Has the Electoral College Outlived Its Usefulness?

[pondwater]

I don't even think this is the biggest issue. The campaigns last too long and there is too much money involved on both sides. Make the whole process 3 months long. No campaign rallies. No donations. Just do some debates on TV and give each candidate 2-3 rallies or speeches on TV and be done with it. Campaigns are too long, which translates into "too expensive". Not to mention, when they last that long they always devolve into a mud slinging shit show. Let them sell us on what they are going to do for the country. Not pander to every state they can and then do nothing. You can't give every state what they want.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I don't even think this is the biggest issue. The campaigns last too long and there is too much money involved on both sides. Make the whole process 3 months long. No campaign rallies. No donations. Just do some debates on TV and give each candidate 2-3 rallies or speeches on TV and be done with it. Campaigns are too long, which translates into "too expensive". Not to mention, when they last that long they always devolve into a mud slinging shit show. Let them sell us on what they are going to do for the country. Not pander to every state they can and then do nothing. You can't give every state what they want.

I agree, they are too long and involve too much money.  But that is an entirely different issue.  The issue in this thread is the electoral college.

[Tenshot13]

Yes you could ignore states with your system.

 A state with 3 delegates would still be winner take all.  A state with 4 delegates would almost certainly go 3-1.  So if they are battle ground states now they would still be, if not they remain out. 

With a pure popular vote every state and every person matters. 

Everyone would matter.  The half million people who live in Wyoming will mattter and the 8.5 million people in NYC will mattter.  NYC will likely get more attention than Wyoming, but it makes more sense that 8.5 million people have more power than a half million, under our current system the half million have more power than 8.5. 

NY electoral votes - 31
WY electoral votes - 3

Unless I'm missing something, how do you figure that the half million in WY have more power than the 8.5 mil in NY?

[Spider-Dan]

I don't even think this is the biggest issue. The campaigns last too long and there is too much money involved on both sides. Make the whole process 3 months long.

The "process" of the general election is ~3 months long right now.  The candidates are nominated around July, which gives you Aug/Sep/Oct to campaign.

I don't see any practical way to force parties to pare down their primary system.  Even if you held all the primaries in June, you'd still get people campaigning the moment the midterm election ended.

[Spider-Dan]

A popular vote system means that "population center" issues are the forefront.

Or, put another way: a popular vote system means that issues that affect more people are at the forefront.

I understand the slippery slope of the tyranny of the majority.  But at a certain point we need to balance that against all votes being equal.  To wit:

NY electoral votes - 31
WY electoral votes - 3

Unless I'm missing something, how do you figure that the half million in WY have more power than the 8.5 mil in NY?

Simple:

31 EVs / 8.5 million people = each vote is worth 0.00036% of an EV
3 EVs / 500k people = each vote is worth 0.0006% of an EV

One vote is almost twice as powerful in WY as it is in NY.

[Dave Gray]

Or, put another way: a popular vote system means that issues that affect more people are at the forefront.

It's not really THAT simple.

There are issues that affect the population centers that might not be issues that they focus on.  Namely, farming.  If you're in NYC, you go to the grocery store and buy your food, but you don't have farming issues in the front of your brain like someone in Idaho might.

The concept of the electoral college does have merit for reasons like this.  It's just a question of is the balance right and when the popular vote is so off-set and can still result in a swung election, does that still represent the will of the people?

[Rich]

This topic is being raised as a result of the election. It is mostly raised by people who supported the candidate that lost via the electoral college. But it is a moot point. If the system were different, the strategies would be different by the campaigns. In fact, we might have completely different "general election" candidates. So it's short-sighted to say "if we elected presidents by popular vote, Hillary would have won". She wouldn't have because she didn't receive 50% +1.

Dave Gray makes a good point about why going with a straight popular work doesn't work. Having people in three or four major cities decide everything for the rest of the country doesn't make sense. That's why we have a representative system, to prevent a tyranny of the majority.

If we had a popular vote system, it would probably lead to 15 different candidates running and run off elections.

Popular vote systems work well in homogenous countries. Not so much in large countries with a great variety of regions and demographics.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

This topic is being raised as a result of the election. It is mostly raised by people who supported the candidate that lost via the electoral college. But it is a moot point. If the system were different, the strategies would be different by the campaigns. In fact, we might have completely different "general election" candidates. So it's short-sighted to say "if we elected presidents by popular vote, Hillary would have won". She wouldn't have because she didn't receive 50% +1.

Dave Gray makes a good point about why going with a straight popular work doesn't work. Having people in three or four major cities decide everything for the rest of the country doesn't make sense. That's why we have a representative system, to prevent a tyranny of the majority.

If we had a popular vote system, it would probably lead to 15 different candidates running and run off elections.

Popular vote systems work well in homogenous countries. Not so much in large countries with a great variety of regions and demographics.

Actually this thread has nothing to do with Clinton.  This thread was started in 2012 after for very brief period of time it looked like  McCain might win the popular vote but lose the electoral, turns out he lost both. 

My opinion in all cases, is it is a very flawed system. 

And while strategies would change, odds are Clinton's margin would have been larger not smaller if large scale GOTV efforts had value in cities such as NYC, LA, DC, Boston, etc.

The loudest voice at that time demanding said change was the leader of the birther movement Donald Trump.

[Spider-Dan]

This topic is being raised as a result of the election. It is mostly raised by people who supported the candidate that lost via the electoral college. But it is a moot point. If the system were different, the strategies would be different by the campaigns. In fact, we might have completely different "general election" candidates. So it's short-sighted to say "if we elected presidents by popular vote, Hillary would have won". She wouldn't have because she didn't receive 50% +1.

That's not what "popular vote" means.  Senators are elected by "popular vote," and yet they don't need to get 50%+1; Lisa Murkowski won AK with 44%, Roy Blunt won MO with 49.3%, Maggie Hassan won NH with 47.9%, etc.

If we had a popular vote system, it would probably lead to 15 different candidates running and run off elections.

I don't see how this follows.  Whoever gets the most votes immediately wins the election, just like hundreds of other elections that don't have an electoral college.

[Rich]

Actually this thread has nothing to do with Clinton.

I wasn't talking about the thread. I was talking about the topic being in the news in general.

This thread was started in 2012 after for very brief period of time it looked like  McCain might win the popular vote but lose the electoral, turns out he lost both. 

McCain ran in 2012?

[Rich]

That's not what "popular vote" means

A popular vote works just like it sounds. A group of people vote on an issue or candidate. The votes are then tallied, and the issues or candidates are rank-ordered. The person or issue with the most votes wins. Therefore, a popular vote is really just a method of selecting a candidate or adopting an issue based on a majority of the total voters in an election. It really is quite simple.

48% is not a majority. It is a plurality.

Many countries that use a popular vote system experience multiple candidate elections with two round votes simply because of the nature of a popular vote system.

[Rich]

And while strategies would change, odds are Clinton's margin would have been larger not smaller if large scale GOTV efforts had value in cities such as NYC, LA, DC, Boston, etc.

Actually, national popular vote systems tend to suppress grass roots activity. They become national campaigns and studies show that voter participation tends to decline.

Additionally, Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.8 million votes. She won California by 3.4 million votes. If I recall, there was a Senate seat where two Democrats were running against each other. This suppressed Republican and right leaning voter turn out and increase Democrat and left leaning voter turn out in California.

Analytical studies have indicated the partisan swing in votes caused by this was between 800,000 and 1.2 million votes.

Also, Gary Johnson received 3.8 million votes in the election. In a typical popular vote system, a run-off would be triggered. Johnson voters tended to be right leaning or Republicans that could not stomach Donald Trump's bombast and Neanderthalic rhetorical style. That being said, it is not out of question that enough of a chunk of these voters would have "come home" in a run-off.

There is simply no way to accurately predict the results of a popular vote if that were the deciding factor in a national election.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Actually, national popular vote systems tend to suppress grass roots activity. They become national campaigns and studies show that voter participation tends to decline.

I don't know what study could possibly suggest that.  Most democracies use a popular vote, and most democracies have significant higher voter participation.  Only one use the electrorial college method and that one has a horrendously low participation rate. 

If the rule was whoever got the most votes, you would continue to see two major candidates with the rest being fringe.  If the rule was you must get 50% with a follow up runoff if nobody got 50% then you would see an emergence of 3rd parties.

There would be political changes...you could not win by promising more welfare for farmers at the expense of cutting urban improvements.

[Spider-Dan]

So to recap what just happened, Rich:

1) You claim that in order to win a popular vote election, a candidate must receive 50%+1 of the vote (an outright majority)
2) I point out that this is clearly false and cite several examples of currently sitting U.S. Senators who won their election in 2016 with less than 50% of the vote
3) You copy-paste some entry from study.com.   Checkmate?

Either you are arguing that United States Senators are not elected by popular vote, or you are saying that the Senators I listed above (along with many others) have illegally assumed office and are casting fraudulent votes.  Take your pick.

[Dave Gray]

It doesn't really matter whether popular vote means majority.  It's a working-technicality.

There is nothing from preventing a "whoever gets the most votes win, nationally" contest.  That's really what this thread is about.