The electoral college is the house and senate Nothing more. So it falls back to which party is in charge in office at that moment as to who wins.
Negative. The number of electoral college members are determined by the number of representatives and senators, but the actual college members are different people.

You appear to be confirming my perspective. It didn't happen because the modern electoral college doesn't operate the way you are suggesting that it does. The electoral college votes based on the popular vote of their constituencies. Hence why the scenario above didn't happen and why it wasn't suggested.

The election came down to Florida and Florida was undecided.


The parties did not want to risk what happened again, that is why it did not go to the electoral college. Read the Wikipedia article about how the college operates if you don't believe me.

As for Florida, the difference when they called for a recount was one half of one percent, but the way it was done organized and blocked were all based on party politics.

The Florida Supreme Court has 15 members, fourteen dem one independant, so of course they agreed to the recount, and allowed the democrats to set the method, using only four counties. The fact that those four are the main democratic strongholds is of course incidental.

When the necessary votes did not appear, the Florida Supreme court decided to set aside Florida law in aid of the party. Under Florida ELection Law, a chad counts as a vote only if it is hanging by one corner. They changed it to the RUles in Texas where if two corners are loose it counts. At that point the Federal Supreme Court rescinded the Florida decision.

Then the Florida court again ordered they could recount, this time using the California 'Dimpled Chad' ruling. Again the Federal Court stopped the recount.

All of those decisions were politicall motivated except for the first Federal Supreme court decision, because they stated in their decision you cannot change a state law to match another state's for your own convenience.

Negative. The number of electoral college members are determined by the number of representatives and senators, but the actual college members are different people.

'Should no candidate for President win a majority of the electoral votes, the choice is referred to the House of Representatives'

Quote from the wikipedia. If I need the Encyclopedia Brittanica, I'll get it.

That is 270 electoral votes. The primary reason the parties don't want competition

No matter how you reformat the system, the basic concept is that you need a majority of the voters to win. It doesn't matter if there are electoral votes in the middle or anything else.

Candidates will go where the population is, New York, Florida, California, ect... Regardless of the number of electoral votes, regardless of the sway they have, but simply for the sheer number of people in those locations.

South Dakota, with a population of only a fraction more than Kern County in California(750k ish, to 700kish), is unimportant. If you with the population in California, you've made up for what you lost in SD in spades.

Maybe you could solve this with a proportional representation system and allow people to vote for several people, but that's STILL going to leave bigger locations with more sway than smaller locations.

The whole reason our two-house system was developed to give BIG states more say because there are more people there. Why should Wyoming have an equal say as California, clearly they are not equal states.

The parties did not want to risk what happened again, that is why it did not go to the electoral college. Read the Wikipedia article about how the college operates if you don't believe me.
So Sayeth Wiki:
Some nations with complex regional electorates elect a head of state by means of an electoral college rather than a direct popular election. The United States is the only current example of an indirectly elected executive president, with an electoral college comprising electors representing the 50 states and one federal district. Each state has a number of electors equal to its total Congressional representation (in both houses), with the non-state District of Columbia receiving three electors and other non-state territories having no electors. The electors generally cast their votes for the winner of the popular vote in their respective states, but are not required by law to do so.

The electoral college is the house and senate Nothing more.
'Should no candidate for President win a majority of the electoral votes, the choice is referred to the House of Representatives' Cookies for the first person that spots the contradiction.

Also, machievelli, please tone it down with the ninja edits.

No matter how you reformat the system, the basic concept is that you need a majority of the voters to win. It doesn't matter if there are electoral votes in the middle or anything else.

Candidates will go where the population is, New York, Florida, California, ect... Regardless of the number of electoral votes, regardless of the sway they have, but simply for the sheer number of people in those locations.

South Dakota, with a population of only a fraction more than Kern County in California(750k ish, to 700kish), is unimportant. If you with the population in California, you've made up for what you lost in SD in spades.

Maybe you could solve this with a proportional representation system and allow people to vote for several people, but that's STILL going to leave bigger locations with more sway than smaller locations.

The whole reason our two-house system was developed to give BIG states more say because there are more people there. Why should Wyoming have an equal say as California, clearly they are not equal states.

I agree the majority must rule, but the idea that 43 percdent of Californians are ignored because of the electoral college rules bothers me. I did not vote for GOreor Kerry yet according to the electoral college I did.

Cookies for the first person that spots the contradiction.

Also, machievelli, please tone it down with the ninja edits.
Sorry, I wrote it and needed to edit. sorry.

I choose Macadamia nut. The electoral colllege is counted as another body, only falling to the congress when there is no clear majority.

My bad

I agree the majority must rule, but the idea that 43 percdent of Californians are ignored because of the electoral college rules bothers me. I did not vote for GOreor Kerry yet according to the electoral college I did.Translation: I agree with majority rule but I don't agree with majority rule because majority rule means that the minority candidate (i.e. the guy I voted for) doesn't win.

Hint: that is majority rule.

Sorry, I wrote it and needed to edit. sorry.

I choose Macadamia nut. The electoral colllege is counted as another body, only falling to the congress when there is no clear majority.

My badThe contradiction is that you first said that the House was electoral college and then you said that the vote went to the House if a majority could not be reached. Unless you're arguing that the House essentially gets to vote twice, there is a problem with one of these statements.

And my quick, one sentence response to your lengthy post about Florida, which entirely missed the point: Neither party had a clear majority because the popular vote was undetermined and therefore the electoral votes could not be assigned.

Translation: I agree with majority rule but I don't agree with majority rule because majority rule means that the minority candidate (i.e. the guy I voted for) doesn't win.

Hint: that is majority rule.

The contradiction is that you first said that the House was electoral college and then you said that the vote went to the House if a majority could not be reached. Unless you're arguing that the House essentially gets to vote twice, there is a problem with one of these statements.

And my quick, one sentence response to your lengthy post about Florida, which entirely missed the point: Neither party had a clear majority because the popular vote was undetermined and therefore the electoral votes could not be assigned.

Actually as a test for myself, I did the figures after the federal election of 200 I broke down the electoral votes as I suggested. It turned out that Bush would have won by exactly one vote. A lote better than the 4 of the normal one. That is what I want, proper representation.

There are 538 of them and you feel better losing by 1 point than 4.

I really think you should stop while you're ahead.

EDIT: btw, ET Warrior and I made (what I feel are) some sound arguments against changing the current system way back in post 45 and 46. Would you mind taking a stab and addressing those in one of your next posts? I think we've allowed ourselves to get distracted by some minutiae whereas getting back to the "meat and potatoes" might allow us to cover more ground. Thanks.

I don't know about Kansas, but Nebraska does, I am pretty sure 1 of the Nebraska electoral votes is going to Obama.


The other one is Maine :)

_EW_

^^^^

Ah yes. Thanks to you and ET Warrior for the Kansas/Nebraska correction. I was trying to visualize the electoral map I saw and was one state off :(

Also, machievelli, please tone it down with the ninja edits.
Just to clarify, only admins have the ability to make edits that won't show a 'last edited by:' notation, and machievelli is not an admin, and therefore does not have that ability. If there's no edit note at the bottom of his posts, he hasn't changed them. However, it would make it a lot easier to follow, machievelli, if when you made a change you made a little note on what you changed (e.g. 'fixed grammar/spelling', or 'clarified a point') so the rest of us can keep up. Thanks.

That has nothing to do with what I was asking, but thank you for the reminder.

I agree the majority must rule, but the idea that 43 percdent of Californians are ignored because of the electoral college rules bothers me. I did not vote for GOreor Kerry yet according to the electoral college I did.And this year 46% of Americans did not vote for Barack Obama but according to the results of the election they did.

I agree the majority must rule, but the idea that 43 percdent of Californians are ignored because of the electoral college rules bothers me. I did not vote for GOreor Kerry yet according to the electoral college I did.

At the same time, those 43% ignored are often made up by ignoring others in other states. Colorado, for example, which is very 50/50, often makes up partly by going republican.

There's a balancing effect here, and no, I don't believe in complete majority rule, just because 51% of the people want something does not mean it's a good thing to have.

Just to clarify, only admins have the ability to make edits that won't show a 'last edited by:' notation, and machievelli is not an admin, and therefore does not have that ability. If there's no edit note at the bottom of his posts, he hasn't changed them. However, it would make it a lot easier to follow, machievelli, if when you made a change you made a little note on what you changed (e.g. 'fixed grammar/spelling', or 'clarified a point') so the rest of us can keep up. Thanks. if you edit your post within a certain amount of time it won't show that it's been edited.

This is true--there's a 10 minute window. I forgot about that. --Jae

Shush! You're not supposed to tell anybody that. I take advantage of it all the time. :p

There's a balancing effect here, and no, I don't believe in complete majority rule, just because 51% of the people want something does not mean it's a good thing to have.Another great argument against election by popular vote.

The smallest amount of electoral votes a state has is 3. Washington D.C. has as many electoral votes as the smallest state does.

As it stands with Texas' winner-takes-all rule:

1. I was not represented at all in the state's 34 electoral votes, which means my vote did not affect the presidential election whatsoever;

2. My state was mostly ignored during the campaign.

What I would like is the assignment of electoral voters by percentage of the popular vote here. If Obama got 43.72% of the Texas vote, then he should get ~15 of the electoral voters, and Barr, who got .70%, should get ~2.

What this would do is force candidates to spend time in states that are generally considered to be strongly Republican or Democrat in order to win enough of the electoral vote. It does not remove the electoral college's function on the national level, but it does provide better representation to the people within the state. Although people will still fall through the cracks if they have a very small percentage of votes, it would be better than the winner takes all system. That system literally ignores millions of votes - in this case 3,577,562 plus - and is far too coarse to be called a representative system except in the loosest possible sense.

PostResponse (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5CpcWIYjFI)

*shrugs*

FWIW, I live in AZ (McCain!!!) and I still voted for Obama.

P.S. Look at how many "red" states went "blue" this election. The reality is that all states are in constant flux.

EDIT: P.P.S. I addressed your other arguments in post 45.

I did vote for the very reason that the video proposed.

Still, that doesn't change the fact of what I said in my previous post. I was not represented when I could have easily been. Why not? Because that's the way it is. I am not happy with the status quo on this subject.

Neither was I. And neither was I in the 2004 election. Majority rule is majority rule regardless of how you choose to divvy up the votes. There will always be at least one group that does not get the candidate they want in office.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not worried about whether or not a single person gets elected to office. However, I am annoyed that the Texas electoral votes which are supposed to represent Texas nationally do not actually represent Texans.

On the other hand, I think if there is a better system we would be foolish not to consider it.
Pharaonism ftw!

I guess I don't follow how that works. Did some body other than the citizens of Texas give McCain a plurality of the votes in Texas?

If the majority of Texans voted for McCain, then it would seem that the will of majority of Texans was represented.

@DI: :lol:
Don't know how well that will be received here. Some of us have kinda gotten used to the idea of not putting all of our eggs in one basket.

Yes, it does represent the majority of Texans, though it ignores the rest.

Perhaps I just disagree with you in that I think that the will of Texas should not be just the majority of Texans' will. It should be represented on the national stage as the various parties that make up Texans in the percentage that they were voted for.

I say this because the electoral college is what elects the president, not us. The electoral college's voters are, in effect, our proxy voters. If the presidential vote was a true (albeit by proxy) majority vote, then all of the parties of Texas would be reflected in the 34 Electoral college votes. But they're not.

The electoral college's purpose is to make the various state's voting power more equal. It's to keep the big ones like Texas from beating up the small ones like Montana. But that purpose can be fulfilled without putting the state's votes all in one basket. Large voting blocs are easier to deal with, certainly, but not at the cost of ignoring so many people. So what possible justification could there be for forcing all of the electoral votes to go to one party?

Yes, it does represent the majority of Texans, though it ignores the rest. But that's the inherent flip-side of any majority rule situation. Even if we went to a straight popular vote election, up to 40.9% of the country will have "their will" ignored at the end of the day. There is no way around this and pushing this from state level to federal level or whatever is just squeezing different ends of the tube of toothpaste, not solving a problem.

Perhaps I just disagree with you in that I think that the will of Texas should not be just the majority of Texans' will. It should be represented on the national stage as the various parties that make up Texans in the percentage that they were voted for. And it's not as though I necessarily disagree with you. As I (and others) have pointed out in other posts, there are multiple reasons why the current system, while imperfect, is still the best one available.

I've been a senior manager in companies with thousands of employees and been directly responsible for hundreds of employees within multiple departments. I have first hand experience with both "trying to make this baby equitable" and "you can't make all the people happy all the time". That's just reality. I can only imagine trying to build a system that actually runs the world's largest democracy.

I say this because the electoral college is what elects the president, not us. While technically accurate, I don't agree that this is actually the case. If it were, the 2000 recount wouldn't have happened. If it were, we wouldn't know who the President-elect is on Tuesday nights. Reality (as I see it) just doesn't seem to fit this argument.

The electoral college's voters are, in effect, our proxy voters. If the presidential vote was a true (albeit by proxy) majority vote, then all of the parties of Texas would be reflected in the 34 Electoral college votes. But they're not. You may have lost me here. I think we're getting hung up on the difference between distributive voting and winner-take-all voting. How those votes are distributed would seem to have very little to do with the electoral college itself.

The electoral college's purpose is to make the various state's voting power more equal. It's to keep the big ones like Texas from beating up the small ones like Montana.Hmm, I think I'm going to have to disagree here. It seems to me that the EC's purpose is to make sure that state's populations are accurately represented. Via that rationale it would be to make sure that small states like Montana aren't given equal weight to big states like Texas. Interesting that you and I have such radically different takes on this point.

But that purpose can be fulfilled without putting the state's votes all in one basket. Large voting blocs are easier to deal with, certainly, but not at the cost of ignoring so many people.Again, this in inherent in any majority rule system. I think it's critical that this point isn't ignored here.

So what possible justification could there be for forcing all of the electoral votes to go to one party?The same argument could be made for giving all of the office to the one guy that won the election. You would have the exact same problem with a straight popular vote as well. I think it helps to remember that we are first and foremost a Republic of States.

Pharaonism ftw!

Well, that certainly would give new meaning to the phrase "I am my brother's keeper."

There are 538 of them and you feel better losing by 1 point than 4.

I really think you should stop while you're ahead.

EDIT: btw, ET Warrior and I made (what I feel are) some sound arguments against changing the current system way back in post 45 and 46. Would you mind taking a stab and addressing those in one of your next posts? I think we've allowed ourselves to get distracted by some minutiae whereas getting back to the "meat and potatoes" might allow us to cover more ground. Thanks.

As requested:

1) This sure would seem to make things even more prohibitive for third party/independent candidates.

2) Completely ignoring that, I could see this system making every election exactly like the 2000 recount.

3) Isn't this a decision made at the state level? I could've sworn that Kansas and one other state practiced distributive votes. :confused:


1: In 1996 we had three parties, Dems, Reps, and Reform. The votes were;
Democrats: 47,402,357
Republicans: 39,198,755
Reform: 8,085,402

Using the Electoral votes divided as they are now, it came out as;

Dem:379
Rep:159
Reform: 0

But as I am suggesting:
Dems: 264 (Needed for clear majority 270)
Rep: 219
Reform: 45

While this doesn’t sound like much, figure this: Clinton won with less that 50 percent of the popular vote. He had 49.23%. You can’t pass a law with 49%, but obviously the largest minority can win a campaign.

Under the rules before this election, it would have had to go to the congress because a president had to have 51% of the vote. The 1824 election you keep bewailing because I mentioned it Achilles was 47%. As I said the parties don’t want it to go to the Congress especially in a tie as close as 2000 was.

If the Party hadn’t self destructed when Buchanan cause his mini coup what do you think could have happened?

2: Then it should go to Congress as it should, rather than through that circus they called the recounts.

3: It can be done two ways; by the people in a referendum vote, or by the states, but neither party will want to make this change, it’s too easy.


One of the problems with dividing electoral votes like that is it makes campaigning in low population states useless. Why would a candidate pay any attention to a state like Wyoming when at most they will probably gain or lose 1 electoral vote? All campaign efforts and money would get pumped into states with 10 or more votes to give, and everyone else would just get ignored.

In post 44 I used the following list along with their electoral votes as to how few states are needed to win an election;
55 California
34 Texas
31 New York
27 FLorida
21Pennsylvania
21 Illinois
20 Ohio
17 Michigan
15 New Jersey
15 Georgia
and one worth 4 or more to win the election.

Of course two of them, California and Texas have voted opposite sides of every election since 1948.

In my example in post #44 the states mentioned are 266 electoral votes missing only four to win. Yet if they got the 51% I mentioned using the divided electoral votes, it would only be 136, requiring support in more states. Both McCain and Dole had more than that and lost. That means even Montana can throw the election either way.

As for losing, I do not worry about that as much as being told that 57% automatically takes all. A fair fight is all right, but being robbed irritates me. At the end of that day I know at least some of us were heard.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, one comment I made above was incorrect. If the electoral votes had been devided as I suggest, Gore would have won by 2. Not Bush by one.

But you can't stop there, the power of the parties themselves has to be divided.