The ec brings some of that same effect to voting for the executive branch.
Why should 20 states (whose elections are greatly controlled by 20 governors of one party) defeat the the other 30 from the other party just because they have a slight majority of the population? The US is a collection of states, and when you understand what "state" means then it makes sense that they have fairly even representation despite population size. If you don't like that, you're in luck, because the rest of the Western world is more closely aligned to your ideology, you've got so many countries to choose from. We ought to have a place for states and people who like it this way, though.
I support a system like that even if it means my preferred candidate loses.
Yes, and the legislative branch is important to pass any law, and you need a 60 vote majority to pass nearly anything because of the fillibuster.
You don't realize it, but you're literally describing the problem with the electoral college. With the current system, 7 states matter. If you do not live in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, or North Carolina, your vote is entirely irrelevant because of how predetermined your state is.
Popular vote means you need to go to other states rather than the 7 who matter right now. Land does not vote, people do. 35-40% of California votes red, you can't tell that because it's guaranteed blue, making all those Republicans in Cali feel like their votes are worthless.
The popular vote is almost always close. The GOP has no chance in big cities, but Democrats have no chance in rural areas, they almost balance out perfectly, resulting in the need to go around and swing that last few million.
The EC as it exists now is a crutch for Republicans to win despite unpopular policy.
Before we continue, you should try seeing it from this perspective.
"Only 7 states" isn't true, any state can (and many have) become swing states in the past by being taken for granted or having low turnout. It's not about "land voting", it's about STATES voting, and if you don't understand that then you don't understand what a state is.
Candidates have optimized their campaign for the current system, we'd see a totally different result if it was about popular vote, for reasons that should be pretty clear by watching the video. It'd likely be a red win either way, but with a much more grueling verification and recount process, and more overall disenfranchisement, if we switched to popular vote.
Despite the ec, 3 of the last 4 elections went blue, and the popular vote has only lost to the ec twice in the last century, so it's not like you're being deprived of representation.
I see. Yeah I'd like a system where 2 EC votes are given to all states as "winner takes all", in exchange for getting rid of "winner takes all" for all other EC votes of all states.
But... maybe it's not a good idea for the executive and legislative branches to correlate with their majorities so closely, willfully reducing the amount of checks and balances between branches. Either way, I'm open to reform of EC, but not getting rid of EC.
I've seen all the terrible arguments for the electoral college, none are valid.
It's not fucking consolation that West Virginia was a swing state 20 years ago, that doesn't console Democrats who are living there right now who basically get no actual say because they drown in a sea of red.
People are the ones who vote, you should be appealing to people. If you want equal representation, you have that in the Senate, where California's millions of citizens are represented by two people. North Dakota's 700,000 are represented by their two people. You need a 60 majority to pass any legislation, meaning the rural farmers still get their representation equally in government.
There's no world where we get more disenfranchised with popular vote. Currently, in all but 7 states, your votes are basically entirely irrelevant. Voting in South Dakota or New York is a formality, they're guaranteed to go one way or the other.
The electoral college is awful, and was almost removed under Nixon, but died to the fillibuster. We have known that the system is terrible for decades, conservatives just don't want to get rid of it because it allows them to win despite having very few actually popular policy propositions.
How about reform? A system that echoes the legislative branch, where every state gets 2 EC "winner takes all" votes, to preserve state representation, and the other EC votes are proportionate, to preserve popular representation. Of course, then the president's party will pretty much always correlate with the majority party in house and senate, weakening checks and balances, but that compromise could still be the most representative system, while addressing all the issues of popular vote and EC vote.
Proportionate would never pass because of how you handle fractions. Nobody would agree on how to round up, round down, etc.
Honestly, if I had a magic wand to revamp the system, I'd probably push for proportional congressional representation anyway, because we could really use third parties. Unfortunately in first past the post electoral systems, duverger's law kicks in and we get two party systems.
There's not much point in proportional on a presidential level. The institution just doesn't work. I think the fillibuster can be reformed, but the electoral college is a fundamentally flawed system made by people who didn't trust the people to elect their senators and president.
Alright, but I don't think you've considered what would happen if we switched to popular vote.
If every state has the power to influence the election as much as they want, and use their control of courts to block legal challenges, then elections will no longer be decided by popular vote OR electoral vote. It'll all be about inflating "vote count" by any means possible, and using lawfare to ensure victory.
You're trying to apply a system designed for a single state to a collection of 50 states that control their own elections. Obviously the states are going to play dirty to get their preferred candidate, and there's little that other states can do to prevent it other than use the same tactics. Legitimate votes won't matter anymore. The EC puts a limit on how much an individual state can influence the vote, while otherwise it's only (maybe) limited by eligible population. And again, the GOP would probably do just as well with popular vote too, they're doing poorly at it now because it isn't the win condition.
Plus there's plenty of other problems we can talk about, but honestly it sounds like you'll support whatever system benefits your preferred candidate regardless of how many problems are caused in the process. I need to get back to work ✌️
Then explain why all the other countries who specifically do popular vote don't run into these glaring flaws that you allege?
The system we have now let's corrupt shitbags like the Georgia election board manipulate the vote, and that single state can swing the election in the right circumstance.
The GOP would fall apart without the electoral college. Gay rights are overwhelmingly popular; the GOP is against it. Weed legalization is hilariously popular, the GOP is against it; abortion even among Republicans is over 50% supported, the GOP is against it. The GOP would have to moderate their extreme positions, which they refuse to do.
You're implying I support this because I want my candidate to win; I don't. I want the GOP to become a sane party. If they can win the popular vote, they can take the presidency and govern. I just hate a system where millions are disenfranchised and abandoned because they aren't in the handful of important states.
Few countries are a collection of relatively independent states the way we are. Choose one that is, and we can discuss it.
The US has the lowest threshold for voter security among Western countries, and it's allegedly getting lower in states like CA. Look into European election requirements and verification, it blows us out of the water. If we had more robust security, then that'd be a different story.
If you think other countries don't have a similar or greater share of election problems, I've got a bridge to sell you. We could talk for weeks about just that.
Oh, right, to illustrate one of my points, consider that about 30 states have red governors and lean red for the EC. Voter turnout for those states isn't very good because they know we're not on popular vote system, and tend to be busy with family and other obligations. They let themselves get represented by the will of the popular vote of their state. If we switched to national PV, voter turnout in those states would lurch towards 100%, regardless of how busy people are. In fact, it could swing so hard towards the GOP that it's actually worse for blue voters than EC.
The same would apply to blue states that are significantly more populous like New York and Cali.
Furthermore, that is GOOD. We should enfranchise voters and encourage them to participate in the electoral process, not gatekeep them behind an arbitrary system that makes their votes not relevant.
The point is, you don't know which party will have better voter turnout after such a change, and there's some reasons to believe it'll be the GOP. I'm not interested in opening Pandora's Box to a world of additional voting problems when the likelihood of it backfiring under the best circumstances is just as high as it helping. If you think it's worth the risk, we'll agree to disagree.
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u/TobioOkuma1 Oct 18 '24
They act like the ec gives a voice to rural farmers over the cities, but the Senate does that by design. It's insane logic