The Electoral College is racist and should be abolished

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: Gryphon66

Every State currently awards its Electors based on the popular vote. The first place winner takes ALL the Electors.

Nebraska and Maine aren't states?

Yep. And they assign their votes based on the Popular vote. They award them them by congressional district rather than statewide (except for the two representing the Senate), and that is still first past the post. Closer to what I’m recommending, but still disenfranchises the all voters for every candidate that isn’t first.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Teikiatsu

Alternatively I wouldn't mind if we actually had the Electors on the ballots instead of the Presidential candidates, and those Electors pledged who they would vote for up front.

That's pretty close to how we do it here. The ballot contains the name of the elector and the person he/she has pledged to support.

Of course, the other side of that is that nobody really knows who the elector is, and no one I know actually considers the elector when casting their vote. They go for the name of the Presidential candidate supported. The electors are usually politically active people from the Montgomery area who see their name on the ballot as some sort of reward for their party allegiance. I can only suppose they use their trip to DC on the taxpayer's dime to drum up some lobby money or work on their networking skills for a future political campaign.

I honestly don't know if they are allowed to change their vote after becoming elector.

TheRedneck

If we allowed voting for the elector it would create a situation similar to the district methods that Nebraska and Maine have, while creating transparency to poeple that they are not actually voting directly for the President themselves.

It's just an alternate idea to put the power into the hands of the people without going into a direct popular vote fiasco.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
Just remember, your disagreement doesn’t make me wrong.

I never said it did. That's a strawman argument you like to trot out. Disagreements are great.

But when you are wrong, you are wrong. Like this:

Right, the way Senators are elected changed. You may also have heard we no longer consider Black Americans as 3/5ths of a person. We evolve over time and change ... like changing the way we assign Electors at the State level, eh?

We never considered black Americans to be 3/5 or a person. First off, we didn't have the 13th Amendment when the 3/5 Compromise was written and the citizenship of the non-free persons was up for debate. Second, the Constitution never calls out any person by the color of their skin. Third, the 3/5 compromise did not assign value to people, and it prevented the slave states from claiming more representation and influence in the federal government.

Northern non-slave states wanted non-free people to not count at all towards representation. At all. Zero. Goose-egg. In other words, "0/5 of a person." I suppose they were rampaging racists huh? And the Southern slave states wanted their non-free people to count as 5/5 towards representation. How enlightened they were, huh? Not racist at all...

Honestly, I thought you were aware of that. I'd prefer to not think you are ignorant of history and civics.

The President is elected by popular vote. How does one win a slate of Electors in a State? Stop obfusticating.

The popular vote in a State is indeed the majority influence on how the Electors vote, I have never said otherwise. But is not a mandate. Don't you recall all the progressives trying to influence Electors after Trump won the November 2016 election?

In fact, the only office in the country that is NOT directly elected by the people of the United States is the President ... which is why I said that making a change toward proportional representation at the State level would bring the EC more in line with the rest of our practices.

Yes, we've seen you repeat it over and over. You are welcome to your opinion. I have said it's a terrible idea. I've also said that the 17th Amendment was a terrible mistake and should be repealed. It was not an evolved action, it was regressive though cloaked in the meddling nature of the ironically named 'Progressive Era.'

You have referenced our previous discussions and so have I.

Please don’t suggest that you don’t claim that somehow, magically, the EC protects the few from the many, the poor struggling “Red States” from the populous “Blue” inner cities.

Referenced, not so much. Maybe recalled one thing or another in some type of fuzzy fashion... maybe. That's no reason to bring up some derailing conversation. Start a new thread if it's that important to you.

Show me a system that preserves the integrity of every vote without scrapping the Electoral College.

Why bother?

My way is not the only way, only the most fair I have yet conceived. But please, stop with this full-throated praise for a system that perpetuates the two party hegemony and excludes any possibility of us ever getting out of the mess we have ourselves in.

Please stop with straw man arguments and hyperbole. The election of the President is not a keystone to fixing US politics. The two party system isn't going to be broken up by how the Chief Executive is chosen. As we have seen, all it takes is an extremist House Leader and a single rogue committee chairman to threaten the office of the Executive.

The electoral college does not promote the two-party system. Ignorance and apathy of the masses is what promotes the system. Decentralization is what we need, and that means the States would need to regain more of their originally intended powers. The best option at this time (in my opinion) would be to keep moving towards the Constitutional Convention of the States to start proposing Amendments to knee-cap the power base of the Federal Government and Bureaucracy.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

If we allowed voting for the elector it would create a situation similar to the district methods that Nebraska and Maine have, while creating transparency to poeple that they are not actually voting directly for the President themselves.

I was under the impression that every state held votes for electors and not directly for the President. That's not to say I am surprised to hear some states don't place the electors' names in the ballot, just that I had never considered the vote being for the President directly.

Gonna pick up a few points in your next post as well:

Northern non-slave states wanted non-free people to not count at all towards representation. At all. Zero. Goose-egg. In other words, "0/5 of a person." I suppose they were rampaging racists huh? And the Southern slave states wanted their non-free people to count as 5/5 towards representation. How enlightened they were, huh? Not racist at all...

Thank you for pointing that out. I am constantly amazed at how little actual history people know, and how much false history they seem to believe.

The popular vote in a State is indeed the majority influence on how the Electors vote, I have never said otherwise. But is not a mandate.

In some states it is, by state law. I'm not sure about Alabama... need to look that up.

That was pointed out in the 2016 fiasco. Certain states could not have their votes changed by the electors, while others could. The Clinton campaign concentrated on those who could.

The electoral college does not promote the two-party system. Ignorance and apathy of the masses is what promotes the system.

Don't really have a comment on this; I just wanted to see it repeated.

Well said.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
I was under the impression that every state held votes for electors and not directly for the President. That's not to say I am surprised to hear some states don't place the electors' names in the ballot, just that I had never considered the vote being for the President directly.

Technically yes they do, but every Presidential ballot I have ever seen lists the name of the Presidential candidate and perhaps their running mate. No where have I seen them list the name of the Electors chosen by the State's political parties. My proposal would swap that out. So in 2016 instead of seeing:

Trump/Pence
Clinton/Kane
Johnson/??
Stein/??

You'd see something like:

?? - pledges to vote for Trump (District)
?? - pledges to vote for Clinton (District)
?? - pledges to vote for Johnson (District)
etc... and

?? - pledges to vote for Trump (Senatorial)
?? - pledges to vote for Trump (Senatorial)
?? - pledges to vote for Clinton (Senatorial)
?? - pledges to vote for Clinton (Senatorial)
etc...

In some states it is [mandated], by state law. I'm not sure about Alabama... need to look that up.

That was pointed out in the 2016 fiasco. Certain states could not have their votes changed by the electors, while others could. The Clinton campaign concentrated on those who could.

Fair enough, I'll probably look into those State's mandates later today. I think that if the SCOTUS picks up Baca vs. Colorado that the laws would be struck down, personal opinion.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Technically yes they do, but every Presidential ballot I have ever seen lists the name of the Presidential candidate and perhaps their running mate.

Here, if memory serves, the ballot lists the names of the candidates, with the names of the actual electors underneath them. Alabama is a winner-take-all state, so there's no breakdown by district. Whichever group of electors wins, wins.

The reason I remember that is I was a bit shocked to notice the electors' names on the 2016 ballot. I had never noticed it before. Maybe it was something new? In either case, I liked the idea of the electors' names being somewhere on the ballot.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Hmmm... need to update my statement. I just took a look at the 2016 sample ballot and there is no mention of electors, only the candidates and their running mates. So I must have been mistaken.

I know that somewhere I saw what I described above, but it's been 3 years and some days I can't remember when I ate last, lol. Anyway, I agree with you that the electors' names should be on the ballot.

TheRedneck

No American President has ever achieved a majority of the votes from elligible voters.
It's always been under 50%.

The popular vote was recorded from the 1824 election onwards and the highest a President has achieved is 42.6% of eligible voters.

Those who have pushed the popular vote as a talking point since 2016 are as dumb as dog mess.

President % of elligible voters who voted for the President
1 Ulysses Grant 42.6%
2 William Henry Harrison 42.5%
3 Abraham Lincoln 42.0%
4 William McKinley 40.6%
5 Ulysses Grant 40.1%
6 Rutherford Hayes 39.6%
7 James Polk 39.2%
8 James Garfield 38.9%
9 Benjamin Harrison 38.5%
10 Lyndon Johnson 38.3%
11 Grover Cleveland 38.2%
12 William McKinley 38.1%
13 Franklin Roosevelt 37.1%
14 Theodore Roosevelt 37.0%
15 James Buchanan 36.0%
16 Franklin Pierce 35.3%
17 Grover Cleveland 34.9%
18 Dwight Eisenhower 34.5%
19 Zachary Taylor 34.4%
20 Dwight Eisenhower 34.4%
21 Franklin Roosevelt 34.2%
22 Richard Nixon 34.1%
23 William Taft 33.9%
24 Herbert Hoover 33.1%
25 Franklin Roosevelt 32.7%
26 Barack Obama 32.6%
27 Ronald Reagan 32.4%
28 Abraham Lincoln 32.4%
29 Andrew Jackson 32.0%
30 John Kennedy 31.7%
31 Andrew Jackson 31.2%
32 George W. Bush 30.5%
33 Woodrow Wilson 30.4%
34 Barack Obama 29.9%
35 Franklin Roosevelt 29.8%
36 Warren Harding 29.7%
37 Martin Van Buren 28.7%
38 George H. W. Bush 28.2%
39 Donald Trump 27.7%
40 Ronald Reagan 27.5%
41 Jimmy Carter 27.4%
42 Richard Nixon 27.1%
43 Calvin Coolidge 26.4%
44 George W. Bush 25.9%
45 Harry Truman 25.9%
46 Bill Clinton 25.5%
47 Bill Clinton 25.0%
48 Woodrow Wilson 24.7%
49 John Quincy Adams 8.3%