Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It's also ridiculous how a piece of land is valued higher than the people inhabiting it - what is a state without the citizens within?
It also makes no sense that states even matter in a national election. Last I checked, the president isn't the leader of California or Texas, but of the US as a whole.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 25th 2019 at 4:18:49 PM
We learn from history that we do not learn from history
x4 Well, during the Revolution days, all of the 13 states had slavery. The North then abolished slavery before the Civil War and outlawed it in their states. The "slave state" and "free state" distinctions happened around the time of the Civil War, when new states were being admitted to the union. Basically there was a huge debate about which states would allow slavery and which ones wouldn't, with both sides wanting to make sure the other didn't grow too large or have too much of a voice in politics. The country tried to keep a roughly equal amount of slave states vs. free states to appease the south, but they still threw a fit, seceded, and started a war over wanting to keep their slaves.
On the electoral collage, though.
I think there's something wrong with the fact that a candidate can lose the popular vote by a fairly significant margin, and still end up becoming president. The Electoral Collage largely benefits GOP candidates while being a hindrance to Democratic candidates.
I know the United States isn't a direct democracy, but aren't we supposed to govern by majority rule? A GOP candidate hasn't won the popular vote in decades, but they're somehow still getting into the White House.
I'm not saying completely destroy the system, but I think there's an issue when the supposed rule of the people is secondary to the amount of electoral votes someone gets. Going off of the 90 people vs. 10 people thing.
Sure, it sucks if you're that 10 who lose out to someone you don't want, but, like, if most people are voting for something, that's how majority rule is supposed to work. If most people don't want a bigoted asshat for president, then that's what should happen. Sucks (not really) for those that liked said bigoted asshat and wanted him in, but if the majority of people reject something in majority rule, then it's rejected.
Edited by ILikeRobots on May 25th 2019 at 7:20:18 AM
Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.Slavery was a divisive issue during the Revolutionary War. Abolition movements had started in the northern states around 1770 and by the Constitution's signing in 1787, slavery was either abolished or had measures in place to steadily abolish it in the states of
- Pennsylvania
- New Hampshire
- Connecticut
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
The question of "Slavery or no slavery?" is pretty much our country's original sin. It's an argument we've been having since the nation's inception, and there remain holdouts to this day.
Edited by TobiasDrake on May 25th 2019 at 8:20:02 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
CGP Grey once did the math and theoretically you could become president with only around 21 % of the popular vote.
It's a highly unlikely scenario, but it highlights how utterly broken this system is.
Also getting rid of this system doesn't necessarily require to go full direct democracy either. Just go shopping for ideas in Europe etc - there has to be at least one system the US could emulate that's more democratic than what they currently have.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 25th 2019 at 4:22:03 PM
We learn from history that we do not learn from history![]()
![]()
We don’t necessarily want straight-up majority rule. That’s not always a good thing.
Of course, we also don’t want elections to be essentially decided by small groups of people, so there is some room for improvement here. The EC gives rural states a massively disproportionate influence.
Edited by archonspeaks on May 25th 2019 at 7:22:16 AM
They should have sent a poet.What would be the result if electoral votes were distributed proportionally to the state’s popular vote distribution? That would at least solve the problem of blue votes from red state citizens (like me) not being counted at all in presidential elections, but I at least understand it wouldn’t do any good if a significant majority of states didn’t agree to it.
My musician pageSame problem, different numbers. You'd still have a percentage of votes going unaccounted for.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Oh, I still believe that direct democratic elections are the way to go. It’s just that something like that would have trouble being worse than the electoral college in its current state.
I think more important is the replacement of the first-past-the-post voting systems, but that’s to an extent a separate issue.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on May 25th 2019 at 10:41:07 AM
My musician pageI’ve started crunching the numbers or what would happen if electoral votes were assigned based percentage of the voting population instead of percentage of the total population, I’m not down yet but so far it seems to be that California and Texas loose out big, weirdly enough Florida gets more votes and overtakes Texas for the spot of second biggest state electorally.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI haven't finished so I've got no total result, Georgia and Texas both loose votes, but so do California and New York, while Pennsylvanian, Virginia and Florida gain votes.
The big things are California loosing 7 electoral voters and Texas loosing 8 electoral votes.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranHonestly, I don't see the benefit of proportionally assigning votes on a state by state basis when we can just have states join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and solve the problem of voters being ignored.
Millions of rural people in California deserve representation.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangOh this isn't a proposed solution, I just want to see the impact that voting on behalf of non-voters has on elections.
I'm sure that if I backdate it we'd see huge variances, especially before the civil war and during Jim Crow.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran![]()
![]()
The inherent idea is that places like Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, etc., the so-called "fly-over country" parts of the US, would be largely ignored by the Presidency because addressing their issues simply wouldn't garner the kinds of votes they'd seek out. I'm not saying I agree with the idea, but that's the rationale used, and I can see its validity.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"It seems like all it is doing is promoting the swing states even further than the current system does. After all, much more effort is put into getting the vote out in states that could make the difference.
What about multiplying the electoral college votes by the turnout for that state. E.g. say a state had 10 EC votes and turnout was 60%, therefore the winning candidate gets 6 EC votes instead of the full 10?
Edited by singularityshot on May 25th 2019 at 8:27:00 AM
That happens now.
The electoral college does not give small states representation, it gives a few states undue influence some of which who happen to be rural by coincidence. The rural states who aren't swing states are just as ignored, under an actually popular-vote driven system their votes would matter just as much as anyone else's.
Ignoring millions of people doesn't become valid just because a much smaller number of people are afraid of losing their position of unearned privilege. The millions of rural voters in California and urban voters elsewhere deserve representation.
The problem is not the existence of swing states, the problem is people getting undue influence to the point their votes individually weighing more than many other people's votes.
Arbitrary swing states are bad and they wouldn't exist in an electoral college driven by the popular vote.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 25th 2019 at 9:47:48 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangIt's blatantly undemocratic that someone's vote should mean nothing simply because most voters in their state think something else. And I've seen it repeatedly pointed out that the people whose votes get disproportionately erased are— surprise, surprise— minorities.
Effectively, three million votes were completely erased in the last presidential election. Gone. They didn't mean anything. That's three million people who didn't get a say in what happens at all due to this system. And they've been living under this situation that should never have happened if we'd had a fair election, having their daily lives impacted by the results of it for the last two and a half years.
The Electoral College doesn't protect anything except the interests of a certain party that's been having difficulty winning the popular vote lately.
Edited by Ishntknew on May 25th 2019 at 9:49:45 AM
The fact that places like Florida and Ohio are given the last word on who becomes president is reason enough to get rid of the EC.
Also, it doesn't really protect the representation of small states. By design, it overvalues them, but the political reality is that most of these states are Republican strongholds, so their EC share is never competitive. In effect, the GOP is systemically rewarded for dominating the local politics of smaller states by giving these states more E Cs per capita. The places that are competitive are purple states, which have middling EC shares, and in Florida's case are quite populous, and as a result, the national discourse is dominated by their regional biases. A popular vote counts everyone — every Democrat in West Virginia, every Republican in Massachusetts. Everyone plays a part in their candidate's victory.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on May 25th 2019 at 4:19:58 AM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

They did have the vote of their slaves, the right for the able to vote to vote on behalf of the unable is still there.
How many people in Florida can’t vote but still contribute to the number of electoral votes that state gets?
How many electoral votes would Georgia have if you didn’t count the African American population who had their vote taken from them in 2018?
That’s some numbers to run actually, what would the outcome of 2016 have been if electoral votes were divided up based on votes cast not population in state?
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran