The Electoral College Thread

Others have suggested that while we shouldn't give up on the South, the strategy should be a generational one that relies in post-2004 cycles on the demographics of African-Americans and tech workers moving there.

That Washington Post article irked me.. How can one not tend to think something's wrong when a major party decides to just write off a huge chunk of the country? You don't have to pour tons of money into the South and believe it's impossible to win the election without it, in order to take seriously the fact that there is a very, very big disconnect between a lot of voters and the message/image of the Democratic Party. I'm struck by the fact that this strategist is willing to accept this divisiveness without even interrogating it - and then goes on to say, well, we can't turn out enough black voters to win in the South, so let's try to appeal to Latinos in the Southwest and win there..

I guess my basic questions are, why are we not interested in knowing why Democratic Party strategists are trying to write off the South? What does that say about our opinion of certain people - that we don't even deign to try and communicate with them any more? I don't appreciate Zell Miller endorsing Bush but I also think one shouldn't be deaf to many of his complaints..

Despite the recent controversies I still hope the Dean campaign doesn't accept this - and what strikes me as an important difference is the level of grassroots support Dean has. Unlike Gore, there won't be a massive net loss of resources if Dean keeps running a grassroots campaign in the South - you couldn't divert many of these folks to Florida if you wanted to. Actually, I hope that even if Dean is not the nominee, the grassroots people don't quit - there is the potential to organize huge GOTV efforts and that can only help Democrats.

Incidentally, I'm very proud of Senator Landrieu's performance during the filibuster. She usually embarasses me with her deference to the oil industry, but she was on fire!

http://nutrias.org/~nopl/photos/recent/morerecent8/recent486.jpg

* sigh *

We have a Nevada County down here. It's pronounced ne-vay-duh.

Seems like there was a particular American city that JFK continually mispronounced that eventually voted against him for it. Wish I could remember that one right now.

They should send Bush to Worchester, Mass. That would be fun.

Let's look at some state-by-state numbers. Some are better than others and I'll focus on these. Consider that many are from before Super Tuesday, which gave Kerry an additional bump in the polls.

Arizona
2000 vote - Bush 51, Gore 45
ASU poll, mid-late Feb - Kerry 46, Bush 44

Florida
2000 vote - Bush 49, Gore 49
Miami Herald poll, early Mar - Kerry 49, Bush 43

Indiana
2000 vote - Bush 57, Gore 41
SurveyUSA poll, mid-Feb - Bush 51, Kerry 45 (Bayh would give us the 3 points easy)

Iowa
2000 vote - Gore 49, Bush 48
Des Moines Register poll, early Feb - Kerry 49, Bush 42

Missouri
2000 vote - Bush 50, Gore 47
Decision Research (Dem) poll, mid-Feb - Kerry 49, Bush 46

Nevada
2000 vote - Bush 50, Gore 46
Survey USA poll, mid-Feb - Bush 49, Kerry 48

New Hampshire
2000 vote - Bush 48, Gore 47
UNH poll, early Feb - Kerry 53, Bush 38

Pennsylvania
2000 vote - Gore 51, Bush 46
Quinnipiac poll, mid-Feb - Kerry 50, Bush 45

Washington
2000 vote - Gore 50, Bush 45
SurveyUSA poll, early Feb - Kerry 55, Bush 43

Are there any state-by-state breakdowns on House delegations? I assume it would follow party lines - states with a GOP majority and states with a Dem majority. That would actually favor Kerry, as Texas has zero chance of going to him, but the Congressional delegation is (for now) 17-15 Dem.

Assuming they could keep the Texas Dems in line, that's a gift from God. (That could be offset by the NY and Cali. delegations, though)

US House - 4 Democrat, 6 Republican
US Senate - 1 Democrat (Bayh), 1 Republican (Lugar)

Senate- Democrat Majority
General Assembly- Democrat Majority
Governor- Republican
US House - 3 Democrat, 1 Republican
US Senate - 2 Democrat

2000 Result: Bush 51%, Gore 46%, Nader 2%

Arizona
Margin - 95,000 votes
Growth - 450,000 people

Colorado
Margin - 145,000 votes (90,000 for Nader)
Growth - 250,000 people

Florida
Margin - less than 600 votes
Growth - more than 1 million people

Georgia
Margin - 300,000 votes
Growth - 500,000 people

Nevada
Margin - 20,000 votes
Growth - 240,000 people

Minnesota
Margin - 60,000 votes (125,000 Nader)
Growth - 130,000 people

Missouri
Margin - 80,000 votes (40,000 Nader)
Growth - 110,000 people

New Mexico
Margin - less than 400 (20,000 Nader)
Growth - 55,000 people

Oregon
Margin - 7,000 people (77,000 Nader)
Growth - 140,000 people

Tennessee
Margin - 80,000 votes (20,000 Nader)
Growth - 150,000 people

Virginia
Margin - 220,000 votes (60,000 Nader)
Growth - 310,000 people

Washington
Margin - 130,000 votes (100,000 Nader)
Growth - 240,000 people

Wisconsin
Margin - 6,000 (94,000 Nader)
Growth - 110,000

All of the states had a Bush-Gore margin of less than 10%. Two - Nevada and Tennessee - had a margin of less than 5%.

If you add the Nader vote to the Gore vote, six of the states - Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Tennessee, and West Virginia - had a margin of less than 5%, and one of these - Nevada - had a margin of only 1%.

Five of the states - Arizona, Arkansas, Nevada, Tennessee, and West Virginia - had percentage voting-age-population turnouts of below 50%, and six (add Virginia) had below average VAP % turnouts.

Older Electoral Results

Seven of these states - all but VA - voted for Bill Clinton. Four of these states - Arizona, Louisiana, Nevada, and Tennessee - have elected Democratic governors since 2000, and Louisiana also elected a Democratic Senator.

The Vice Presidential factor

Six of these states are the home state, or are next door to and culturally similar to the home state, of a Vice Presidential prospect:

AR: Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton (both highly unlikely)
AZ: Bill Richardson (New Mexico)
CO: Bill Richardson (New Mexico)
LA: Mary Landrieu, John Breaux (both unlikely)
VA: Mark Warner (unlikely), John Edwards (North Carolina)
WV: Jay Rockefeller, Ed Rendell (Pennsylvania)

The Demographic Factor

Three of these states - Arizona, Colorado and Nevada - are in the top 10 for growth in the last few years. All have substantial hispanic populations.

The regional factor

Seven of the eight states have substantial population in a region that favors or is neutral to Democrats.

AR: Big River (52% Gore+Nader)
AZ: El Norte (58% Gore+Nader)
CO: El Norte
LA: Southern Lowlands (50% Gore+Nader)
NV: El Norte
TN: Big River
VA: Southern Lowlands

Also, I doubt that dissatisfaction with the electoral college is a leading cause
of non-voting. Americans are ignorant; most non-voters probably don't know
what the electoral college is (besides a few half-remembered news stories from
the 2000 recount debacle).

But that's a ridiculous argument to get into in the first place. If a majority of Americans were willing to empower an authoritarian regime, the electoral college isn't going to stop a damn thing. They're just going to take power one way or another, having the support of a majority of the populace. Laws mean nothing without the support of the people or the force necessary to enforce them (ie gunz)

I'm curious about this "tends to happen all the time" - can you cite an instance where a democratic election led directly to the empowerment of a dictatorship?

a candidate needs 1) a majority of the vote and 2) the majority needs to be broadly distributed across the country. in our system *2* takes precedence over *1*, because we are a republic of united states. that's the check = the founders assumed that a tyranny would be a localized movement, that a charismatic leader with sway over new york and pennsylvania wouldn't have sway over the carolinas.

also the last sentence of your second paragraph = extremely half-baked.

2) is somewhat correct if you ignore the Civil War and the Civil Rights era and all that stuff where we became one nation under god indivisible, etc.. Vahid, I fully understand the 'check' on democracy as the founding white guys intended. (Though, as usually happens when it comes to questions of what the founding white guys wanted, I don't care.) They weren't paranoid about dictatorships, they were interested in limiting the power of the masses.

I'm interested SP's insistence that this acts as a brake on the transfer of power to a dictatorship in modern America. The EC, in no way makes it more difficult to legally transfer power to a dictatorship. As I said, it makes it easier, requiring only the support of 272 people instead of millions. And is all a ridiculous argument, since 272 people can't thwart the will of millions going either way.

The last sentence is half-baked in what way? Laws mean nothing without enforcement. For instance, one can point to the electoral college (wrongly) as divine savior against dictatorship all day long, but without either the will of the populace or the guns to back it up, it doesn't mean a thing. Should we ever get to the point where a majority of Americans are willing to voluntarily transfer power to a dictatorship, you've already lost the former, and likely lost the latter (the history of modern dictatorships tells us that the military apparatus prefers them).

also those 272 aren't randomly selected - they're selected by caucus at the state party level. those electors are selected at the local level. my friend's dad, who is a personal injury lawyer who works out of converted garage just became an elector for the DNC convention. how?? he went to the meeting and shook hands and smiled and talked to people. he's not part of any party machine, he's got no political connections, he's just an active participant in the democratic system.

if you look at it that way the will of those 272 people becomes the will of many, many more people than that.

last sentence = noxious cynicism and you know it.

But, as I've said repeatedly, the Electoral College does not, in any way, shape, form or fashion, act as a check on the legal transfer of power to a dictatorship. Which is easier, convincing 50mln people to vote for you, or convincing 272 people?

Since when has anyone choosing to install a dictatorship decided to do so through 'democratic means' - Squirrel Police refers to an apocryphal many, but I can't think of a single instance in the modern world where that's happened. The USSR, Nazi Germany, Spain, Italy, China, Taiwan, Chile, El Salvador, etc. etc. etc. - not a single one became a dictatorship through democratic means. Every last one of them required actions that were undemocratic or directly anti-democratic.

Last sentence = reality. Laws only work when we all choose to follow them. By themselves, without the support of the populace or force to back them, laws are just words on paper.

(x-post - why? in any scenario, the pro-dictatorship majority would have to impose its will on the minority)

If some future-dictator were to win the hearts of the american people, it
would take him (and them) years to tear down the current, balanced
system, long enough, hopefully, for everyone to come to their senses.
This isn't Italy; our consititutional system is entrenched,
and it's part of our culture.

It took the fat hungry politicians 120-odd years to bind us with federal
income taxes, and it took a comparably long time to kill the gold and
silver standards. Has the american presidency been edging towards
autocratism or supreme rulership? Yes, I would argue. But it's taking
generations.

>Though, as usually happens when it comes to questions of what the
>founding white guys wanted, I don't care.

Yes, their skin was white, but why hold that against them?
They basically invented the modern democratic republic and to dismiss
them so readily whiffs of ignorance.

>For instance, one can point to the electoral college (wrongly) as divine savior
>against dictatorship all day long, but without either the will of the populace or the
>guns to back it up, it doesn't mean a thing

Well, the populace and the guns are in love with this system (since it's
inception it's been a great friend of the common man). Tampering with the
system is a prerequisite to tampering with our freedoms, so anyone who
tries to rock the boat comes under a great deal of suspicion.

Have you read the declaration of independence or the constituition?
A lot of us have, and it still resonates. The Electoral College is part of the
constitution, and f---ing with the constitution is a good way to anger a lot of
Americans.

>I'm curious about this "tends to happen all the time" - can you cite an instance
>where a democratic election led directly to the empowerment of a dictatorship?

I am too busy to educate you on history or current events.

>because at the point where 50mln Americans voluntary choose dictatorship,
> the system of laws as we know them will be irrelevant.

There is no system in place to install a dictator. First, the current system would
have to be dismantled. Sure, this could happen instantly in another nation,
where election time = everything is up for grabs, nothing is sacred; that's straight democracy for you;

But America is not directly ruled by the people; it is ruled by a system created
for the people. Sure, the system can be changed, democratically, but it's hard. That's what gives us our stability.

>I can't think of a single instance in the modern world where that's happened. The
>USSR, Nazi Germany, Spain, Italy, China, Taiwan, Chile, El Salvador, etc. etc. etc. -
>not a single one became a dictatorship through democratic means.

This is simply false. You are either lying or ignorant. The processes were varied;
but the autocrats of USSR, Nazi Germany, Italy and China all came to power by
the people, for the people. Wake up.

"abuses of democratic power" != " For example, electorates should never have the power to voluntarily surrender their rights to a dictator - yet this kind of thing tends to happen all the time."

It took the fat hungry politicians 120-odd years to bind us with federal
income taxes, and it took a comparably long time to kill the gold and
silver standards.

Ohhh... you're one of the Special People. K thx bye, it was fun. I'm off to interact with the legally sane. Watch out for the black helicopters, Komrade.

(Wait for it, I feel a "the amendment was never ratified correctly, it's still unconstitutional!" rant coming.)

right, that was when they wouldn't have minorities in their ads.

But if you think that neither of these is a swing state, you haven't been paying attention. Oregon has some of the country's most liberal voters (some of whom are too liberal to be Democrats and go for Nader) in the bigger cities, but is otherwise a conservative-ish Western state, 1/3 of which by area is Nevada, and 1/4-1/3 of which by area is Eastern Washington (another swing state though one that leans much further to the left, because of the larger size of Greater Seattle). Gore barely won there last time.

PA has a Republican stronghold in the Allegheny West and Republican-leaning Appalachia runs through it SW to NE - "Alabama in the middle". While there are two big Democratic cities on either side, each 'coast' of Pennsylvania has Republican tendencies - rust belt Reagan Democrats in the West, and Wall Streetish Rockefeller Republicanism in the East.

If the national race is close (i.e. if Kerry doesn't create a major movement to get rid of Bush), both states could easily go either way (though both lean Kerry), depending on how big the turnout is on each side. If enough of the right comes out strong for Bush and enough of the left stays home, Bush wins both.

http://www.mofirst.org/issues/localsov/vote2000/y2k-pres.htm

This geographic view scans pretty well onto the map Teeny linked, and roughly goes along with the 10-Region Model. The Central Lowland Northern part is mostly light green on Teeny's map - a clear Republican tilt like that of the 'Farm Belt' states, most of it might as well be Kansas or Indiana, though there are some pockets of light blue near-ties that are a bit more like Iowa, plus a heavily Democratic city like Minneapolis. Much of the Highland Southern and Eastern part is almost solidly yellow - heavily Republican like the trend is in 'Appalachia' which once was more Democratic but by 2000 had inched past 'Farm Belt' in its GOP tilt. While Sullivan gives this part of the state to 'Southern Comfort,' geographically it could be West Virginia but might just as well be Northern Georgia, even if it drops away at the edge to a Democratic city - St. Louis - that like Atlanta or D.C. goes against the crimson tide. Then, in the Southeastern 'tail' part of the State (what do Missourans call it?), you've got a little piece of the Atlantic Plain that is close but leans decidedly Democratic, and may be trending that way, as if it were near Richmond or Virginia Beach in divided-straight-down-the-middle 'Southern Lowlands' if not Atlantic City in historically-mixed but now heavily Democratic 'Northeast Corridor.'

So Missouri, looked at this way, gives us a little microcosm of the US, at least East of the Rockies and minus New England. But that article seems to emphasize some Western character of Missouri in a way that may go beyond the TX-OK-KS sense of 'West,' and that suggests something that may be even more interesting. As I noted above, maybe this has to do with (at least Western) Missouri's role in the exploration of the West - the Santa Fe and Oregon trails to the Southwest and Northwest left from Independence, MO and Route 66 runs/ran through MO from St. Louis to Springfield on its way toward LA. Maybe the people running along these routes, and returning on them, have given MO at least a cultural, if not a demographic, look out/back towards the West, and in particular the Southwest. Maybe MO is really led by Idaho and Arizona? There aren't too many cultural/political trends coming from the former, but there are from the latter. Does MO care at all about immigration issues? Is MO going to be led politically by the population growth of hispanic voters and Eastern retirees and defense contractors and expatriate Californians in Phoenix? Would that make sense? Should Democrats take comfort from a string of recent wins by Democratic centrists in a wave extending East along Rt 66 and the Santa Fe trail - Janet Napolitano in AZ, Bill Richardson in NM, and Kathleen Sebelius and Ben Chandler (not to mention the strong polling lead of current Dem Senate candidate Brad Carson) in KS? Perhaps the election of these candidates heralds a Democratic tide moving Northeast into Missouri and explains the inclusion of all the governors on VP prospect lists and perhaps even the leftward move of John McCain?

http://biology.usgs.gov/cro/fennmap.gif

no, wait, OK is too, but it's far more dominated, geography- and population-wise, by plains

Wow, I really needed a fact-checker on this one. Sebelius is KS governor, yes, but Carson is an Oklahoma candidate (which still fits the pattern) and Chandler is from Kentucky (which doesn't, though it suggests we're making inroads in Ozark-like areas).

missourians call it the bootheel. :)

f the new proposal had been in effect four years ago, Gore would have won the electoral college vote 269-268. Bush would have received five votes and Gore three from Colorado.

Had this been the case, no candidate would have received a majority of electoral votes (gotta have at least 271), and the election would have been thrown to the Republican House of Representatives. Gore was going to get screwed either way.

Had this been the case, no candidate would have received a majority of electoral votes (gotta have at least 271), and the election would have been thrown to the Republican House of Representatives. Gore was going to get screwed either way.

A majority of electoral votes is 270. Presuming no faithless electors, Gore without split-Colorado, would have had 267. Plus split-Colorado, he would have had 270.

http://www.270towin.com/

The previous article either doesn't know that Gore got 266 instead of 267 because of a faithless elector, or thinks that the elector would have remained faithless if it meant that there would be no President (is this really the rule? what happens - it goes to the House?). You really think that would have happened?

So had this been in effect in 2000, it would have been Gore - 270, Bush - 268. Fuck, that's close.

The Battlegrounds: Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire

The Republican Battleground Pushes: North Carolina, Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Arkansas, West Virginia

The Democratic Battleground Pushes: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington, Maine

The Likely Republican States: Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Utah, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming

The Likely Democratic States: California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, District of Columbia

My view is that Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia are closer than they state and that Oregon, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Minnesota are not as close as they state.

This is my reading of Time's view of the Battlegrounds:

Tossup: Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Wisconsin
Lean Bush: Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada, West Virginia
Lean Kerry: Michigan, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington
Likely Bush: Colorado, Louisiana
Likely Kerry: Maine, Minnesota
Safe Bush: North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia

'This race is Kerry's to lose' is based on the fact that the race is very close and undecideds usually break for the challenger. No incumbent since Truman has been behind their opponent after January of the election year and gone on to win. Will Bush be Truman? We'll see.

Tossups (under 5 pts): Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
Leans Bush: Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia
Leans Kerry: Maine, Michigan

The real tossups look like most other peoples'. The broader list plays for TN, AR, CO, AZ, NC and even LA, but not VA. hmm.

i was imagining things - TN is also not on the list. but i note that both TN and VA have 2 neighbors in which ads are planned. i wonder how many of the local markets will cross borders.

If there were a tie, the House would select the president with each state casting one vote and an absolute majority of the states being required to elect.

ALABAMA - Republican
ALASKA - Republican
ARIZONA - Republican
ARKANAS - Democrat
CALIFORNIA - Democrat
COLORADO - Republican
CONNECTICUIT - Republican
DELAWARE - Republican
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - Democrat
FLORIDA - Republican
GEORGIA - Republican
HAWAII - Democrat
IDAHO - Republican
ILLINOIS - Republican
INDIANA - Republican
IOWA - Republican
KANSAS - Republican
KENTUCKY - Republican
LOUISIANA - Republican
MAINE - Democrat
MARYLAND - Democrat
MASSACHUSETTS - Democrat
MICHIGAN - Republican
MINNESOTA - 4 D's / 4 R's FITE!
MISSISSIPPI - 2 D's / 2 R's FITE!
MISSOURI - Republican
MONTANA - Republican
NEBRASKA - Republican
NEVADA - Republican
NEW HAMPSHIRE - Republican
NEW JERSEY - Democrat
NEW MEXICO - Republican
NEW YORK - Democrat
NORTH CAROLINA - Republican
NORTH DAKOTA - Democrat
OHIO - Republican
OKLAHOMA - Repbulican
OREGON - Democrat
PENNSYLVANIA - Republican
RHODE ISLAND - Democrat
SOUTH CAROLINA - Republican
SOUTH DAKOTA - Democrat
TENNESSEE - Democrat
TEXAS - 16 D's / 16 R's FITE!
UTAH - Republican
VERMONT - Independent
VIRGINIA - Republican
WASHINGTON - Democrat
WEST VIRGINIA - Democrat
WISCONSIN - 4 D's / 4 R's FITE!
WYOMING - Republican

Nevermind, it'd still go to Bush. Republicans - 30, Democrats - 17 with four ties.

But what a weird list that is. Mississippi and Texas have equal numbers from both parties (for now). And so many of these states were just one off from being Democrat, like North Carolina for example.

The whole scenerio is still stressfull. Bernard Sanders would probably become Secretary of State for somebody.

I mean, Here are the states... I hate it when I do that.

The predictions:

Tossups:
Arkansas - Bush
Colorado - Bush
Florida - Kerry
Iowa - Kerry
Nevada - Bush
New Hampshire - Kerry
*Ohio - Bush
West Virginia - Bush
*Wisconsin - Bush

Lean Kerry
Maine
Minnesota
Pennsylvania

Likely Kerry
Michigan
New Jersey
New Mexico
Oregon
Washington

Lean Bush
Arizona
Missouri
Virginia

Likely Bush
Louisiana
North Carolina
Tennessee

*note that, on the basis of polls, I would consider both Ohio and Wisconsin at least lean Bush right now, and Arizona likely Bush, but place the former two in tossup, and the latter in lean, because of their unpredictability - Ohio is a ground game, Wisconsin has unusual political dynamics (though I think Bush is playing them well), and Arizona presents turnout and demographic questions.

Result? Kerry 281-257. He could even lose the only other states I really see conceivably slipping away - Iowa and maybe New Hampshire - and still take it. But it all hinges on Florida - I think we could come down to hanging chads, Diebold, Jim Baker and Jesse Jackson again. And Bush has put himself in a position where he may be free to concentrate on Florida for the next several weeks (unless Kerry changes the national dynamic). But even if Bush won all three big tossup states - FL, OH and WI - Kerry could still win by taking most of the small ones.

ihttp://bash.org/GODvsBUSH.gif

(I've got to stop visiting FARK before I come over here.)

so i'm engaged in one of those quadrennial "electoral college c/d" arguments elsewhere. this is the only ilx thread i could find that gets into it at all. i know i know, snore bore. but is there anyone who wants to try to at all justify the value or function of this thing? none of the arguements i've ever heard in favor of it end up making any sense at all, since they all seem to be based on vague ideas people absorbed in high school or middle school and only half remember, about how some "minority rights" are protected, or farmers are protected from predatory cityfolk, or something, none of which are true or has anything to do with constitutional history.

i get the feeling a lot of americans just have a sort of nostalgic attachment to the obscure oddities of our system and are willing to put up with a small amount of voter inequality and the occasional case of someone who loses the election ending up as president.

("arguements" is um 18th-century spelling. in the spirit of the framers...)

Why would arguments for having it today have anything to do with the reasons for having it in the 18th c.?

right, yeah, i'm just trying to find any sensible reason for having it today -- any purpose it serves -- that can justify its small but obvious distorting effect on the popular vote. put another way, what's the argument for not having a simple majority vote, the same way we elect every other federal and state-level office? i find a lot of people who seem sentimentally attached to it, but nobody who can make a coherent case.

I'd love to see it gone. It would reinvigorate a lot of voters -- liberals in red states and conservatives in blue states. It would be nice to feel like I had an effective vote in the presidential election as well as congressional, state and local elections.

Well, it seems to encourage a "campaign in fifty states" mentality (or at least, for those who want to win). That seems like a good thing, even if it works by giving people in Idaho a slightly undue amount of influence.

Is a "campaign in fifty states" mentality something necessary in the age of tivo, youtube, free online newspapers & coverage etc?
I ask this as a devil's advocate i guess, because i appreciate the importance of making all citizen's feel the importance of politics/going out to vote, but i wonder if that's enough to justify the continued existence of the electoral system.

The electoral college system also significantly damages the chance of any significant third party. (maybe that's not of significance now, but i believe if the system were abolished it would encourage the growth of third/fourth/fifth parties.)

significantly damages / signficant third party.

gosh i shouldn't post when i'm drinking. especially about politics.

yeah and anyway i think it does the opposite of encouraging 50-state campaigns. it seems like it encourages a "campaign in ohio/florida/virginia" mentality. like r.hardy says, right now liberals in tennessee or conservatives in new york go entirely unnoticed.

of course, running a real nationwide campaign could be a lot more expensive. so that's not great. but the sort of random "win these 5 or 10 states" thing every 4 years is an odd way to pick a president.

Campaigning would sure change. I think there would be more debates and big speeches, less coffee-shop meet & greet.

whatever happened to candidates buying chunks of air time on da good ole fashioned radio? the kind the boys in the kitchen at the diner listen to.

ray...ray dee oh?

exactly.

xxxxp Well the alternative might be win these 10 cities. It's entirely possible that campaigns wouldn't leave the coasts if the electoral college was done away with.

If that did happen, would it be more or less democratic than what we have now?

x-post: that's a bit of a myth, though. only 5 of the 10 biggest cities are on the east or west coasts. and three of them are in texas. it's true the coasts would get more attention than the plains, but that's just because there's more people there. basically there would be more campaigning where there's more blue on this map -- because in the yellow places, you're mostly talking to cows and sagebrush.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/USA-2000-population-density.gif

one problem a popular-vote model would have would be elections like '92 and '96, where nobody gets 50 percent of the vote. you'd probably have to have a runoff. but that's at least as democratic as letting the house of representatives decide if the electoral college can't produce a winner. any system's going to have to have contingencies.

"If that did happen, would it be more or less democratic than what we have now?"

Probably about the same, frankly.

another classic map:

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/9026/statecartredbluelarge.png

re: runoffs, could always do instant-runoff voting, which is even better because it means you can vote your conscience for a third-party candidate without it being a throwaway vote.

"one problem a popular-vote model would have"

Uh you mean beside the fact that it ain't happening unless there is a violent civil war and we completely re-write the constitution?

(and also i think ian's info-age point is a good one -- all campaigning is essentially national now, no matter where the day's whistle-stops are.)

xpost:
well yes. i know this isn't actually likely to change.

the one thing that could change -- already has, in maine and nebraska -- is how states allocate their electors. but that creates all kinds of weirdness if only some states go to proportional allocation.

"(and also i think ian's info-age point is a good one -- all campaigning is essentially national now, no matter where the day's whistle-stops are.)"

Eh maybe. I notice McCain/Obama can still swing polls by saturating media markets and making visits.

(not-quite-resisting "obama can swing some poll..." joke)

You think Florida 2000 was bad? Multiply that by 51.

I say keep the Electoral College, but do it the way Tipsy alludes to, with each congressional district getting an electoral vote with a two point bonus to the overall popular winner.

it seems like it encourages a "campaign in ohio/florida/virginia" mentality

This explains why Obama is doing unexpectedly well in North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, and possibly North Dakota.

I really think he's winning in large part because he's got people on the ground (in addition to media saturation and, you know, an opponent who seems ever loopier by the day).

But I'm not entirely pro-EC, I'm just saying, this seems like a nice thing about it.

ok, sure -- n.c., ind., mo. and possibly n.d. (although obama pretty much pulled his campaign from n.d. weeks ago). he's still not campaigning in new york, california, texas or illinois, and neither is mccain. not to mention idaho, arizona, rhode island, hawaii and a whole lot of other states. so i don't think the e.c. encourages nationwide campaigning. it just encourages a different, weirder sort of narrowly targeted campaigning than a popular-vote election would.

the best arguments i can think of for not trying to get rid of the thing have to do with inertia. a.) it's probably futile; and b.) it only occasionally gives an election to someone who actually lost it. if that happened more often, there'd start to be a lot more growling about it.

The electoral college had two purposes, only one of which is still operative.

The original EC was designed to place a buffer between the passions of the demos (the people) and access to power, by placing the actual vote in the hands of a few, presumably sober and judicious, electors who could override the outcome of the election in case of need. This fucntion no longer functions.

The second purpose was similar to the reason for giving Wyoming or Alaska the same number of senators as California or New York, which is to dilute the influence of heavily-populated states and increase the influence of less-populated states. It still serves this purpose.

Whatever the theoretical justice of this system might be, the practical effect has been to give rural populations a disproportionate voice in government and a huge amount of tax-subsidies in relation to their economic contributions.

At first glance this might seem awfully ill-conceived, until you imagine just how backward, impoverished and benighted the boondocks would be without these subsidies. If you think rednecks are ignorant now, just reduce them all to the condition of sharecroppers living in tarpaper shacks and see how much worse off they would be. The gulf between city and country which seems so large today would become an unbridgable chasm and the gap between rich and poor far larger and more corrupting than it is today.

The EC is part of the tribute the cities are forced to pay to the Utahs of this country. Bad as that price seems, it could be worse.

What about all those rednecks in Florida, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina?

I mean, let's not forget that "Red" America includes some pretty populous areas. Meanwhile, Vermont, Maine, DC, and Delaware get a free pass when we start talking about how "ignorant" the smaller states are now.

yeah, there are more rural residents of new york than there are total residents of idaho, montana or wyoming. it's true that less-populated states tend to be more rural, but they don't actually have more rural people. so i don't think the city-country argument really holds up. if you want to protect countryfolk from the predations of the city, you're better off fighting for it in the new york or illinois state legislatures. illinois is a "big state," with a big city, but it also has more farmers than kansas (not to mention 3 x as many as montana, and more than 8 x as many wyoming). so you're not really talking about urban vs. rural interests, just the interests of states with more people (urban and rural) vs. fewer people (urban and rural).

and anyway the current e.c. set-up doesn't empower the small states that much. it's just the +2 electors they get for their senators that gives them a small edge. california still has 55 electors to nevada's 5. the big states are still the big prizes (as obviously they should be). and when you get a big state that's closely divided -- florida, say -- that's where candidates go to spend their money and time.

all of which is just to say that as far as i can tell, the electoral college's effects are more sort of weird and accidental than purposeful. they slightly empower warren buffett in nebraska, and slightly disenfranchise single moms in houston housing projects. the effects aren't huge, but i don't see on what basis they're justifiable (apart from we're-stuck-with-it).

(one other thing: our whole sense of "red america" and "blue america" really comes from the electoral college. because of winner-take-all allocation, i think it really drastically exaggerates the political and cultural divisions in the country, and how we all think about them. in a simple-majority system, we'd still know which candidates fared better in which regions, but i don't think the differences would seem as stark.)

Has anyone been following the progress of the National Popular Vote Compact? It's being put forth as an alternative to the constitutional amendment process as a way to get de-facto popular vote for the presidential election. Basically every state that passes it pledges to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote - as long as at least 270 electoral votes worth of states have pledged to do the same. The idea is that it doesn't penalize individual states for agreeing to this b/c it only comes into effect once enough states have agreed to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
Seems to be getting support in some states, but still pretty far from 270.

Not necessarily an argument pro, or against, but I was thinking about EC and Colorado recently. Remember a few months ago when McCain mentioned redrawing the water deals between Colorado and like, Arizona, and Colorado said, "Over my dead body?" And everyone was talking about how McCain lost Colorado because of those comments?

If the election comes down to Obama winning Colorado, that would essentially mean that a water conflict in a particular state gave Obama the election. That could only possibly happen with an Electoral College.

Has anyone been following the progress of the National Popular Vote Compact?

oh, thanks. i was trying to find something about that earlier, because i've read about it but couldn't remember the details. it's an interesting approach. probably easier than a constitutional amendment, but still hard to do. hard to say what effect it would have.

on the colorado water thing, yeah, that's one of those peculiarities. and i don't know, maybe the quirkiness of the system is sort of an argument in its favor. it makes elections weirder than they might be otherwise.

I actually think what might have most aged the EC system is actually the rise of polling - if you were having the 2008 election in 1950 states like Oregon and South Carolina would be being campaigned in. It's not that candidates are more willing than before to micro-target their resources, more that they're now able to.

I would just like to point out that I was OTM in an email I wrote to President Clinton when I was 10 telling him that I had just discovered that it was possible for someone to be elected president despite having failed to win the majority of national votes.

In 2000 I was srsly like O_o SEE BILL I TOLD U WHY DON'T U ANSWER YR EMAIL EVER.?!?

I also asked him to attend a BBQ at my house.

He didn't answer that either.

i'm just trying to find any sensible reason for having it today

IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT

seriously why would a sitting president push to reform the EC?

the only way it's going to change is by having each state alter the way they operate. Big swing states will go last, but judging by the attention Omaha got, other states with small vote counts that don't typically swing might be more enthusiastic about proportional representation in a few years.

seems like the problem with states switching to proportional representation is it can change the electoral map in a way that is favorable to one side. like a couple years ago when republicans in california wanted to put up a ballot proposition to allocated their EV's proportionally, and everyone freaked b/c it would take a 50+ EV edge off the table for the dems.

also to be fair it's still not that representative or much better than winner-take-all states. if all the states had proportional representation by congressional districts like NE and ME then most people would still live in "safe" districts and get no attention.

yeah, there's two different approaches, and which party prefers which alternative is way too obvious. "natl popular vote" vs "proportional representation;" although whatever the GOP thinks is a good idea (about any issue) is about to become a moot point, it would seem

I don't know if this has already been said above, but I think it's weird that there's a National Popular Vote campaign but not a national abolish-the-Senate campaign. I mean the electoral college usually comes pretty close to reflecting the popular vote anyway, whereas the Senate gives California the same power as Wyoming, which has about 1/70 the population. THAT shit is fucked up.

yeah. i started a thread about that once. in which i eventually ended up ranting like a streetcorner monomaniac. most americans are basically happy with the system, so whatever. plus talk about something that has zero chance of ever changing.

Haha, I forgot that I sort of argued the other way on that thread. But maybe we need a *proportional-plus* system or something. I don't think it would be fair to reduce all of Wyoming to a drop in the bucket, but I don't think the current system is very fair either.

It'd be interesting to see an in-depth analysis of certain Senate votes by population. There are probably plenty where a bill with support by a HUGE popular majority loses.

but I think it's weird that there's a National Popular Vote campaign but not a national abolish-the-Senate campaign. I mean the electoral college usually comes pretty close to reflecting the popular vote anyway, whereas the Senate gives California the same power as Wyoming, which has about 1/70 the population. THAT shit is fucked up

really? yeah but. . . that's why you have the House.

Well, and yet obviously the founding fathers weren't interested in having a pure democracy, but rather a "mixed" system, which they believed would be safest from the problems of democracy (mob rule).

i mean maybe i don't pay enough attention to this sort of thing, but i've never heard anyone complain about the Legislative branch like that. it's not a perfect system, but it's pretty close.

You've never heard anyone complain the Senate is un-democratic?!?!

I've heard the complaint, it's just not an energizing cause the way popular vote is, which is basically all because of the 2000 election, which really had a lot more to it than just the popular vote issue anyway

i guess it's the kind of complaint that begs the question: okay, so how would you redesign the senate? and yeah, the electoral college, to me, is a much more important place to reform

I guess the compromise by the Founding Fathers was that every (white male) American had the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and that if those three rights could be had in a state that wasn't New York, Pennsylvania, or Virginia, then so be it.

Why should someone who chooses to live in Vermont or Wyoming be penalized in representation just because they don't live in a state like Texas that got to be coaxed into the Union with a bunch of grandfathered-in rules?

you can have a unicameral legislature if you want but you should probably just go ahead and dissolve the state borders at that point

federalism lol

also people who live in STATES complaining about what is and isn't fair can eat me

I lived in your non-state for 15+ years.

i would like the states to dissolve and have america turn into russia

200 years til the US is divided into a number of smaller nation states.

Russia? For that remark we shall send you to the gulag (the eastern Montana scablands). xpost

in russia the electoral college elects you putin.

15,805,136 clinton
13,300,472 trump

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_vote_count.html

those numbers refer to the popular vote as opposed to the electoral college

I think that link goes to vote counts from the dem primaries, not the general.

oh you're right

that's what i get for copy pasting

sorry about that

59,796,265 clinton
59,589,806 trump

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/president

Good Jamelle Bouie piece, addressing some of the arguments used in support of the EC:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/opinion/electoral-college-warren-trump.html

Gotta start adding “except Jamelle Bouie” to all my comments about the NYT opinion page.

Michelle Goldberg is pretty good, too.

Sen Dems propose

https://www.thedailybeast.com/senator-brian-schatz-introduces-constitutional-amendment-to-abolish-the-electoral-college

a brutal reminder:

it must not only receive support from two-thirds of both chambers of Congress but also three-fourths of all the states.

Even if, by some miracle, this won enough votes in Congress, how likely is it that legislatures from the least-populated 15 states would voluntarily vote to greatly diminish their disproportionate power over presidential elections? This is a fairly reasonable proposal that is utterly and completely doomed from the get-go.

I agree.

lol:

“I think if you want to set up a single nationwide count so we could have the Palm Beach story nationwide, and you could have the maximum incentive for Democrats to steal the election, and the maximum incentive for Democrats to have illegal immigrants voting, it’s a terrific idea. And I think anybody who believes in having a totally corrupt nationwide system ought to be in favor of it. But if you think it’s better to have a decentralized system — and by the way, I want to see these candidates for president go to Iowa and go to New Hampshire and explain why they think in the future no presidential candidate should worry about any place except New York and California.”

– Newt Gingrich, this morning on Fox & Friends

Does this Palm Beach Story have a Weenie King?

Hanging Chad King

Ohioans may vote this November on a proposed state constitutional amendment to award the state's presidential electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of who receives the most votes in Ohio.

https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2019/04/proposed-ohio-constitutional-amendment-would-ditch-electoral-college-what-you-need-to-know.html