Elizabeth Warren: 'End Electoral College'

[U2Edge]

What percent did Hillary pull?

Even less. Nice attempt to change the subject, you owe me a nickel for "b-but but Hillary". The point REMAINS, 47% of those states' votes (44 in Utah) got 100% of their EVs. There ain't no way around that disparity. Not even by crowing "b-but but Hillary".

NO

you are claiming Trump shouldn't have receive the EVs, because he only had 47% of the vote.

How many did his opponent get?

50%?

48%?

More?

Less?

NO. I made no such claim that Rump "shouldn't have receive [sic]" anything. I said that he got (in that case) 47% of the actual vote yet 100% of the Electoral. That's a fact, you could look it up.

The example I've often cited here and in past threads is that my state's 15 EVs could have been apportioned 8-7 (or 7-6-1-1), and that would not have disenfranchised over half the state's voters.

Prove me wrong.

isn't that up to the states?

or does it only matter if it's a slim margin

It is entirely up to each state ------ which means nobody is required to do it.

Once again the question was how the state's electors "should be" awarded. "That's the way it is" is not any kind of answer to that question.

Some states do it

Au contraire, Elizabeth Warren is in favor of getting rid of the Elector College in order to decide the presidency based on the nation's popular vote. However the quickest way to achieve the end goal would be to leave the U.S. Constitution alone and have states enact the National Popular Vote law, which 13 states with a total of 181 electoral votes have already done. That's two-thirds the way there in terms of the 270 electoral votes needed to select a president.

Not going to happen, it will be tied up in the Courts forever.

I'll disagree based on my belief that the Supreme Court won't view the Constitution any differently than they did in 1952 when it confirmed that states have authority in regards to setting rules for their electors:

Presidential Electors exercise a federal function in balloting for President and Vice-President, but they are not federal officers. They act by authority of the state, which, in turn, receives its authority from the Federal Constitution.
Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952)​

Most states will continue to award their electors based on the popular vote within the state, not the national popular vote. Most states do not want to give up the rights of their voters and their ability to impact the national election based on how the people in their state voted. Can you imagine what would happen if North Carolina gave their electors to the winner of the national popular vote when the majority of the people in the state voted for the other candidate?

No, what?

State law is state law. HOW a state's electors vote is entirely up to that state, and the NPV would be another way to do that. As far as the Constitution is concerned the state could make that decision by throwing darts at candidates' pictures.

As it is now up to half (in 2016 MORE than half) of this state's voters already got disenfranchised, so how could it possibly be any worse?

It is up to the state, but I think people in most states people will prefer that the winner of the popular vote in the state gets all the electoral votes from the state as opposed to the winner of the national popular vote. Obviously there are some Blue states that currently feel differently given what happened in 2000 and 2016, but that won't last for long, especially when their on the other side of the fence which they will be eventually in time.

 

[dblack]

I'd much rather the states that are signing on to the popular vote compact just changed the way they award delegates to actually reflect how people in the state voted. ie no winner take all.

 

[U2Edge]

Yes, it's called being a sore loser.

When you vote for your Governor, the people that cast their vote against him or her had their vote tossed out. That's the way contests work. This isn't a foot race or baseball where you have second best, third best and so forth. If you vote for a candidate and your candidate loses, then you lose too because the other people won.

Actually no, they go into a runoff. That's a way of ensuring nobody squeaks in without the consent of the governed.

Oooooops.

Meanwhile you didn't address the point. Again. You asked, "who should they go to", I answered with astute and detailed reasoning, and you have no response.

Sure I had a response. The candidate with the most votes wins the state. It's that simple.

Once AGAIN --- you asked "who SHOULD". And I told you, and you have no counterargument.

Let us know when you buy that $100k house for $47k.

Wow, so under your system, a President has to get 100% of the vote. We'll never elect another President again.

Yyyyyyeah sure, Sparky. That's what I said, isn't it.

You know you've lost the point when you have to invent a new argument that nobody made because you can't deal with the one on the table.

Seems to be what your suggesting with the "analogy" your attempting.

 

[U2Edge]

If the 47K offer is the best offer, that's who gets the house.

If my price is 100, no it isn't.

Bad analogy perhaps. Your task is to make the case that when a state gives a candy 47% of its vote, its electors SHOULD go to Congress and lie through their teeth claiming 100%, thereby completely disenfranchising 53%.

aaaaaaaaand GO.

What does Candy and Congress have to do with this?

Our presidential system is that states have electors that vote in proportion to the popular vote of that state. It can't be much fairer than that.

So you have zero argument for morphing 47 into 100.

Guess that's settled then. Welcome aboard.

I have no idea where you get this 47 into a hundred thing or what it's supposed to mean. It's totally irrelevant and will remain that way in a presidential election. What is relevant is that the electors of a state cast their vote according to the majority of how the public voted. That's what's important.

That's taking for example the vote count of Michigan or Wisconsin, where Rump pulled a 47% showing, and yet their electors went to Congress and awarded him 100% of their votes.

You DO understand the difference between 47% of the people making a specific choice and 100% of the people choosing something, do you not?

Those states do have the power to award their electors differently, but they have decided up to this point, to do it this way. If you win the election within the state, you win the prize. They could do it differently where everyone gets some of the prize despite not winning.

 

[Pogo]

PA also didn't show a majority of votes for anybody.

Along with Wisconsin... Michigan.... North Cackalackee.... AridZona.... Florida.... even Utah. Every one of 'em sent 100% of their EVs to a klown who couldn't score 50% of their state. Somebody say "tyranny of the minority"?

And just like that --- back on topic. Thank me later.

So what? The EC votes went to the candidate that got the most votes. Who should they go to, the one with the least?

At the very least they should go proportionally. When you only pull 47% you don't deserve to call it "100".

If you're buying a house and the seller wants $100,000 do you hand him $47k and tell him the deal is done?

A unanimous vote in anything else means "absolutely, no doubt about it, we all agree on X". Obviously if a given state is so split that nobody is the choice of everybody or even a majority, it's dishonest to go to Congress and go "oh wow man, it's amazing, literally everybody in our state voted for X". That's absolute bullshit and it insults the voters of that state and tosses 53% of their votes directly into the crapper. The end result is that more people in that state could agree that their votes were tossed into the crapper than the number who agreed to vote for X.

So how do you feel about Bill Clinton's 43% win in 1992 and 49% win in 1996 in becoming President?

I've never been a fan of Bull Clinton so your tribalism tactic fails.

I never asked whether you were a fan of Bill Clinton. I'm asking about what you think about his becoming President despite not winning 50% of the vote?

What I think is that we never had a choice. We got the same old shit from the same old Duopoly, where you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, or IOW to vote not "for" one but to block another like a grand game of Tic Tac Toe.

1992 was in fact when I got really interested. I noticed a million Democrats crawling out of the woodwork for the chance to run against Bush. Since Bush's run was a foregone conclusion I examined and ranked the challengers. I don't remember the whole list but Bull Clinton was dead last and stayed there. Sure enough, the worst one got the nomination, and we were all fucked yet again.

That's the Duopoly for ya. And the EC as it's practiced ensures that that Duopoly will run the table, FOREVER. There's no chance of any incursion by anyone outside the Duopoly. Ross Perot ran in that election (which is why Clinton skidded in on 43%).. Perot got just under 19% of the country's vote, yet pulled ZERO in the EC. And that's directly the fault of WTA. In any and every state that was "competitive" every voter knew that if they cast a vote for Perot it removed their chance to block the R or D candidate, so they weren't going to waste it. And in locked "red" or "blue" states there was no way Perot, or the D or R candy, was going to win because that state was a foregone conclusion.

That's one of the most insidious effects of WTA. If you're in a locked-red or locked-blue state.......... there's no reason to go vote AT ALL. You can vote with your state, you can vote against your state, you can vote third party, or you can just stay home and bake cookies and all four options give exactly the same result, with the exception that in the fourth scenario you actually get some cookies.

The EC as practiced grossly depresses voter turnout (it was just 55% even in 2016), dumps millions upon millions of votes directly into the crapper, ensures candidates will never visit most states because either they or their opponent has it "locked up", makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting out of bed on election day, and perhaps worst of all perpetuates that same Duopoly that keeps trotting out a Hobson's Choice between "Bad" and "Even Worse". Why do you think we keep getting choices like that? Because the Duopoly has no competition, that's why. And the EC as it's currently done ensures it stays that way.

There's no argument to defend that.

 

[U2Edge]

I'd much rather the states that are signing on to the popular vote compact just changed the way they award delegates to actually reflect how people in the state voted. ie no winner take all.

You could have a system where the winner of the popular vote gets the 2 electoral votes representing each senator. The other popular votes would be awarded based on who won in each congressional district. Of course, given the controversy over re-districting that happens do to the population changes, that might not be very popular either.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The electoral college is not at fault for their current type of partisanship seen in the country. This type of partisanship will not last indefinitely. The founders WANTED smaller states to have an equal vote in deciding Supreme Court justices. It was the only way the states would agree to the union and smaller states are not going to give up that power.

Again, the system was DESIGNED to give some power back to the smaller states. That's not a problem, it was designed that way so the country could EXIST!

Think so huh?

Here's the result of the first 20 years of that system:

1. Washington - Virginia - two terms
2. Adams - Massachusetts - one term
3. Jefferson - Virginia - two terms
4. Madison - Virginia - two terms
5. Monroe - Virginia - two terms

See a pattern? You'll note that Virginia, THE largest and most populated state, runs the country for 16 of the first 20 years. If this is a system designed to assist the Rhode Islands and the New Jerseys and the Delawares get into play it seems to have failed miserably. And the fact that Virginia was also propped up by the Slave Power Compromise, it would seem that that "small state" mythology was not the intention at all.

The current political dynamics of the country are simply a moment in time that won't last forever. Its great that the some of the least populated states were finally able to decide a Presidential election. It does not usually happen that way, and the fact that it finally did after a while shows how the system is well balanced.

Nope. It was not the "least populated states that were finally able to decide" at all --- those states did what they always do. RATHER, it was the Wisonsins and Michigans and Pennsylvanias and Floridas, ALL of which as a whole voted for somebody other than who their electors cast 100% of their votes for.

And North Carolina was in that same bag --- I notice no response to post 1397.

Here's the result of the first 20 years of that system:

1. Washington - Virginia - two terms
2. Adams - Massachusetts - one term
3. Jefferson - Virginia - two terms
4. Madison - Virginia - two terms
5. Monroe - Virginia - two terms

Washington ran unopposed.
In 1804 and 1808, Pinckney didn't even win his home state of South Carolina.
By 1812 New York was bigger and Pennsylvania as big as Virginia.
In 1816, King didn't win his home state of New York.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

I'd much rather the states that are signing on to the popular vote compact just changed the way they award delegates to actually reflect how people in the state voted. ie no winner take all.

You could have a system where the winner of the popular vote gets the 2 electoral votes representing each senator. The other popular votes would be awarded based on who won in each congressional district. Of course, given the controversy over re-districting that happens do to the population changes, that might not be very popular either.

Trump would have still beat Hillary in that scenario.

 

[22lcidw]

I'd much rather the states that are signing on to the popular vote compact just changed the way they award delegates to actually reflect how people in the state voted. ie no winner take all.

That negates the EC. I feel that small states in area must be combined to a certain size. So those small north east states can have several of them combined to one or two. Still may win the EC but will reduce the corrupted Senate from 12 or more progressives down to 4 or 2. We will of course have less states but better representation for the nation. I mean Rhode Island..come on. You can see one end of the state from the other side.

 

[Pogo]

If my price is 100, no it isn't.

Bad analogy perhaps. Your task is to make the case that when a state gives a candy 47% of its vote, its electors SHOULD go to Congress and lie through their teeth claiming 100%, thereby completely disenfranchising 53%.

aaaaaaaaand GO.

What does Candy and Congress have to do with this?

Our presidential system is that states have electors that vote in proportion to the popular vote of that state. It can't be much fairer than that.

So you have zero argument for morphing 47 into 100.

Guess that's settled then. Welcome aboard.

I have no idea where you get this 47 into a hundred thing or what it's supposed to mean. It's totally irrelevant and will remain that way in a presidential election. What is relevant is that the electors of a state cast their vote according to the majority of how the public voted. That's what's important.

That's taking for example the vote count of Michigan or Wisconsin, where Rump pulled a 47% showing, and yet their electors went to Congress and awarded him 100% of their votes.

You DO understand the difference between 47% of the people making a specific choice and 100% of the people choosing something, do you not?

Those states do have the power to award their electors differently, but they have decided up to this point, to do it this way. If you win the election within the state, you win the prize. They could do it differently where everyone gets some of the prize despite not winning.

And they should. Which again, was Ray's question.

But that won't happen because WTA wasn't declared as some law, it was snowballed by a mob mentality. One state wanted to maximize its impact, and its neighbor state wasn't going to let that happen so they did it too. Eventually they were all in the same sewer at the expense of the electorate. That can't be undone because of the same mob mentality. It would have to be a federal law mandating that they can't do it that way --- as Madison suggested.

That of course is almost as big a Constitutional hurdle as eliminating the EC altogether, but the best solution proposed so far is still the NPV compact, which was cleverly designed to negate the effect of that.

A bunch of posts back you asked "what would happen if North Carolina did that". I never did hear an answer to that.

 

[U2Edge]

So what? The EC votes went to the candidate that got the most votes. Who should they go to, the one with the least?

At the very least they should go proportionally. When you only pull 47% you don't deserve to call it "100".

If you're buying a house and the seller wants $100,000 do you hand him $47k and tell him the deal is done?

A unanimous vote in anything else means "absolutely, no doubt about it, we all agree on X". Obviously if a given state is so split that nobody is the choice of everybody or even a majority, it's dishonest to go to Congress and go "oh wow man, it's amazing, literally everybody in our state voted for X". That's absolute bullshit and it insults the voters of that state and tosses 53% of their votes directly into the crapper. The end result is that more people in that state could agree that their votes were tossed into the crapper than the number who agreed to vote for X.

So how do you feel about Bill Clinton's 43% win in 1992 and 49% win in 1996 in becoming President?

I've never been a fan of Bull Clinton so your tribalism tactic fails.

I never asked whether you were a fan of Bill Clinton. I'm asking about what you think about his becoming President despite not winning 50% of the vote?

What I think is that we never had a choice. We got the same old shit from the same old Duopoly, where you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, or IOW to vote not "for" one but to block another like a grand game of Tic Tac Toe.

1992 was in fact when I got really interested. I noticed a million Democrats crawling out of the woodwork for the chance to run against Bush. Since Bush's run was a foregone conclusion I examined and ranked the challengers. I don't remember the whole list but Bull Clinton was dead last and stayed there. Sure enough, the worst one got the nomination, and we were all fucked yet again.

That's the Duopoly for ya. And the EC as it's practiced ensures that that Duopoly will run the table, FOREVER. There's no chance of any incursion by anyone outside the Duopoly. Ross Perot ran in that election (which is why Clinton skidded in on 43%).. Perot got just under 19% of the country's vote, yet pulled ZERO in the EC. And that's directly the fault of WTA. In any and every state that was "competitive" every voter knew that if they cast a vote for Perot it removed their chance to block the R or D candidate, so they weren't going to waste it. And in locked "red" or "blue" states there was no way Perot, or the D or R candy, was going to win because that state was a foregone conclusion.

That's one of the most insidious effects of WTA. If you're in a locked-red or locked-blue state.......... there's no reason to go vote AT ALL. You can vote with your state, you can vote against your state, you can vote third party, or you can just stay home and bake cookies and all four options give exactly the same result, with the exception that in the fourth scenario you actually get some cookies.

The EC as practiced grossly depresses voter turnout (it was just 55% even in 2016), dumps millions upon millions of votes directly into the crapper, ensures candidates will never visit most states because either they or their opponent has it "locked up", makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting out of bed on election day, and perhaps worst of all perpetuates that same Duopoly that keeps trotting out a Hobson's Choice between "Bad" and "Even Worse". Why do you think we keep getting choices like that? Because the Duopoly has no competition, that's why. And the EC as it's currently done ensures it stays that way.

There's no argument to defend that.

Again, the whole thing of having a state locked up is a temporary feature of current political dynamics which won't last Forever. In 1964 almost all states went Democrat and voted Johnson. 8 years later they voted for Republicans and Nixon.

A third party can break into the system, but it has to be strong enough to replace one of the two parties dominating the system at the current time. Perot was not going to be President no matter what system was used. The Republican Party was not around before 1854, yet it successfully won and became one of the major two parties.

 

[Pogo]

Actually no, they go into a runoff. That's a way of ensuring nobody squeaks in without the consent of the governed.

Oooooops.

Meanwhile you didn't address the point. Again. You asked, "who should they go to", I answered with astute and detailed reasoning, and you have no response.

Sure I had a response. The candidate with the most votes wins the state. It's that simple.

Once AGAIN --- you asked "who SHOULD". And I told you, and you have no counterargument.

Let us know when you buy that $100k house for $47k.

Wow, so under your system, a President has to get 100% of the vote. We'll never elect another President again.

Yyyyyyeah sure, Sparky. That's what I said, isn't it.

You know you've lost the point when you have to invent a new argument that nobody made because you can't deal with the one on the table.

Seems to be what your suggesting with the "analogy" your attempting.

The analogy was simply supposed to drive home the point that "47" cannot possibly equal "100". If you have a vote and the results say 47% for X, 44% for Y, 9% for others, and you have to translate that into 15 units, there's no way to represent that 47 using the number 100.

Of course ---- the key word there is "represent", isn't it.

 

[U2Edge]

What does Candy and Congress have to do with this?

Our presidential system is that states have electors that vote in proportion to the popular vote of that state. It can't be much fairer than that.

So you have zero argument for morphing 47 into 100.

Guess that's settled then. Welcome aboard.

I have no idea where you get this 47 into a hundred thing or what it's supposed to mean. It's totally irrelevant and will remain that way in a presidential election. What is relevant is that the electors of a state cast their vote according to the majority of how the public voted. That's what's important.

That's taking for example the vote count of Michigan or Wisconsin, where Rump pulled a 47% showing, and yet their electors went to Congress and awarded him 100% of their votes.

You DO understand the difference between 47% of the people making a specific choice and 100% of the people choosing something, do you not?

Those states do have the power to award their electors differently, but they have decided up to this point, to do it this way. If you win the election within the state, you win the prize. They could do it differently where everyone gets some of the prize despite not winning.

And they should. Which again, was Ray's question.

But that won't happen because WTA wasn't declared as some law, it was snowballed by a mob mentality. One state wanted to maximize its impact, and its neighbor state wasn't going to let that happen so they did it too. Eventually they were all in the same sewer at the expense of the electorate. That can't be undone because of the same mob mentality. It would have to be a federal law mandating that they can't do it that way --- as Madison suggested.

That of course is almost as big a Constitutional hurdle as eliminating the EC altogether, but the best solution proposed so far is still the NPV compact, which was cleverly designed to negate the effect of that.

A bunch of posts back you asked "what would happen if North Carolina did that". I never did hear an answer to that.

I don't think North Carolina would like a situation where all their electoral votes went to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the state popular vote. Another system where the winner does not win the entire prize might be supported. But again that would not be free of controversy especially if the votes are awarded based on who won the current congressional districts, given the controversy on re-districting.

 

[U2Edge]

The electoral college is not at fault for their current type of partisanship seen in the country. This type of partisanship will not last indefinitely. The founders WANTED smaller states to have an equal vote in deciding Supreme Court justices. It was the only way the states would agree to the union and smaller states are not going to give up that power.

Again, the system was DESIGNED to give some power back to the smaller states. That's not a problem, it was designed that way so the country could EXIST!

Think so huh?

Here's the result of the first 20 years of that system:

1. Washington - Virginia - two terms
2. Adams - Massachusetts - one term
3. Jefferson - Virginia - two terms
4. Madison - Virginia - two terms
5. Monroe - Virginia - two terms

See a pattern? You'll note that Virginia, THE largest and most populated state, runs the country for 16 of the first 20 years. If this is a system designed to assist the Rhode Islands and the New Jerseys and the Delawares get into play it seems to have failed miserably. And the fact that Virginia was also propped up by the Slave Power Compromise, it would seem that that "small state" mythology was not the intention at all.

The current political dynamics of the country are simply a moment in time that won't last forever. Its great that the some of the least populated states were finally able to decide a Presidential election. It does not usually happen that way, and the fact that it finally did after a while shows how the system is well balanced.

Nope. It was not the "least populated states that were finally able to decide" at all --- those states did what they always do. RATHER, it was the Wisonsins and Michigans and Pennsylvanias and Floridas, ALL of which as a whole voted for somebody other than who their electors cast 100% of their votes for.

And North Carolina was in that same bag --- I notice no response to post 1397.

You forget New Hampshire in the year 2000. If New Hampshire had gone for Al Gore, Al Gore would have been President.

Let's not forget his own State....TN

ah, yes, good one. I wonder when the last time Tennessee went Blue.

 

[22lcidw]

At the very least they should go proportionally. When you only pull 47% you don't deserve to call it "100".

If you're buying a house and the seller wants $100,000 do you hand him $47k and tell him the deal is done?

A unanimous vote in anything else means "absolutely, no doubt about it, we all agree on X". Obviously if a given state is so split that nobody is the choice of everybody or even a majority, it's dishonest to go to Congress and go "oh wow man, it's amazing, literally everybody in our state voted for X". That's absolute bullshit and it insults the voters of that state and tosses 53% of their votes directly into the crapper. The end result is that more people in that state could agree that their votes were tossed into the crapper than the number who agreed to vote for X.

So how do you feel about Bill Clinton's 43% win in 1992 and 49% win in 1996 in becoming President?

I've never been a fan of Bull Clinton so your tribalism tactic fails.

I never asked whether you were a fan of Bill Clinton. I'm asking about what you think about his becoming President despite not winning 50% of the vote?

What I think is that we never had a choice. We got the same old shit from the same old Duopoly, where you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, or IOW to vote not "for" one but to block another like a grand game of Tic Tac Toe.

1992 was in fact when I got really interested. I noticed a million Democrats crawling out of the woodwork for the chance to run against Bush. Since Bush's run was a foregone conclusion I examined and ranked the challengers. I don't remember the whole list but Bull Clinton was dead last and stayed there. Sure enough, the worst one got the nomination, and we were all fucked yet again.

That's the Duopoly for ya. And the EC as it's practiced ensures that that Duopoly will run the table, FOREVER. There's no chance of any incursion by anyone outside the Duopoly. Ross Perot ran in that election (which is why Clinton skidded in on 43%).. Perot got just under 19% of the country's vote, yet pulled ZERO in the EC. And that's directly the fault of WTA. In any and every state that was "competitive" every voter knew that if they cast a vote for Perot it removed their chance to block the R or D candidate, so they weren't going to waste it. And in locked "red" or "blue" states there was no way Perot, or the D or R candy, was going to win because that state was a foregone conclusion.

That's one of the most insidious effects of WTA. If you're in a locked-red or locked-blue state.......... there's no reason to go vote AT ALL. You can vote with your state, you can vote against your state, you can vote third party, or you can just stay home and bake cookies and all four options give exactly the same result, with the exception that in the fourth scenario you actually get some cookies.

The EC as practiced grossly depresses voter turnout (it was just 55% even in 2016), dumps millions upon millions of votes directly into the crapper, ensures candidates will never visit most states because either they or their opponent has it "locked up", makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting out of bed on election day, and perhaps worst of all perpetuates that same Duopoly that keeps trotting out a Hobson's Choice between "Bad" and "Even Worse". Why do you think we keep getting choices like that? Because the Duopoly has no competition, that's why. And the EC as it's currently done ensures it stays that way.

There's no argument to defend that.

Again, the whole thing of having a state locked up is a temporary feature of current political dynamics which won't last Forever. In 1964 almost all states went Democrat and voted Johnson. 8 years later they voted for Republicans and Nixon.

A third party can break into the system, but it has to be strong enough to replace one of the two parties dominating the system at the current time. Perot was not going to be President no matter what system was used. The Republican Party was not around before 1854, yet it successfully won and became one of the major two parties.

Perot had one third of the vote as both Bush and Clinton withing a few per cent of each other. Then Perot mysteriously dropped out of the race. And several weeks later came back in. He never achieved those percentages before but cost Bush the 1992 election.

 

[Pogo]

At the very least they should go proportionally. When you only pull 47% you don't deserve to call it "100".

If you're buying a house and the seller wants $100,000 do you hand him $47k and tell him the deal is done?

A unanimous vote in anything else means "absolutely, no doubt about it, we all agree on X". Obviously if a given state is so split that nobody is the choice of everybody or even a majority, it's dishonest to go to Congress and go "oh wow man, it's amazing, literally everybody in our state voted for X". That's absolute bullshit and it insults the voters of that state and tosses 53% of their votes directly into the crapper. The end result is that more people in that state could agree that their votes were tossed into the crapper than the number who agreed to vote for X.

So how do you feel about Bill Clinton's 43% win in 1992 and 49% win in 1996 in becoming President?

I've never been a fan of Bull Clinton so your tribalism tactic fails.

I never asked whether you were a fan of Bill Clinton. I'm asking about what you think about his becoming President despite not winning 50% of the vote?

What I think is that we never had a choice. We got the same old shit from the same old Duopoly, where you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, or IOW to vote not "for" one but to block another like a grand game of Tic Tac Toe.

1992 was in fact when I got really interested. I noticed a million Democrats crawling out of the woodwork for the chance to run against Bush. Since Bush's run was a foregone conclusion I examined and ranked the challengers. I don't remember the whole list but Bull Clinton was dead last and stayed there. Sure enough, the worst one got the nomination, and we were all fucked yet again.

That's the Duopoly for ya. And the EC as it's practiced ensures that that Duopoly will run the table, FOREVER. There's no chance of any incursion by anyone outside the Duopoly. Ross Perot ran in that election (which is why Clinton skidded in on 43%).. Perot got just under 19% of the country's vote, yet pulled ZERO in the EC. And that's directly the fault of WTA. In any and every state that was "competitive" every voter knew that if they cast a vote for Perot it removed their chance to block the R or D candidate, so they weren't going to waste it. And in locked "red" or "blue" states there was no way Perot, or the D or R candy, was going to win because that state was a foregone conclusion.

That's one of the most insidious effects of WTA. If you're in a locked-red or locked-blue state.......... there's no reason to go vote AT ALL. You can vote with your state, you can vote against your state, you can vote third party, or you can just stay home and bake cookies and all four options give exactly the same result, with the exception that in the fourth scenario you actually get some cookies.

The EC as practiced grossly depresses voter turnout (it was just 55% even in 2016), dumps millions upon millions of votes directly into the crapper, ensures candidates will never visit most states because either they or their opponent has it "locked up", makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting out of bed on election day, and perhaps worst of all perpetuates that same Duopoly that keeps trotting out a Hobson's Choice between "Bad" and "Even Worse". Why do you think we keep getting choices like that? Because the Duopoly has no competition, that's why. And the EC as it's currently done ensures it stays that way.

There's no argument to defend that.

Again, the whole thing of having a state locked up is a temporary feature of current political dynamics which won't last Forever. In 1964 almost all states went Democrat and voted Johnson. 8 years later they voted for Republicans and Nixon.

A third party can break into the system, but it has to be strong enough to replace one of the two parties dominating the system at the current time. Perot was not going to be President no matter what system was used. The Republican Party was not around before 1854, yet it successfully won and became one of the major two parties.

And we've had Duopoly virtually ever since. Which was not the case before 1854 (or in this case we should say 1860).

It's not "temporary" at all; it's a permanent fixture until it gets fixed. Your allusions to 1964 and 1972 just affirm that.

So does this:

ah, yes, good one. I wonder when the last time Tennessee went Blue.

Exactly. Tennessee is going red no matter what any individual voter does so they might as well stay home and bake cookies. That's why our election turnout is dozens of points behind the civilised world. Because for most people, what's the point?

Let's face it, the only way for a third party to make an incursion on the system is to siphon off enough Duopoly votes so that nobody gets a majority in the EC, which then throws the whole election to the House of Reps who can do whatever they want. In other words the only way a 3P can have a chance of winning is to negate the entire election itself. And that's because under the WTA system 100% of a state's vote is going to whoever gets the most even if the most is 33.4%. That's tantamount to telling 3P voters to stay home.

 

[U2Edge]

So you believe we should accept the opinion of Elizabeth Warren, the woman who lied about her ancestry for decades?

Having done the math it turns out that red states get MORE EC votes (per capita) than blue states. I have no doubt that if blue states had the same advantage conservatives would have already started that civil war they dream of.

The whole red state vs. blue state thing is temporary sing of the times. It didn't really exist prior to 2000, and it won't exist indefinitely into the future. The electoral college is not responsible for the current political dynamics and partisanship. Its a sign of the times and won't last forever.

Holy shit, the density....

"Red" states and "blue" states, entirely bullshit artificial and divisive concepts, are completely a product of the WTA/EC. Without that system there's no such thing. There are only voters. That bullshit concept has been with us as long as WTA has. That's why James Madison, one of the architects of the Electoral College, wanted to ban that practice.

Yes it can happen, but over time it typically does not. A much better system than the popular vote system where candidates focus only on the concerns of big cities. That wouldn't be balanced. That is why the founders ultimately rejected it. The system has worked well for over 200 years and is not going to change.

Already debunked this fantasy in 1405. Look for the word "Virginia".

By the way "will never work" has never been cogent argument.

Its no fantasy given the demographics of the country today. Cities were tiny back in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Today they are massive and growing bigger every day. The interest and concerns also often different from that of rural areas. The electoral college is a good balance given the demographic situation. We don't want a system where the rural voter is totally screwed. The electoral college at least balances that a little bit.

 

[Pogo]

So you have zero argument for morphing 47 into 100.

Guess that's settled then. Welcome aboard.

I have no idea where you get this 47 into a hundred thing or what it's supposed to mean. It's totally irrelevant and will remain that way in a presidential election. What is relevant is that the electors of a state cast their vote according to the majority of how the public voted. That's what's important.

That's taking for example the vote count of Michigan or Wisconsin, where Rump pulled a 47% showing, and yet their electors went to Congress and awarded him 100% of their votes.

You DO understand the difference between 47% of the people making a specific choice and 100% of the people choosing something, do you not?

Those states do have the power to award their electors differently, but they have decided up to this point, to do it this way. If you win the election within the state, you win the prize. They could do it differently where everyone gets some of the prize despite not winning.

And they should. Which again, was Ray's question.

But that won't happen because WTA wasn't declared as some law, it was snowballed by a mob mentality. One state wanted to maximize its impact, and its neighbor state wasn't going to let that happen so they did it too. Eventually they were all in the same sewer at the expense of the electorate. That can't be undone because of the same mob mentality. It would have to be a federal law mandating that they can't do it that way --- as Madison suggested.

That of course is almost as big a Constitutional hurdle as eliminating the EC altogether, but the best solution proposed so far is still the NPV compact, which was cleverly designed to negate the effect of that.

A bunch of posts back you asked "what would happen if North Carolina did that". I never did hear an answer to that.

I don't think North Carolina would like a situation where all their electoral votes went to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the state popular vote. Another system where the winner does not win the entire prize might be supported. But again that would not be free of controversy especially if the votes are awarded based on who won the current congressional districts, given the controversy on re-districting.

Whelp --- I live here and I can tell you we'd like it just fine, since most of our votes didn't come to a conclusion in 2016 yet ALL of our EVs went to one who got under 50%. That means more than half the voters were already disenfranchised anyway.

We've already touched on the mob mentality that prevents states from giving up the WTA system. No 'one' will do it unless they all do it.

 

[U2Edge]

So how do you feel about Bill Clinton's 43% win in 1992 and 49% win in 1996 in becoming President?

I've never been a fan of Bull Clinton so your tribalism tactic fails.

I never asked whether you were a fan of Bill Clinton. I'm asking about what you think about his becoming President despite not winning 50% of the vote?

What I think is that we never had a choice. We got the same old shit from the same old Duopoly, where you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, or IOW to vote not "for" one but to block another like a grand game of Tic Tac Toe.

1992 was in fact when I got really interested. I noticed a million Democrats crawling out of the woodwork for the chance to run against Bush. Since Bush's run was a foregone conclusion I examined and ranked the challengers. I don't remember the whole list but Bull Clinton was dead last and stayed there. Sure enough, the worst one got the nomination, and we were all fucked yet again.

That's the Duopoly for ya. And the EC as it's practiced ensures that that Duopoly will run the table, FOREVER. There's no chance of any incursion by anyone outside the Duopoly. Ross Perot ran in that election (which is why Clinton skidded in on 43%).. Perot got just under 19% of the country's vote, yet pulled ZERO in the EC. And that's directly the fault of WTA. In any and every state that was "competitive" every voter knew that if they cast a vote for Perot it removed their chance to block the R or D candidate, so they weren't going to waste it. And in locked "red" or "blue" states there was no way Perot, or the D or R candy, was going to win because that state was a foregone conclusion.

That's one of the most insidious effects of WTA. If you're in a locked-red or locked-blue state.......... there's no reason to go vote AT ALL. You can vote with your state, you can vote against your state, you can vote third party, or you can just stay home and bake cookies and all four options give exactly the same result, with the exception that in the fourth scenario you actually get some cookies.

The EC as practiced grossly depresses voter turnout (it was just 55% even in 2016), dumps millions upon millions of votes directly into the crapper, ensures candidates will never visit most states because either they or their opponent has it "locked up", makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting out of bed on election day, and perhaps worst of all perpetuates that same Duopoly that keeps trotting out a Hobson's Choice between "Bad" and "Even Worse". Why do you think we keep getting choices like that? Because the Duopoly has no competition, that's why. And the EC as it's currently done ensures it stays that way.

There's no argument to defend that.

Again, the whole thing of having a state locked up is a temporary feature of current political dynamics which won't last Forever. In 1964 almost all states went Democrat and voted Johnson. 8 years later they voted for Republicans and Nixon.

A third party can break into the system, but it has to be strong enough to replace one of the two parties dominating the system at the current time. Perot was not going to be President no matter what system was used. The Republican Party was not around before 1854, yet it successfully won and became one of the major two parties.

Perot had one third of the vote as both Bush and Clinton withing a few per cent of each other. Then Perot mysteriously dropped out of the race. And several weeks later came back in. He never achieved those percentages before but cost Bush the 1992 election.

I would be careful about saying Perot had 1/3 of the vote at a particular time. That is only based on polling far out from the election date. He agree that he likely cost Bush the election. I think it would have been a very close election between Clinton and Bush, with Bush winning by a tiny margin, if Perot was not in the race.

 

[22lcidw]

I've never been a fan of Bull Clinton so your tribalism tactic fails.

I never asked whether you were a fan of Bill Clinton. I'm asking about what you think about his becoming President despite not winning 50% of the vote?

What I think is that we never had a choice. We got the same old shit from the same old Duopoly, where you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, or IOW to vote not "for" one but to block another like a grand game of Tic Tac Toe.

1992 was in fact when I got really interested. I noticed a million Democrats crawling out of the woodwork for the chance to run against Bush. Since Bush's run was a foregone conclusion I examined and ranked the challengers. I don't remember the whole list but Bull Clinton was dead last and stayed there. Sure enough, the worst one got the nomination, and we were all fucked yet again.

That's the Duopoly for ya. And the EC as it's practiced ensures that that Duopoly will run the table, FOREVER. There's no chance of any incursion by anyone outside the Duopoly. Ross Perot ran in that election (which is why Clinton skidded in on 43%).. Perot got just under 19% of the country's vote, yet pulled ZERO in the EC. And that's directly the fault of WTA. In any and every state that was "competitive" every voter knew that if they cast a vote for Perot it removed their chance to block the R or D candidate, so they weren't going to waste it. And in locked "red" or "blue" states there was no way Perot, or the D or R candy, was going to win because that state was a foregone conclusion.

That's one of the most insidious effects of WTA. If you're in a locked-red or locked-blue state.......... there's no reason to go vote AT ALL. You can vote with your state, you can vote against your state, you can vote third party, or you can just stay home and bake cookies and all four options give exactly the same result, with the exception that in the fourth scenario you actually get some cookies.

The EC as practiced grossly depresses voter turnout (it was just 55% even in 2016), dumps millions upon millions of votes directly into the crapper, ensures candidates will never visit most states because either they or their opponent has it "locked up", makes us all dependent on polls to find out whether it's even worth getting out of bed on election day, and perhaps worst of all perpetuates that same Duopoly that keeps trotting out a Hobson's Choice between "Bad" and "Even Worse". Why do you think we keep getting choices like that? Because the Duopoly has no competition, that's why. And the EC as it's currently done ensures it stays that way.

There's no argument to defend that.

Again, the whole thing of having a state locked up is a temporary feature of current political dynamics which won't last Forever. In 1964 almost all states went Democrat and voted Johnson. 8 years later they voted for Republicans and Nixon.

A third party can break into the system, but it has to be strong enough to replace one of the two parties dominating the system at the current time. Perot was not going to be President no matter what system was used. The Republican Party was not around before 1854, yet it successfully won and became one of the major two parties.

Perot had one third of the vote as both Bush and Clinton withing a few per cent of each other. Then Perot mysteriously dropped out of the race. And several weeks later came back in. He never achieved those percentages before but cost Bush the 1992 election.

I would be careful about saying Perot had 1/3 of the vote at a particular time. That is only based on polling far out from the election date. He agree that he likely cost Bush the election. I think it would have been a very close election between Clinton and Bush, with Bush winning by a tiny margin, if Perot was not in the race.

Something simple can derail a politician. There were voters who were angered by that "read my lips" spout he made. But Bush winning would have been 16 years of "R". Even though he was different then Reagan.