Who's with me?

11/14/2016 2:11:46 PM

this is a dumb idea and everyone posting about this is dumb

if clinton had won the EC and lost the popular vote, these idiots would not be calling for the EC to be abolished

11/14/2016 2:23:45 PM

The EC actually did most of what was originally intended. It prevented a few population rich areas from completely dominating the rest of the country.

Now if only we kept the other original part that kept the plebs from electing some rabble rousing yahoo.

11/14/2016 2:29:54 PM

U MAD BRO?

11/14/2016 2:38:14 PM

Quote :

"this is a dumb idea and everyone posting about this is dumb if clinton had won the EC and lost the popular vote, these idiots would not be calling for the EC to be abolished"

no, you're the dumb one for wanting to perpetuate a broken two party system instead of allowing multiple parties and coalitions to work together to get shit done.

And no, even if Clinton had won, I'd still want it gone. I have wanted it gone even before Gore lost because it's a ridiculous way to elect a president and the rest of the democratic world thinks we're idiots.

11/14/2016 2:48:35 PM

getting rid of the electoral college isn't going to suddenly make us a multi-party system

all a popular vote will do is make it so a few counties decide the election for everyone else, which will just decrease satisfaction in the government for most americans

11/14/2016 2:58:36 PM

If you got rid of the EC no one would give two shits about the majority of the country. Campaigns would be geared to the east and west coast and a few midwestern cities. The rest of the country would never see a single campaign stop or what they cared about ever heard.

11/14/2016 2:58:59 PM

this is half the population:

11/14/2016 2:59:53 PM

you do realize getting rid of the electoral college would requiring amending the US Constitution, right? If that happens, why couldn't the entire election process be overhauled? Why do you refuse to accept the possibility of a better alternative when people could come together to create one? You do realize that the US isn't special and other large countries with large populations have large clusters of population centers and aren't governed by entire mob rule, right?



[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 3:01 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 3:00:23 PM

if an independant candidate couldn't win this election, there is no chance for one ever. Why we keep the farce of multiple parties is beyond me.

11/14/2016 3:03:11 PM

you can't assume that trump would have lost without an electoral college, because the campaigns and voters would have acted differently in an election with a popular vote. you can't have a popular vote unless you normalize and nationalize ballot requirements. a popular vote, done correctly, would require runoff elections (not exactly a bad thing, just a forgotten thing) if you want to require a majority to win.

if anything we should undo laws that bind electoral college votes, and pay more attention to those voters

11/14/2016 3:04:38 PM

Quote :

"You do realize that the US isn't special and other large countries with large populations have large clusters of population centers and aren't governed by entire mob rule, right?"

This is correct but I would argue that these countries aren't as geographically large AND ethnically and culturally diverse as us which is important to realize. I feel like the difference between a rural German and an Urban German isn't as significant as an east coast, midwestern, southern, etc US citizen.

11/14/2016 3:04:47 PM

I guess Brazil and India are much more homogenous than I thought.

11/14/2016 3:06:35 PM

I would argue yes.

I mean in the US you can have each ethnic group of Indians (Gujaratis, Jains, Punjabis, etc) on top of everything else we have.

11/14/2016 3:08:38 PM

Quote :

"a popular vote, done correctly, would require runoff elections (not exactly a bad thing, just a forgotten thing)"

yes, exactly. Why not try that instead?

11/14/2016 3:12:07 PM

Germany is a parliamentary republic

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 3:12 PM. Reason : ^ i was pointing out that Clinton wouldn't be guaranteed to win, it would go to runoff]

11/14/2016 3:12:22 PM

I don't care about Clinton winning or not. I voted for her because I held my nose, not because I thought she'd be great for our country. If we had a run-off, maybe Bernie would have stood a chance (not that I really wanted him to win either). And no, primaries aren't the same thing.



[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 3:19 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 3:19:10 PM

Why would Sanders have been in a runoff?

11/14/2016 3:20:36 PM

600,000 votes out of 121 million kinda feels like pissing in the wind :x

11/14/2016 3:22:29 PM

^^Maybe because he could have ran as independent?

^ millions of ballots in CA are still processing. You think they're going Trump?

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 3:23 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 3:22:32 PM

^ very true.

11/14/2016 3:24:52 PM

Popular vote won't fix the third party problem. We need ranked choice voting. GJ Maine for being the first to accomplish that.

11/14/2016 3:29:59 PM

I mean you Sanderistas wanted change and instead of trying to actually fix an entirely dysfunctional election system, you're sitting here blaming HRC and mocking the DNC. Super helpful.

^We have had ranked choice voting in Oakland for years. It's not as great as it sounds. For local elections maybe, but nationwide? No way.

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 3:31 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 3:30:19 PM

Quote :

"^^Maybe because he could have ran as independent?"

you think he would have had more votes than trump or clinton as an independent. sanders wouldn't have made it to a runoff.

simply having a popular vote won't change that we have a 2-party system

11/14/2016 3:33:12 PM

I don't know. Revisionist history doesn't help here. I'm just saying that the two party system needs to go and one of the main hurdles is the EC.

11/14/2016 3:34:32 PM

^^^
Why not nationwide? No idea what you're getting at.

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 3:34 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 3:34:44 PM

It doesn't work because a ton of people don't understand how it actually works and don't fill out their ballots correctly. I know that sounds stupid, but it's true.

11/14/2016 3:36:23 PM

Quote :

"The EC actually did most of what was originally intended. It prevented a few population rich areas from completely dominating the rest of the country."

I don't understand this sentiment, the population is the country. What is the EC protecting? The rights of uninhabited land?

11/14/2016 3:38:02 PM

an electoral college with proportional representation would make it much easier for other parties than a straight popular vote


(what we really need to do is throw it all out and start over with a parliamentary system)

11/14/2016 3:38:40 PM

Quote :

"I don't understand this sentiment, the population is the country. What is the EC protecting? The rights of uninhabited land?"

11/14/2016 3:39:10 PM

Quote :

"an electoral college with proportional representation would make it much easier for other parties than a straight popular vote (what we really need to do is throw it all out and start over with a parliamentary system) "

Yup, now you're getting it.

11/14/2016 3:40:27 PM

Quote :

"It doesn't work because a ton of people don't understand how it actually works and don't fill out their ballots correctly. I know that sounds stupid, but it's true"

That's a failure of the implementation, not the system. Every type of voting system is confusing if the ballot sucks.

Ranked choice is pretty damn simple. "Please list the candidates in order of favorability."

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 3:46 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 3:45:54 PM

Quote :

"Yup, now you're getting it."

Bruh, you just called for abolishing it which is a dumb idea

11/14/2016 3:52:30 PM

Abolish it, completely overhaul it. Semantics.

11/14/2016 3:53:22 PM

no, a straight popular vote is hugely different than an electoral college with proportional representation

but i'm glad at least you think abolishing it is a bad idea

11/14/2016 3:54:51 PM

Quote :

"Ranked choice is pretty damn simple. "Please list the candidates in order of favorability.""

To you and I, sure. To people who think they can vote for the same candidate two or three or as many times as they want on the ballot, you'd be surprised. When Jean Quan won, people were shocked at the outcome because she was so few people's first choice. They had no idea that the number of second, third, and fourth place votes was what led her to victory.

^ we could still have a system besides the EC that establishes proportional representation, couldn't we?

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 4:02 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 3:56:10 PM

I vote for boxing matches for POTUS.

11/14/2016 3:59:24 PM

Quote :

"If you got rid of the EC no one would give two shits about the majority of the country. Campaigns would be geared to the east and west coast and a few midwestern cities. The rest of the country would never see a single campaign stop or what they cared about ever heard."

This.

Look, I flipped my shit for about minute after Gore lost to Bush. I had no idea how this shit worked and was like "WTF" when Gore sued Bush and took it to the SCOTUS. Then I decided to look it up and see wtf is up with the electoral and the popular vote. Once I realized that the popular vote means absolutely jack shit in a POTUS election, well, I was shocked. Then I learned about the EC and why, and it made sense.

Is there a better system? Sure - you could say that about a lot of things within our gvmt; but this is the system that works to ensure EVERYONE's voice is heard, not just the people living in high population areas.

11/14/2016 4:00:13 PM

Quote :

"I don't understand this sentiment, the population is the country. What is the EC protecting? The rights of uninhabited land?"

So originally when states voted on their interests more consistently the populous north eastern states could in a popular vote system essentially overrule and vote by the southern states because they were less populated. This is of course a problem if New england alone could have established whichever candidate they wanted just because they had more people and obviously the southern states had a problem with this.

By and large this is because they wanted to keep slavery (which is why there was also the 3/5 compromise) but despite that the idea was still valid that it was bad for any one region of the country to have a clear dominion over the others.

Today we have a more normal policy split within the states as a whole, but not between urban and rural areas, Urban = Liberal Rural = Conservative. Effectively with a pure popular vote, a major candidate would only have to cater to and the major metros and could effectively ignore large swathes of the country because as the map says, a majority of the population can be found there. Hey you live in a western square state, fuck off you don't matter.

It's clearly not perfect but let's not pretend there aren't some defensible reasons for doing it this way.

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 4:05 PM. Reason : See the map]

11/14/2016 4:02:59 PM

I thought you just wanted California to secede?

11/14/2016 4:03:38 PM

Quote :

"^ we could still have a system besides the EC that establishes proportional representation, couldn't we?"

describe this system in the context of a national popular vote so i can understand how you are not just recreating the electoral college

11/14/2016 4:06:27 PM

I do, but I also want a revised electoral process.

11/14/2016 4:07:21 PM

Well in your country you can do whatever you want, man.

11/14/2016 4:08:46 PM

SEND THE FOLLOWING NAMES IN YOUR ORDER OF PREFERENCE TO: 22334

BAMA

KILLERY

TRUsaMP

OTHER GUY

11/14/2016 4:09:03 PM

What are the advantages of the electoral college?

11/14/2016 5:09:13 PM

Quote :

"If it weren't for the electoral college, your Presidents would win their elections by campaigning only in New York, California, and Texas. Every goddamn candidate in every goddamn Presidential election would spend their entire time pandering to the states with the most people, because that would be the most efficient use of their time and money. PROTIP: Proponents of a pure popular vote forget that populations live in states and shit."

11/14/2016 5:33:40 PM

People don't seem to realize that the US is a country composed of States. Each of the 50 states is supposed to be the governing body that most influences your daily life. The president is elected by these states to represent their interests as a whole, it's never been about the will of the whole population.
Where were all these democrats in 2008? Hillary won the popular vote in the democratic primary yet old boy Barack got the most delegates.

[Edited on November 14, 2016 at 5:56 PM. Reason : .]

11/14/2016 5:54:49 PM

You could make the argument too that most of the votes or assignments of federal positions should be supplied by votes from state legislatures too. Would save a lot of time, energy and money if there were not any real direct elections of federal officials and everyone's focus would be on electing local people with local interests.

That said we have some real dysfunctional state legislatures and there would be plenty of corruption in that method too.

11/14/2016 5:59:09 PM

NOTE: I have never suggested the results of this election should be overturned and I didn't bother signing that dumb petition floating around to change the outcome.

But from here on out, this shit needs to be fixed.

11/14/2016 7:05:07 PM

what we really should do is repeal the 17th amendment. states aint got no representation in DC, how dumb is that

11/14/2016 7:19:25 PM