Should the Electoral College Be Eliminated?

blackbery

Well-known member
No, it happened 4 times prior to 2016.


Prior to the 2016 election, there were four times in US history when a candidate won the presidency despite losing the popular vote: 1824 (John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson), 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland), and 2000 (George W. Bush over Al Gore).


There were very good reasons why the electoral college was used to pick the President. I think the most important one ensuring representation from all parts of the country and not the densely populated ones. The Founding Fathers did not want the majority to rule while drowning out the voices of the minority.

In order for any candidate to win the Presidency, they must win electoral votes from rural areas which would be totally ignored if they were picked by popular vote. There would be no need for these people like farmers to be heard for the Presidency would be only decided in high populated city areas. That is not democratic and the Founding Fathers wanted every person's vote to count, not just the majority.

Hamilton stated that the Electoral College was not perfect but the perfect system for fairness in electing a President. The fact that it's very rare for the President to not win both the electoral college and the popular vote proves it's working. Only five times have they not been in agreement.


The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College as a compromise between electing the president via a vote in Congress only or via a popular vote only. The Electoral College comprises 538 electors; each state is allowed one elector for each Representative and Senator (DC is allowed 3 electors as established by the Twenty-Third Amendment).















I don't think it's necessary. For the last 32 Presidential Elections, the results of the Electoral College vote, and the national Popular vote, yielded the same result in all but ONE--the 2016 Election.

This gave the false impression that the Electoral College is necessary to prevent the more populated States from overwhelming the less populated States in choosing the President. But, given the 1/31 times this has occurred, that's clearly not the case.

The explanation for the one time it did occur in 128 years can be identified as the illegal foreign, mostly Russian, interference with the 2016 Election. So, that was an aberration, not an endemic situation. Steps have been taken to prevent foreign interference from happening again, so we should expect the Electoral and Popular vote results to match up as usual in 2020, based on the long historical record.
 

blackbery

Well-known member
That's not true as I posted. The Electoral College will never be eliminated because it's the system that enshrines that every vote counts whether you live in rural Iowa or New York. It enables the two party system to keep going.
If one party dominated for instance, the party in power would ensure it keeps their voters happy in the highly populated cities and the rest of the voters would be totally ignored. No money for their communities for the Party in power would only care about keeping their voters happy in the big cities. The United States is a FEDERAL REPUBLIC. This is the most important reason to keep the Electoral College.




It helps preserve our Constitutional system



Speak to a few historians and Constitutional lawyers David and listen to their argument in why the electoral college should never be abolished and why it never will be. I was really upset when Gore lost the electoral college even though he won the popular vote.
I chose to understand more after the Trump win and HC won the popular vote and thought it was very unfair. I am not a historian or a lawyer and sought out a greater understanding of the voting system. I listened to what they had to say and eventually, I knew what they were speaking of was the truth and that the electoral college must remain. I also read a lot on the subject to understand it better and you can do the same if you wish to acquire more knowledge.






Remember, in the last 128 years, only ONE President was elected in the Electoral College even though he lost the Popular vote. And, that one Election, in 2016, was an aberration, due to illegal foreign interference which intentionally targeted the Electoral College system. For that reason, I personally exclude it from the data set, and say that not even ONE truly legitimate Presidential election since 1888 has had a mismatch between the Electoral College and Popular votes.

I especially want to dispel the myth that the less populated States need the Electoral College system to protect them from being overwhelmed by the more populated States when it comes to electing the President. John Kerry, for example, was the choice of the more populated States, which lost the national Popular-vote but were nearly saved by the Electoral College vote.
 
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blackbery

Well-known member
https://electoralvotemap.com/5-reawsons-to-keep-the-electoral-college/

1. Maintain American Federalism.

Voters in different regions don’t need to worry that a candidate who only speaks to a small group of states will be their nation’s head of state. The Electoral College forces presidential candidates and parties to develop national appeal by campaigning in closely contested states across the country.



For a very factual, detailed account of the history of the Electoral and Popular vote results since the beginning of our Presidential elections, here's the link:

https://latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-electoral-college-20161110-story.html
 

david starling

Well-known member
Just think: If John Kerry had won the Popular-vote in just ONE STATE (Ohio, which he lost by a very small margin), he would have won the Electoral College vote despite losing the National Popular-vote.

THEN the Democrats would have seen the value of the Electoral College system.

Bush/Gore should be listed as having been decided by the Supreme Court, since the final vote-count in Florida showed Gore winning the Popular-vote, and that meant he ALSO won the national Electoral College vote and could have become President. So, Bush actually lost BOTH the Electoral College vote AND the National Popular-vote, and was essentially appointed by a 5/4 decision in the Supreme Court. It was along partisan lines, in a supposedly "non-partisan" Supreme Court.

The consequences: Highly doubtful that a Gore administration would have invaded Iraq and destabilized the entire Middle East.
 
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david starling

Well-known member
Although it's true that some States get attention from the Presidential candidates they would not have gotten without the Electoral College system, there's also a downside: States that will almost certainly give a plurality Popular-vote to one candidate, thereby assuring that candidate will receive all of that State's Electoral votes, get very little attention from any of the candidates--why waste time and money on a State where the outcome is already assured?

Another downside is, that those who vote for the candidate who ends up losing the Popular-vote in their State, won't have contributed any meaningful support to the candidate of their choice. In essence, they're disenfranchised regarding who gets elected President.
 
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david starling

Well-known member
Here's something for blackbery: The Constitution leaves the actual method for allocating Electoral College votes up to each State. The winner-take-all method wasn't mandated, it was chosen, and any State can change to a different method.

So, if the idea is to make sure the Presidential candidates pay attention to ALL the voters in ALL the States, why not have the allocation of Electoral College votes proportional to the Popular-vote in each State?

Then, California for example, which currently gives ALL of its Electoral votes to the Democratic candidate, would give only about 2/3rds of its Electoral College votes to the Democrat, and the Republican candidate would get about 1/3 of California's Electoral votes. THAT would make every vote count in every State.

Problem is, this method would have to be voluntarily adopted by ALL the States at once, and that's very unlikely to happen.

Interesting that a third-party candidate in a State, using this proportional-allocation method, could also win one or more Electoral votes.
 
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david starling

Well-known member
There's been an attempt to blame Los Angeles, California in particular, with illegally padding the votes for HRC. But, that wouldn't have changed the outcome of the Electoral vote in California, because HRC's Popular vote margin in California was way more than high enough without padding it to have given all of California's 55 Electoral votes to her, and none to Trump under the current winner-take-all system. So, very unlikely, as well as unproven.

The more likely States to pad the tally with illegal votes would be those where the Popular-vote margin is small enough to actually flip the Electoral College votes from one candidate to the other by padding the State's Popular vote-count.
 

aquarius7000

Well-known member
"For instance, POLITICO and Morning Consult
conducted a poll in March 2019 that found that 50
percent of respondents wanted a direct popular
vote, 34 percent did not, and 16 percent did not
demonstrate a preference. Two months later, NBC
News and the Wall Street Journal reported polling
that 53 percent of Americans wanted a direct
popular vote, while 43 percent wanted to keep the
status quo. These sentiments undoubtably have
been reinforced by the fact that in two of the last
IT’S TIME TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE 5
five presidential elections, the candidate winning
the popular vote lost the Electoral College."

Interesting read: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Big-Ideas_West_Electoral-College.pdf
 

david starling

Well-known member
"For instance, POLITICO and Morning Consult
conducted a poll in March 2019 that found that 50
percent of respondents wanted a direct popular
vote, 34 percent did not, and 16 percent did not
demonstrate a preference. Two months later, NBC
News and the Wall Street Journal reported polling
that 53 percent of Americans wanted a direct
popular vote, while 43 percent wanted to keep the
status quo. These sentiments undoubtably have
been reinforced by the fact that in two of the last
IT’S TIME TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE 5
five presidential elections, the candidate winning
the popular vote lost the Electoral College."

Interesting read: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Big-Ideas_West_Electoral-College.pdf

It would take a Constitutional Convention to abolish it. It's actually included in the Constitution!

What isn't included, is just how each individual State decides to allocate its share of the Electoral votes. The current "winner-take-all" system, based on a plurality of Popular votes in each State, isn't the only allocation method available.
 

david starling

Well-known member
Due to the fact that the Florida vote-count SNAFU in the 2000 Election, AND the significant impact of illegal foreign interference with the Election in 2016, were aberrations in terms of the matchup of the Electoral vote and Popular vote:

Using the "winner-take-all" method for allocating Electoral votes, the Electoral and Popular votes have yielded the SAME RESULT for the past 128 years. That's barring unique, unforeseen circumstances, which have occurred in ONLY 2 instances in the past 32 Presidential Elections!

GIVEN THAT GOOD A TRACK RECORD, I currently see no legitimate reason for changing the current method for electing a President.
 

david starling

Well-known member
Even though the end result is the same regarding who becomes President, having both the Electoral College and Popular votes gives a better perspective as to the "national political climate" the new President will be facing.
 

david starling

Well-known member
In 1968, California's Electoral votes went to the Republican candidate, Nixon, and those of Texas went to the Democratic candidate, Humphrey!
 
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waybread

Well-known member
It is really, really difficult to amend the Constitution.

However, state legislators have control over how their electors are apportioned. Most states chose a winner-take-all sweepstakes approach. Maine and Nebraska allocate them on the basis of the popular vote. I think their systems are much fairer and more representative.

There is currently a Colorado case before the Supreme Court on whether electors actually have to vote for the candidate who won the most votes in their state, or whether they are free to choose.
 
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david starling

Well-known member
It is really, really difficult to amend the Constitution.

However, state legislators have control over how their electors are apportioned. Most states chose a winner-take-all sweepstakes approach. Maine and Nebraska allocate them on the basis of the popular vote. I think their systems are much fairer and more representative.

There is currently a Colorado case before the Supreme Court on whether electors actually have to vote for the candidate who won the most votes in their state, or whether they are free to choose.

Here's info on the Maine and Nebraska Electoral voting system:

https://electoralvotemap.com/what-if-all-states-split-their-electoral-votes-like-maine-and-nebraska/
 
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david starling

Well-known member
It is really, really difficult to amend the Constitution.

However, state legislators have control over how their electors are apportioned. Most states chose a winner-take-all sweepstakes approach. Maine and Nebraska allocate them on the basis of the popular vote. I think their systems are much fairer and more representative.

There is currently a Colorado case before the Supreme Court on whether electors actually have to vote for the candidate who won the most votes in their state, or whether they are free to choose.

The Supreme Court already recently ruled 9-0, that Electors MUST vote for the winner of the popular vote in their State.
 

david starling

Well-known member
The winner-take-all Electoral College system is both non-partisan AND Rural/Urban neutral.

The two Elections that made it falsely appear to be slanted towards the Republican Party, in the 2000 and 2016 Presidential elections, were aberrations, which are highly unlikely to occur again. I fully expect the Electoral and Popular votes to be in agreement in the 2020 election.*

*[That is, IF the Department of Homeland Security, which is going to oversee the Election, is able to perform its job in a strictly non-partisan way.]
 
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