this. Rural vs. urban is a chimera. Allocate representation proportionally by vote and every citizen is assured of a roughly equal say.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

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edited 21st Mar '14 12:41:42 PM by DeviantBraeburn

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