2016 elections - because it's never too early

[11B4V]

I don't trust hunters.

Neither do I.

[CountDeMoney]

I wonder if he was still smirking during his visit from the Secret Service.  They don't smirk back.

[mongers]

Thread has now reached page 666. 

[Habbaku]

Or 1110.

[Valmy]

Or 333.

[grumbler]

WTF are you talking about. Direct democracy works just fine if half your people aren't selfish retards waiting for the rapture.

WTF are you talking about?  What country in the world passes their laws via direct democracy?  Switzerland, for instance, has a legislature with two houses, rather than passing laws via referenda.  Are half the Swiss "selfish retards waiting for the rapture?"

[grumbler]

Garbon, the Electoral College as originally designed makes a certain amount of sense, where each state selected by its own means the electors who would then select the president.

But now that every state selects electors by way of direct voting, and given the "faithless electors" rule which mandates that electors must vote for the candidate the voters selected makes the electoral college nothing but an oddity and an anachronism.  You'd be much better off just moving to a direct voting for President.

The Electoral College is written into the US Constitution.  Eliminating it would be hard.  Changing it to make it follow (essentially, with the difference being quite deliberate) the popular vote would require no changes to the constitution; simply make distribute the EC votes by proportion of candidates' popular votes in the state.  Small states would have a slight advantage in terms of EC weight, but that was intended and part of the grand bargain that allowed the creation of the US.   I think that change is overdue and there really isn't a good reason why it hasn't, except for partisanship.

[mongers]

FWIW Paxman has done a program about the US presidential election, available here, if you can spoof the bbc regional lock:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0803t52/panorama-paxman-on-trump-v-clinton-divided-america

[Valmy]

No thanks. This election is already enough of a spoof.

[alfred russel]

The Electoral College is written into the US Constitution.  Eliminating it would be hard.  Changing it to make it follow (essentially, with the difference being quite deliberate) the popular vote would require no changes to the constitution; simply make distribute the EC votes by proportion of candidates' popular votes in the state.  Small states would have a slight advantage in terms of EC weight, but that was intended and part of the grand bargain that allowed the creation of the US.   I think that change is overdue and there really isn't a good reason why it hasn't, except for partisanship.

Also regionalism.

A more effective way to eliminate the disadvantages of the electoral college would be to pass laws in states with a majority of electoral college states with the following provisions:

1) All electoral votes of the state are awarded to the candidate that is the winner of the nationwide popular vote
2) The law becomes effective once the combined electoral votes of states passing similar laws constitutes a majority of the total electoral votes.

A counterargument to using the popular vote is that there isn't a uniform voting system. Different states have different voting requirements, polls are open different hours, ballots are different, early voting and absentee rules are different, etc.

[Admiral Yi]

2) The law becomes effective once the combined electoral votes of states passing similar laws constitutes a majority of the total electoral votes.

What's the point of this part?  So that 50% +1 of the EVs can be allotted the new way and the rest the old way?

[alfred russel]

2) The law becomes effective once the combined electoral votes of states passing similar laws constitutes a majority of the total electoral votes.

What's the point of this part?  So that 50% +1 of the EVs can be allotted the new way and the rest the old way?

Because if 50% + 1 of the EVs are given to the popular vote winner, then it doesn't matter what the rest do.

The problem with an amendment is you need 3/4ths of states, and supermajorities in the house and senate. With this method, you don't need any votes in the House or Senate, and if you can get big states like New York and California to be on board, you may only need a minority of states.

The problem with any individual state passing a law without that part is that there is a huge problem with being one of the few states having such a law. No one would ever campaign there, and voters would be significantly disenfranchised.

[DGuller]

The Electoral College is written into the US Constitution.  Eliminating it would be hard.  Changing it to make it follow (essentially, with the difference being quite deliberate) the popular vote would require no changes to the constitution; simply make distribute the EC votes by proportion of candidates' popular votes in the state.  Small states would have a slight advantage in terms of EC weight, but that was intended and part of the grand bargain that allowed the creation of the US.   I think that change is overdue and there really isn't a good reason why it hasn't, except for partisanship.

Also regionalism.

A more effective way to eliminate the disadvantages of the electoral college would be to pass laws in states with a majority of electoral college states with the following provisions:

1) All electoral votes of the state are awarded to the candidate that is the winner of the nationwide popular vote
2) The law becomes effective once the combined electoral votes of states passing similar laws constitutes a majority of the total electoral votes.

A counterargument to using the popular vote is that there isn't a uniform voting system. Different states have different voting requirements, polls are open different hours, ballots are different, early voting and absentee rules are different, etc.

Isn't there a system like that already gaining steam?  It's probably the most effective solution by far.

[alfred russel]

I don't know, but I didn't make it up. Someone told me about it.

Maybe on languish, because I really doubt the electoral college came up in a real life conversation. 

[DGuller]

I don't know, but I didn't make it up. Someone told me about it.

Maybe on languish, because I really doubt the electoral college came up in a real life conversation. 

Here it is:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact.  Seems like a blue state thing, though, so it's looking doubtful that it'll get there any time soon.