The Electoral College Sucks

[New Mexican Disaster]

Worse by far to me that the candidates spend more time in swing states is that votes are disproportionate because of the system of assigning votes by congressional representation.

Just tally up the damn votes. Hopefully, if Obama loses the popular vote and wins the electoral, then the tow parties will both have been burned and we can get rid of this proportionate garbage.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Hey Dickhead, you think maybee people are drawing a line in the sand and pledging their lives and sacred honor to protect your right to vote? Get off your fucking ass, stop desecrating their sacrifice and vote. Vote to marry a dude, vote to puff puff give. Vote for 4 more years of Obama or be part of the historic march of Mormonism, I am bully that Romney will do better than Brother Joseph did in 1844, but in any case stop this pedantic bullshit that my vote doesn't count and take charge of the suffrage that so many sacrificed for you to have.

God bless and vote righteously!

[PaloAltoCougar]

'Napper's post, best when read as if his avatar is speaking it while the Battle Hymn of the Republic is playing in the background, stirred my soul [insert bodily tumescence reference here]. I'm going to see if I can vote again.

[BigPiney]

I watched Mo Rocca's film "Electoral Dysfunction" last night. http://electoraldysfunction.org/ It has been showing on the PBS stations, thanks to viewers like you. It was interesting and at times funny and also crazy that we have this system.

I would love to see a proportional system mandated. There is no point in me even voting for President, my state has already been decided. I did it anyway, and got to vote on a bunch of crazy propositions, but I feel left out.

[MarkGrace]

Despite Napper's attempts, I did not vote.

[USUC]

Despite Napper's attempts, I did not vote.

None of my economist friends vote. There is a substantial portion of the libertarian movement who don't vote either. I do but i have written myself in for at least one federal office the last 5 election cycles. I always vote against bond initiatives and against judges.

[Mormon Red Death]

Per TMQ:

It's the 21st Century -- Time for Popular Election of the President: Practically anything could happen in today's election. Some projections suggest Mitt Romney will win the popular vote, while Barack Obama will keep the White House by winning the Electoral College. If this happens, please let it be the spark that sets fire to that anachronistic institution.

In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush took the Electoral College. In 2004, Bush won the popular vote while John Kerry came within an eyelash of taking the Electoral College. If either Romney or Obama takes the White House today while losing the popular vote, please let this catalyze change.

The system of having the president chosen by electors was designed partly to protect slavery. Slave states worried that the populous North would elect an abolitionist president. The Electoral College, combined with denying slaves the vote but counting them as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of allocating electors, helped preserve an abomination for another seven decades.

Some of the Framers opposed slavery but favored the Electoral College, because they did not trust average people. The Constitution was written to have average people represented in the House, via direct election; the landed gentry represented in the Senate, with senators chosen by state legislatures it was assumed the well-off would control; and presidents chosen by councils of electors isolated from what Thomas Jefferson called "the passions" of the illiterate masses.

Maybe that was the right call in 1789. But then, average people were uneducated. Today literacy is universal, and nearly everyone has some education. Direct election of senators was adopted in 1913, with ratification of the 17th Amendment. A century later, there's still no direct election of the president. The United States preaches one-person, one-vote to the world, yet here at home, uses a system that makes a voter in Florida, Ohio or Pennsylvania much more important than a voter in California, Texas or New York.

In current application, the Electoral College over-represents some states, under-represents others, and discourages voter turnout in California, Texas and New York, the nation's most populous states. Sunday, Obama made his seventh campaign appearance in New Hampshire, population 1.3 million -- the president has made no campaign appearances in Texas, population 26 million. Hundreds of votes in California, Texas or New York can mean less than a single vote in Wisconsin. This is what the United States wants to tell the world is a democratic ideal?

Because of the anachronistic Electoral College, issues that matter in battleground states -- coal use in Ohio and Pennsylvania, anti-Castro sentiment in Florida -- get more attention during elections than issues involving much larger numbers of people, such as the quality of public education in California and Texas. And the attention doesn't even help battleground states. In the past three presidential election cycles, both parties have treated Ohio as the center of the known universe. Yet Ohio remains a troubled state, with industrial decline and government corruption.

A destructive dynamic exists between the Electoral College and modern techniques of targeted lobbying and ZIP code analysis of voter tendencies. The better campaign consultants become at manipulating votes, the more the Electoral College becomes a tool for special interests, favoring them versus the overall national interest.

The Electoral College locks the country into a two-party system in which true alternative voices are not heard. If a third-party candidate cannot take all the electors of a state, that candidate cannot be anything but a spoiler. This forces third parties into a negative role, draining the creativity from national politics.

The problem could in theory be solved if every state legislature switched to awarding electors proportionate to votes, rather than winner-take-all. Currently, only Nebraska and Maine use this enlightened approach. The trouble is that if many states began enacting proportional-elector laws, each four years as the presidential endgame became clear, Republican-controlled or Democratic-controlled states would change their laws to put their candidates over the top. That's the fatal flaw of this otherwise worthy initiative.

The solution is a constitutional amendment establishing direct popular election of the president. This is needed to bring the United States into the 20th century, to say nothing of the 21st century. We can't lecture the world about representative democracy when we still don't have it here. Yes, popular vote would make big cities more important than rural states -- but big cities are more important than rural states, and at any rate, the composition of the Senate adjusts for small-state concerns. There's just no reason to keep the antiquated Electoral College. The only ones who benefit from keeping the system the way it is are campaign consultants, lawyers and corrupt politicians.

If there were direct election of the president, nonsense like the 2000 Florida recount-of-the-recount-of-the-recount would not happen, nor would nonsense like this. The whole reason for the 2000 Supreme Court decision effectively choosing the president was that the Electoral College disenfranchises some while magnifying the votes of others. Was the George W. Bush presidency legitimate? Will the Mitt Romney or second Obama presidency be legitimate? With popular-vote election, we'd be sure.

[Uncle Ted]

None of my economist friends vote. There is a substantial portion of the libertarian movement who don't vote either. I do but i have written myself in for at least one federal office the last 5 election cycles. I always vote against bond initiatives and against judges.

Libertarian's that don't vote...

[old_gregg]

Hey Dickhead, you think maybee people are drawing a line in the sand and pledging their lives and sacred honor to protect your right to vote? Get off your fucking ass, stop desecrating their sacrifice and vote. Vote to marry a dude, vote to puff puff give. Vote for 4 more years of Obama or be part of the historic march of Mormonism, I am bully that Romney will do better than Brother Joseph did in 1844, but in any case stop this pedantic bullshit that my vote doesn't count and take charge of the suffrage that so many sacrificed for you to have.

God bless and vote righteously!

Spoiler for NSFW:

[youtube]sWS-FoXbjVI[/youtube]

[Goatnapper'96]

Spoiler for NSFW:

[youtube]sWS-FoXbjVI[/youtube]

There is a picture at about the 1:19 point that is particularly uplifting!

[Applejack]

Agreed. Just count the votes.

[bluegoose]

and got to vote on a bunch of crazy propositions, but I feel left out.

Serious. What a waste of time of money.

[Eddie]

I admit to being curious as to how this would change voter turnout. The article above (long enough I didn't want to quote it here) seems to indicate that the EC discourages voter turnout in places like New York and California.

Couldn't the same be said for places like Utah, Idaho, etc.?

I did find one item a little troubling...discussion of how a direct vote would turn the attention of the election to education in California and Texas. Isn't education a matter for the states to worry about?

[All-American]

I feel this way a lot of the time. AA made an argument as to why it's still necessary, and I can see what he's saying. His basic argument is that it distributes the power to elect more proportionally instead of just focusing on urban centers. I do wonder, however, how many people there are -- like myself -- who are located in urban centers and abstain from voting simply because they don't see the point. I think Romney's kind of a weenie, but if I did cast a vote tomorrow, it would probably be for him. But as it stands, there's no point in making my way toward a booth.

Your vote never matters. There is never a point. Get over it.

[MarkGrace]

Your vote never matters. There is never a point. Get over it.

Oh, I'm over it. I don't care enough to worry.