Virginia passes Bill to give presidential electoral votes to national popular vote winner.
- Thread starter fried-chicken
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There are approximately 15 "swing" states spread out in every part of the country. We're not talking just two or three states make all the difference. And for some historical perspective:
Since the 1976 election, 42 states have gone either R or D at least once (the only exceptions are OK, KS, NE, SD, ND, WY, ID, and UT). That's 11 presidential elections in which nearly every state has been a swing state at least once. It's likely that almost every blue state will switch to red and red state will switch to blue in your lifetime. Don't be a prisoner of the moment and think otherwise.
Maybe we shouldn't overhaul an entire system that has worked well for ~230 years simply because one group of states currently holds a disproportionate degree of influence over another group. Over time, the non-swing states can become swing states again while the current group of swing states may settle firmly in one camp or the other.
Since the 1976 election, 42 states have gone either R or D at least once (the only exceptions are OK, KS, NE, SD, ND, WY, ID, and UT). That's 11 presidential elections in which nearly every state has been a swing state at least once. It's likely that almost every blue state will switch to red and red state will switch to blue in your lifetime. Don't be a prisoner of the moment and think otherwise.
Maybe we shouldn't overhaul an entire system that has worked well for ~230 years simply because one group of states currently holds a disproportionate degree of influence over another group. Over time, the non-swing states can become swing states again while the current group of swing states may settle firmly in one camp or the other.
So just wait and sometime in your life time your vote may matter assuming you live in the appropriate state. Or maybe it won’t if you live in one of the 8 states that have voted for a single party in the past 50 years. And this proves that proportional electoral votes is a bad idea how? You say that the system just “works” and that is enough reason for it. What would be evidence for or against it “working”? Isn’t that just an opinion?
Can you please stop saying "your vote doesn't matter"? Just because you vote a certain way in a state and the national EC delegates don't go your way doesn't mean "your vote doesn't matter". There's also the fact that every ballot in Pres election year has state and local elections to vote for, ballot initiatives, etc. Do those votes not matter either just because your Pres pick didn't win your state?
Good Lord.
Or we could just go to a popular vote and the whole concept of a swing state wouldn't even exist.
The point is that every state can be a swing state but the politicians and party activists have to do the hard work of persuading their neighbors and communities to vote for a different party platform. If the Democrats want to swing Wyoming or Utah, they need to do a better job of convincing the voters in those states why they would be better off voting for a democratic presidential candidate. Or they could moderate their party platform to appeal to those voters. Same goes for Republicans in Massachusetts, NY, and California. Broad appeal requires a more moderate platform which is an inherently good thing when governing a nation of 330 million people.
As for the wisdom of the electoral college, every region of the country has different interests. It's a big country, how can it not? The EC forces presidential candidates to care about every region, including the rural central rather than just the big cities on the coasts. Again, the net effect is that the two parties are forced to moderate their platforms to appeal to each region.
The empirical evidence that the system works is that the presidency has transferred back and forth between the two parties every 8-12 years almost without fail for most of the country's history. Transferring power is inherently good because it allows one party to check the power of the other. Now, maybe the same would be true with a national popular vote but elections decided by popular vote (local and state officers) seem less prone to vacillation than the presidency. I don't think that is a good thing. But I'm willing to concede I'm wrong if you can show me that it's more likely parties switch power where the vote is decided by popular election.
I understand the really big states liking other states doing this, but the politicians are basically eliminating the vote of their own residents.
If Trump wins the popular vote and a Dem managed to win the electoral vote, I would be a really pissed off Democratic voter, and the same would be true on the other side, if the shoe was on the other foot. Smaller states no longer matter if they keep doing this.
If Trump wins the popular vote and a Dem managed to win the electoral vote, I would be a really pissed off Democratic voter, and the same would be true on the other side, if the shoe was on the other foot. Smaller states no longer matter if they keep doing this.
How would proportional electoral votes rather than winner take all diminish anything? It wouldn’t.
A Californians presidential vote does not matter. It doesn’t go toward an aggregate total for a popular vote. It doesn’t go toward a proportional total to determine a proportional number of electoral votes. All California electoral votes (and often the presidency) are called for the Democratic candidate before voting ends there. Sure they can feel free to cast votes for state and local elections and those will actually matter. But there is nothing more worthless than their vote for president.
Sorry. I missed that you mentioned proportional electoral votes. I thought you were talking about national popular vote as others have discussed. My mistake. I'm not sure that proportional electoral votes would diminish anything. I would be open to that idea but need to consider the pros and cons.
This discounts that there are plenty of differences within each state as well. This idea of "red state blue state" is just something we made up, pretty much every state is in fact purple. As I mentioned earlier, Trump got over 4 million votes in California (which didn't count for anything), which is more than he received in TN, Ala, and MS combined, yet we considered Cali as a deep blue state and the others as deep red states. The only reason they are considered red and blue is because of the EC but in reality they are all various shades of purple.
Why is transferring power between parties an inherently good thing? If one party is doing a good job and the other party isn't, then why would we want to keep transferring power back and forth? Why wouldn't we just want the better party to be in power, at least until the other party started doing a better job?
Actually they aren’t eliminating their own residents votes as their residents votes would go towards the aggregate number of votes for a candidate. In fact they are essentially eliminating the effect of the electoral college in Virginia without actually doing away with it.
Explain exactly what you're talking about when you say "proportional", just for clarification. Would each state still have 2 additional EC votes? If not, neither trump nor hillary would have won.
I don't disagree on your first point. Every state is much more purple than red or blue. But we don't have one national presidential election. We have 50 state elections + D.C. The winner of each state election wins the entire state. To win the state you need to gain a majority faction within the state. As was stated above, I would be open to a national proportional election based on each congressional district (like ME and NE), but then we're having the same discussion about swing districts instead of swing states.
Transferring power between parties prevents the party that is in power from arrogating greater rights and authority unto itself thereby solidifying its grip on its power. Basically, no matter how good of a job a party is doing while in power, it's probably a good thing for that power to change sides every so often to prevent something approaching a one-party system.
As long as congress and the courts are doing there jobs properly, then that shouldn't be an issue (though if they aren't, then is can certainly be an issue, but at that point voting might not matter much anyway). I think 2 terms is enough for an individual as president, but I don't think the party matters as much in that regards because parties change and the power one person wants might not be the same power another person wants 4 years later. But again, as long as congress and the courts keep their checks on the executive branch it shouldn't matter anyway.
Wyoming is what, like .55% of electoral vote but .18% of the population. I'm totally fine with them having a louder voice too. As mentioned it's often a completely different way of life and I'm not comfortable with people unfamiliar with that life drowning them out completely. My issue is not with making sure these states have a voice, it's simply with how the votes are divided. I'm fine if we don't want to go straight to popular vote.
Trump got 68% of the vote in Wyoming. Getting 2 of the 3 votes instead of all 3 seems completely reasonable. That's still 2x the influence the state would have if there were a straight popular vote.
To counter that Trump would pick up 17 votes in Cali instead of 0. This seems very reasonable. I just have a hard time understanding how it's less fair for literally everyone.
I understand the desire to give smaller states more say, I understand the reluctance for straight popular vote and I understand the gerrymandering concern if there was a move to using congressional districts.
Trump got 68% of the vote in Wyoming. Getting 2 of the 3 votes instead of all 3 seems completely reasonable. That's still 2x the influence the state would have if there were a straight popular vote.
To counter that Trump would pick up 17 votes in Cali instead of 0. This seems very reasonable. I just have a hard time understanding how it's less fair for literally everyone.
I understand the desire to give smaller states more say, I understand the reluctance for straight popular vote and I understand the gerrymandering concern if there was a move to using congressional districts.
This is already the case as previously demonstrated. Small states have more electoral power per voter than large states. And that’s fine. The key is providing incentive for a minority voter in a state to cast a vote.
We already do this in many states for presidential primary’s when selecting delegates. It’s not all or nothing in these states.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/proportional-representation
Proportional. As in the percentage of votes is equal to the percentage of that states EC votes a candidate gets. Look at the Massachusetts Republican primary as an example. Trump got 22 delegates with 49% of the vote. Kasich and Rubio both got around 18% of the vote and 8 delegates and Cruz got 9.5% and 4 delegates. The Republican nominee was nominated based on a total delegate count across states. So even candidates that got a minority of votes in a single state could still accumulate delegates there proportionately.
Interesting. The biggest issue I see there is it would make it much more likely that no candidate gets to 270.
There are thresholds in place in the primaries where a candidate needs a certain percentage to receive delegates. The same could be done with the EC. If a third party candidate received enough EC votes so that no candidate reached the threshold of 270, that means we don’t have a candidate with a mandate. Only 3 of the past 7 presidents have had a mandate anyway. Ideally we could move to a two round system similar to France where if after the first round no candidate receives an absolute majority, then the top 2 candidates go to another round of voting. They could eliminate the need for a second round by simply using a ranked choice ballot similar to what Maine will be using for the 2020 presidential election.
Ranked choice is really the way to go and would really increase the viability of a third party candidate as there wouldn’t be this concept of “throwing your vote away” if you don’t vote for a candidate from the two major parties. Hopefully other states begin to adopt it as well as everything moves to electronic. It’s more difficult to do with hand counted ballots.
To pull it off, I think the federal govt would have to take over authority on presidential elections. That seems a little bit problematic. We would need a basis to go off of for who gets on the ballot, so what is the metric they use and what backstops would be necessary to keep the party in power from manipulating it?
The feds don’t need to do anything. The states choose the mechanism by which candidates get electoral votes. Maine is already using it for 2020 presidential election. Ranked choice comes into play if no candidate has an absolute majority. Same would be true for the electoral college. If no absolute majority, states would remove all but the two candidates with the most electoral votes from the ranked choice ballots and tally again.
It just seems to me that if there isn't consistency among states we would end up with a lot of elections where nobody gets to 270, so the house would be left to decide. Take the 92 and 96 elections as an example. Perot would have gotten enough electoral votes to keep Clinton and bush from winning straight out. That would lead to Clinton winning in 92 but dole winning in 96, which would seem even more political than the system we have now.
The house selecting the president for less than 270 EC votes is a stupid rule anyway that should be abolished. As if that is somehow better than electing the candidate with the most EC votes. While that may not be the optimal solution if they don’t have more than 50% of the EC votes, it is far superior to letting the house pick a president.
Short of federal changes as well as state changes, that's what we would have. I would just like to find a solution that isnt direct democracy and isnt dictated by a 2 party system. I do think we could do away with the EC but so far every proposal to do so is lacking and would probably make matters worse.
States can essentially do away with the electoral college in practice by defining how their electoral votes are allocated. If a state wants to allocate proportionally they can do so. Maine seems to be at the forefront of changes as they allocate electoral votes by congressional district already rather than winner take all, and are using ranked choice voting. The problem is the electoral vote windfall for a state like California or Texas is very large and the state governments are controlled by parties who directly benefit from the winner take all system in these states. It really needs to be done on a more national scale rather than phasing some state in. You can’t have California going proportional and Texas not. Or visa versa. Still what Virginia is doing is interesting. Sort of a way to work within the confines of the current electoral college. With any change there will be resistance from parties who feel the existing system is more beneficial to them. Even if a different system produces fairer results. That is what will make it so hard to implement on a national scale. A state like Maine or Nebraska (who doesn’t have a winner take all system either) is small enough that they can get away with doing it without much resistance.
This thread is about a bill which changes the way Virginia allocates it’s EC votes. So not sure what you mean by nothing will change. Maine recently enacted a citizen initiated referendum changing how their electoral votes are allocated (moving to a ranked choice ballot). So yes, change can happen even without abolishing the EC.
yea but those states passing those laws need to hit a certain threshold first
The Maine law is in effect for 2020 presidential election (ranked choice ballot). You are correct though that the effect of the Virginia law won’t be felt until states with a combined 270 votes have passed the law. Prior to Virginia it was at 196. Now at 209. We aren’t there yet, but we are moving in the right direction.
I'll be amazed if the interstate compact doesn't face so many legal challenges that it gets tied up in court forever. There are enough constitutional arguments to be made against it that it will probably never come to fruition.
States rights! How dare the federal government tell the states how to delegate their own electoral votes. We're a republic if you don't remember.
Legal challenge to what? It’s a states right to determine how their electoral votes are cast.
Question, did you say a few weeks ago when the impeach trial was under way that our Constitution is in crisis? It's a rhetorical question.
The system is designed this way for a purpose. For starters we are a Constitutional Representative Republic not a democracy of 1 guy or gal means 1 vote.
Read what Hamilton wrote about it in Federalist 68.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp
The Constitution was created to dilute power not concentrate it. The President was to be selected by delegates to represent all the states not just the big ones. Why is it a populated state should be able to run rough shod over a rural state? It makes rural voices meaningless. Look at NY State, a large number of people are conservative, yet New York government is not. Why? Because power is concentrated in the city. If you live outside the city, your interests and voice is null and void. How is that the least bit fair that rural and small town interests don't matter? They matter, they are just different than a city.
Chicago and Illinois are the same way. It's Chicago politics and interest only drive that state. Not only do I think the electorial college works ,but we should have it at the state level too. My interests in rural North Carolina matter and I don't want to surrender my voice to the a handful of cities.
You say one one voice , one vote and that's what the House is for. The House Represents your voice , the President is supposed to consider OUR voices, yours and mine. Do away with the electoral college and my voice and vote goes silent and you and yours becomes dominant. That's called tyranny . I want liberty and the electoral college tempers against tyranny. It means my voice and yours can be heard relatively the same at the executive level.
The system is designed this way for a purpose. For starters we are a Constitutional Representative Republic not a democracy of 1 guy or gal means 1 vote.
Read what Hamilton wrote about it in Federalist 68.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp
The Constitution was created to dilute power not concentrate it. The President was to be selected by delegates to represent all the states not just the big ones. Why is it a populated state should be able to run rough shod over a rural state? It makes rural voices meaningless. Look at NY State, a large number of people are conservative, yet New York government is not. Why? Because power is concentrated in the city. If you live outside the city, your interests and voice is null and void. How is that the least bit fair that rural and small town interests don't matter? They matter, they are just different than a city.
Chicago and Illinois are the same way. It's Chicago politics and interest only drive that state. Not only do I think the electorial college works ,but we should have it at the state level too. My interests in rural North Carolina matter and I don't want to surrender my voice to the a handful of cities.
You say one one voice , one vote and that's what the House is for. The House Represents your voice , the President is supposed to consider OUR voices, yours and mine. Do away with the electoral college and my voice and vote goes silent and you and yours becomes dominant. That's called tyranny . I want liberty and the electoral college tempers against tyranny. It means my voice and yours can be heard relatively the same at the executive level.
Well, the first and most obvious one is that states cannot legally join compacts with one another without consent of congress (compact clause). The other obvious one is that states are not required to publish their vote totals so a state like Texas (or any state that has enough eligible voters to affect the total popular vote, for that matter) could derail the whole thing and the compact states wouldn't be able to send their electors (privacy rights, 10th amendment). The only reason there havent already been challenges is because it doesnt take effect yet so nobody has standing.
We are still a Representative Republic without the electoral college. Each state has the same amount of senators, and each district has one rep, plus each state has their own government. That is what makes us a Representative Republic, not the EC. The EC is just the manner in which we elect the president, but it doesnt shape the manner in which our government is constructed. Smaller states still have the same amount of senators as larger states, and each district (which districts can vary greatly within a single state) have their own Rep to look out for their interests.
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