General US Politics

[Life]

You could reduce every state's EV total by 2 (that is, make it equal to the number of House of Rep members), which would make them roughly proportional to population. You could also change it so that every state had a system like Nebraska or Maine, thus giving a rural Californian (majority Republican) or a person in Austin (majority Democrat) more likely to have their vote reflected. Combined, these two would make the system more like that of the UK or Canada, which much less often hands absolute power to someone who couldn't even manage a plurality of the vote.

Liberals in Canada have a majority government and are currently using that majority to undermine the election system for future elections.

[Sunwoo]

Considering Hillary didn't take the lead in the popular vote until more votes started being counted in California and New York, I'm even more thankful. I do not like the idea of California and New York City deciding national policy.

Yeah, because California and New York aren't part of the U.S., or it's not like they aren't some of the most populated states, right? Also, Texas has more population than New York. Do you like the idea of Texas deciding national policy, or is only California and New York not okay because they vote a party you do not like personally?

I'm sure Dems in Michigan that stayed home thought the same thing. Votes aren't useless.

Like I said in my post above, the "my vote doesn't matter" mentality doesn't always work because, as this election proved, some states do swing and in unexpected ways. But there were indicators in the news that certain states were going to go in certain directions, or were going to be battlegrounds. I had already pretty much known that Ohio was going to go Republican after seeing some of the pre-election projections that had been around for weeks. If you live in a battleground state, a swing state, or a state that have a very strong probability of swinging during the election season then of course you should go vote. But that still doesn't change the fact that the party that "loses" essentially has their vote count for nothing because the entire state goes to the winning party.

I'd rather just do a system where every vote counts, so I actually feel like my vote counts when I'm voting. It'd be more representative to states in which a party is winning only by like 51% or so. Failing that, awarding a proportional number of votes could also work. But the electoral college as it stands just does not really seem like a good system. Does any other country do it this way? And why do people think it's a "superior" alternative to what some of the other democratic countries do?

[Life]

Yeah, because California and New York aren't part of the U.S., or it's not like they aren't some of the most populated states, right? Also, Texas has more population than New York. Do you like the idea of Texas deciding national policy, or is only California and New York not okay because they vote a party you do not like personally?

Like I said in my post above, the "my vote doesn't matter" mentality doesn't always work because, as this election proved, some states do swing and in unexpected ways. But there were indicators in the news that certain states were going to go in certain directions, or were going to be battlegrounds. I had already pretty much known that Ohio was going to go Republican after seeing some of the pre-election projections that had been around for weeks. If you live in a battleground state, a swing state, or a state that have a very strong probability of swinging during the election season then of course you should go vote. But that still doesn't change the fact that the party that "loses" essentially has their vote count for nothing because the entire state goes to the winning party.

I'd rather just do a system where every vote counts, so I actually feel like my vote counts when I'm voting. It'd be more representative to states in which a party is winning only by like 51% or so. Failing that, awarding a proportional number of votes could also work. But the electoral college as it stands just does not really seem like a good system. Does any other country do it this way? And why do people think it's a "superior" alternative to what some of the other democratic countries do?

Let me compare to Israel.

In Israel, there are 120 Knesset seats and parties are awarded seats based on proportion of votes. Since basically no party can achieve a majority, they have to create a coalition with other parties in order to create a government. Last majority government here was something like 1978 (just before Menachem Begin got into power).

Which means that Bibi can essentially stay in power indefinitely due to simply creating a coalition with parties who will work with him to make up a majority of Knesset seats. So my government can essentially be run by a party that ~75% of the country did not vote for. And this has happened for the past 11 years.

Not to mention that there is no checks and balances system, unlike the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

Likud literally only has 25% of the seats.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Life

[Rezzy]

The electoral system has its flaws, but a simple first past the post national popular vote would be a nightmare. Winning with a plurality of votes would likely become more common. A preferential voting system would be preferable, but will likely not happen. I would like to see an ideal voting system, but I haven't seen a feasible alternative put forward, and I don't like a simple national vote for the reasons above.

One thing the electoral college helps do is limit the effects of fraud to one state. In this election, there's no evidence that any fraud happened (at least in the three rust belt states being challenged), and the people calling for the recount only say it's possible if the planets lined up or something. It appears it was all just a scam to line the pockets of the Green Party. Jill Stein, please stop it, you're making third parties look bad. Even Clinton's flunkies investigation turned up no evidence of fraud. I imagine a city like Chicago could easily run up the score by stuffing the ballot box. It's easier to add a few thousand votes in a huge city like Chicago, but not so easy in small rural counties.

The USA is a very diverse nation, more so than most other democracies. The Electoral College is designed to get a president that the most sections of the country can agree on. It's not just urban vs rural, but also coast vs coast, north vs south, and region vs region. The Electoral College was made as a compromise between straight population proportional voting and having all states have an equal say. As for giving the House of Representatives more and more reps as the population increases, I think the used to do that, at least to a certain degree, but I think they changed it to be a static 435 members at some point. I'm too tired and lazy to look up exactly when they did that.

I'm not sure why people bring up the Democrats getting more votes in the national Senate vote. There are a few flaws with this argument. First, you don't vote for members of the Senate at large, you vote for a Senator to represent your state. Tammy Duckworth winning Illinois's Senate seat has no bearing on people living over in Indiana. Second, since the senators serve 6 year terms, roughly one third of the states didn't even elect a senator at all this year. So the Senate nation wide vote only accounts for roughly two thirds of the country.

EDIT: Yeah, California, Illinois, and New York had Senate races this year, that's where most of those votes came from. Texas did not have a Senate election. That will naturally skew the national vote leftwards.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Rezzy

[Nobody]

The electoral system has its flaws, but a simple first past the post national popular vote would be a nightmare. Winning with a plurality of votes would likely become more common. A preferential voting system would be preferable, but will likely not happen. I would like to see an ideal voting system, but I haven't seen a feasible alternative put forward, and I don't like a simple national vote for the reasons above.

Almost every election around the world that give the win the whoever gets more votes have run offs if no candidate gets more than 50% of the valid votes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system

having runoffs is the norm, not the exception

Edited November 27, 2016 by Nooooooooooooooooooooobody

[Dark Holy Elf]

that'd be even worse, though, due to gerrymandering =/

Well optimally you'd do something crazy like get a non-partisan commission to draw up the boundaries like almost every other country does it but that sort of thing seems to be beyond the US, just like nominating Supreme Court judges who aren't blatantly partisan.

Liberals in Canada have a majority government and are currently using that majority to undermine the election system for future elections.

a) While your hatred of the Liberals is adorable, I'm not sure how this is related to the comment of mine you quoted.

b) Are you seriously taking issue with the scrapping of the Orwellian "Fair Elections Act"? Even if you approve of that particularly troublesome piece of legislation, scrapping it is hardly undermining the election system; Canada survived for years without it just fine and will continue to do so.

[Phoenix Wright]

The electoral system has its flaws, but a simple first past the post national popular vote would be a nightmare. Winning with a plurality of votes would likely become more common. A preferential voting system would be preferable, but will likely not happen. I would like to see an ideal voting system, but I haven't seen a feasible alternative put forward, and I don't like a simple national vote for the reasons above.

One thing the electoral college helps do is limit the effects of fraud to one state. In this election, there's no evidence that any fraud happened (at least in the three rust belt states being challenged), and the people calling for the recount only say it's possible if the planets lined up or something. It appears it was all just a scam to line the pockets of the Green Party. Jill Stein, please stop it, you're making third parties look bad. Even Clinton's flunkies investigation turned up no evidence of fraud. I imagine a city like Chicago could easily run up the score by stuffing the ballot box. It's easier to add a few thousand votes in a huge city like Chicago, but not so easy in small rural counties.

The USA is a very diverse nation, more so than most other democracies. The Electoral College is designed to get a president that the most sections of the country can agree on. It's not just urban vs rural, but also coast vs coast, north vs south, and region vs region. The Electoral College was made as a compromise between straight population proportional voting and having all states have an equal say. As for giving the House of Representatives more and more reps as the population increases, I think the used to do that, at least to a certain degree, but I think they changed it to be a static 435 members at some point. I'm too tired and lazy to look up exactly when they did that.

I'm not sure why people bring up the Democrats getting more votes in the national Senate vote. There are a few flaws with this argument. First, you don't vote for members of the Senate at large, you vote for a Senator to represent your state. Tammy Duckworth winning Illinois's Senate seat has no bearing on people living over in Indiana. Second, since the senators serve 6 year terms, roughly one third of the states didn't even elect a senator at all this year. So the Senate nation wide vote only accounts for roughly two thirds of the country.

EDIT: Yeah, California, Illinois, and New York had Senate races this year, that's where most of those votes came from. Texas did not have a Senate election. That will naturally skew the national vote leftwards.

why is it likely to not happen? here are simple, necessary changes to voting:

1. national holiday and/or on the weekend

2. abolish electoral college

3. introduce a ranked voting system

these are all likely to happen if people were to actually fight for it. the electoral college makes my vote worthless as a californian. which is bullshit.

election fraud occurs seldom (negligible) so having a broken system that tries to fix an imaginary problem is silly.

[eclipse]

why is it likely to not happen? here are simple, necessary changes to voting:

1. national holiday and/or on the weekend

2. abolish electoral college

3. introduce a ranked voting system

these are all likely to happen if people were to actually fight for it. the electoral college makes my vote worthless as a californian. which is bullshit.

election fraud occurs seldom (negligible) so having a broken system that tries to fix an imaginary problem is silly.

National holiday, IMO. People work on weekends, too. I'd also support making Hawaii's polling station hours the national standard, at minimum (7 AM to 6 PM), along with generous time for early/absentee voting.

Would a ranked voting system work with the electoral college, or are they mutually exclusive? While I think ranked voting is interesting, I don't know how well everyone else will take to having the entire voting system changed!

[Phoenix Wright]

in my head something like that would be made an amendment to the constitution. so it'd be pretty major and will likely be well understood and supported by the time of ratification. changing our voting system is huge, but my generation wants it. it could definitely happen within 30 years or something.

i guess it could work alongside it, but the ec is ass so i'd rather it just begone.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Phoenix Wright

[Life]

in my head something like that would be made an amendment to the constitution. so it'd be pretty major and will likely be well understood and supported by the time of ratification. changing our voting system is huge, but my generation wants it. it could definitely happen within 30 years or something.

i guess it could work alongside it, but the ec is ass so i'd rather it just begone.

Our generation also believes that Marxism is a good idea so I wouldn't put too much stock into the "change is good" mentality.

Also, I find it impossible to believe the idea that if the roles had been reversed, we would still have this conversation. If Trump won the popular vote and lost the electoral college, I would bet just about anything that all of you would be pro-electoral college. Mind you, I actually would be pro-electoral college still because it's the best system that exists in the world (considering that I've dealt with two different parliamentary systems).

Edited November 27, 2016 by Life

[Phoenix Wright]

marxism isn't inherently bad. especially theoretically.

i have been against the ec since i knew what it was.

[Life]

marxism isn't inherently bad. especially theoretically.

Marxism is inherently bad, especially because it works so well.

[Time the Crestfallen]

Also, I find it impossible to believe the idea that if the roles had been reversed, we would still have this conversation. If Trump won the popular vote and lost the electoral college, I would bet just about anything that all of you would be pro-electoral college. Mind you, I actually would be pro-electoral college still because it's the best system that exists in the world (considering that I've dealt with two different parliamentary systems).

No. As much as I think their are pros and cons to the electoral college, I honestly think the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. I'd also like to see the implementation of ranked and compulsory voting, but the latter of those two probably wouldn't gain much traction considering the culture of the US.

Also, I love how you accuse the a lot of people in this thread of hypocrisy (stating that they wouldn't complain about the electoral college if their candidate won), and then in the very next sentence make yourself out to be an exception.

marxism isn't inherently bad. especially theoretically.

i have been against the ec since i knew what it was.

For the sake of fairness, something that isn't bad in theory but doesn't/very rarely works out in practice isn't really something that I can support.

Edited November 27, 2016 by The Blind Idiot God

[ping]

Also, I find it impossible to believe the idea that if the roles had been reversed, we would still have this conversation. If Trump won the popular vote and lost the electoral college, I would bet just about anything that all of you would be pro-electoral college. Mind you, I actually would be pro-electoral college still because it's the best system that exists in the world (considering that I've dealt with two different parliamentary systems).

Fair enogh; but I'm going to assume that you would have been bitching about the EC if Trump's and Clinton's roles were reversed, completely disregarding any argument you're making right now. Because that's exactly what you're trying to pull over and over again and honestly, it's a little tiring.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into this particular argument again - I don't think the EC is a particular good voting system because of the reasons stated and because I find that they weigh more heavily than the arguments pro EC, even though I admit that they are valid.

However, I do have a question. Hypothetically, what would be necessary to abolish the EC in favour of another system? I would imagine that the barrier to change any aspect of the voting system is extremely high, so as long as anyone (one of the big political parties / the swing states / states with a high electoral delegate per citizen ratio) thinks they will profit by the EC, it will not be changed at all unless the US implode one day.

--

€:

Let me compare to Israel.

In Israel, there are 120 Knesset seats and parties are awarded seats based on proportion of votes. Since basically no party can achieve a majority, they have to create a coalition with other parties in order to create a government. Last majority government here was something like 1978 (just before Menachem Begin got into power).

Which means that Bibi can essentially stay in power indefinitely due to simply creating a coalition with parties who will work with him to make up a majority of Knesset seats. So my government can essentially be run by a party that ~75% of the country did not vote for. And this has happened for the past 11 years.

Not to mention that there is no checks and balances system, unlike the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

Likud literally only has 25% of the seats.

German voting system is similar, I think, but I'm not sure the need to form a coalition is necessarily a bad thing. The big advantage I see is that I don't have to choose between Mutti Merkel and Siggi Pop (or whoever will try to challenge Merkel), but I can give my vote to one of five different parties without throwing it out of the window. The issue I did run into for the last election - it's not at all certain that your vote will actually support the candidate you prefer (because in the end, it will be Merkel or, although even that seems unlikely, the Social Democrats candidate) because it might not be clear before the election which parties will negotiate for a coalition.

Edited November 27, 2016 by ping

[Phoenix Wright]

Marxism is inherently bad, especially because it works so well.

what?

For the sake of fairness, something that isn't bad in theory but doesn't/very rarely works out in practice isn't really something that I can support.

it's more for the sake of pragmatist vs ideologue. ideologically i support marxism, but it doesn't work as it should yet, so i settle for what we've got. but even then it's not a belief i care super strongly about. i just know i lean socially far left and economically pretty left.

i mostly just wanted to exhibit that supporting marxism doesn't make a person stupid, as life was implying.

Our generation also believes that Marxism is a good idea so I wouldn't put too much stock into the "change is good" mentality.

now that i think about it, source? it's leftist, but not marxist as far as i've seen.

[tuvarkz]

Marxism is inherently bad because it fails to reward individual effort and talent, and as such it makes everyone overall less productive because there's no incentives to perform at their best. I believe that even the idealistic scenario for marxism would be utterly detrimental to humanity.

Regarding the electoral college, I believe its main flaw is the ability for an elector to change the candidate the elector was chosen to vote for.

[Alertcircuit]

why is it likely to not happen? here are simple, necessary changes to voting:

1. national holiday and/or on the weekend

2. abolish electoral college

3. introduce a ranked voting system

these are all likely to happen if people were to actually fight for it. the electoral college makes my vote worthless as a californian. which is bullshit.

election fraud occurs seldom (negligible) so having a broken system that tries to fix an imaginary problem is silly.

National voting holiday is a great idea.

Abolishing the college isn't on the table in the near future, just based on pure partisanship. The college favors Republicans, and will probably continue to do so increasingly, so I don't see GOP lawmakers being inclined to remove that advantage. It would require amending the constitution, which takes 2/3 of both the House and Senate, and 38 of the 50 states. Democrats would need supermajorities in all of these places for it to be possible.

Ranked voting is an interesting choice, I'm not against it, but part of me still believes the two party system can be salvaged. If there was a way to make sure officials can't interfere in the primary process in any way, it might work fine.

Regarding the electoral college, I believe its main flaw is the ability for an elector to change the candidate the elector was chosen to vote for.

Which interestingly enough, is one of the main reasons the college exists. The fathers believed the people might be too uneducated to make an informed decision, so the college existed as a safeguard in case of that. That's not really an issue now with the internet and 24/7 news cycles, but I'm sure someone could make a sliver of an argument using the current fake news epidemic.

Making the electoral college proportionate instead of winner-takes-all would fix most of the problems people are having with it. Removes party lean, keeps small states important, continues to keep voter fraud at a minimum.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Alertcircuit

[Rezzy]

People say the EC favors Republicans now, since Trump won, but the conventional wisdom a few weeks ago was that it favored Democrats because of the Blue Wall and shifting demographics, with people saying there would never be a Republican president again.

The main problem is Hillary was too polarizing. In states she did well, she did very well, out performing Obama in many states. But it swing/more moderate states, she got thumped by Trump, and it is the moderates you need to bring to your side.

Having a bigger share of the crazies on either side is not what is going to win you elections, since you're going to win them anyway.

[Life]

Marxism is inherently bad because it fails to reward individual effort and talent, and as such it makes everyone overall less productive because there's no incentives to perform at their best. I believe that even the idealistic scenario for marxism would be utterly detrimental to humanity.

It also relies on the elimination of basic freedoms afforded to every person. Which makes it inherently evil.

​Phoenix, I'm not saying you're stupid for supporting Marxism. I'm saying that you're evil depending on the degree that you're willing to implement it since it requires force and coercion.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Life

[Dark Holy Elf]

People say the EC favors Republicans now, since Trump won, but the conventional wisdom a few weeks ago was that it favored Democrats because of the Blue Wall and shifting demographics, with people saying there would never be a Republican president again.

Not sure where you were going for conventional wisdom, but 538 (for instance) was noting that the EC favoured Trump throughout the entire campaign. That said the EC did favour Obama in 2012, which is why he was heavilly favoured despite the national polls being close.

Despite being an Obama supporter, I disliked the EC (which was likely to benefit him) in 2012, though, so I have my shiny "not a hypocrite" card on this issue, unlike the American president-elect.

[Sunwoo]

Also, I find it impossible to believe the idea that if the roles had been reversed, we would still have this conversation. If Trump won the popular vote and lost the electoral college, I would bet just about anything that all of you would be pro-electoral college. Mind you, I actually would be pro-electoral college still because it's the best system that exists in the world (considering that I've dealt with two different parliamentary systems).

Don't you know that assuming makes an ass out of you and of me?

If the roles had been reversed, then you'd probably have seen pro-Trump people rioting instead of the pro-Clinton people. You would've heard cries of "it's rigged, it's rigged" from the pro-Trump people. Both sides have some supporters who are horrible and we all know it, so not sure what you're trying to do by implying that only the Clinton supporters are like this.

Also, even if Clinton had won the Electoral College I'd still think it's really dumb. Just because I may get a result I like doesn't mean it stops being a dumb idea.

[Life]

Don't you know that assuming makes an ass out of you and of me?

If the roles had been reversed, then you'd probably have seen pro-Trump people rioting instead of the pro-Clinton people. You would've heard cries of "it's rigged, it's rigged" from the pro-Trump people. Both sides have some supporters who are horrible and we all know it, so not sure what you're trying to do by implying that only the Clinton supporters are like this.

Also, even if Clinton had won the Electoral College I'd still think it's really dumb. Just because I may get a result I like doesn't mean it stops being a dumb idea.

And I would have called them out too. I was expecting Trump to lose, remember?

My point is that I think that you guys are hypocrites.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Life

[Phoenix Wright]

yet you've been wrong on every accusation thus far...

[Yojinbo]

Our generation also believes that Marxism is a good idea [...]

Citation needed.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Yojinbo

[ping]

So, uhm, Life...

Could you please open up to the idea that people had an opinion about the EC before this election? Because they did.

I'm not trying to present myself as a shining example here, I just wanted to tell you (again) that it's actually a theoretical possibility that people legitimately have concerns about the EC that aren't related to Trump (or Bush, for that matter) and just think don't think that it's the best imaginable voting system out there, as crazy as that may sound. As far as I can tell, nobody here in this thread has claimed that Trump's election was illegitimate; it has even been explicitly been clarified that "Trump's victory was 100% legitimate, he won following the system's rules and that's it."