Comment on The Reason for the Electoral College
Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 4 days agoI like how you act like you really believe these things and that they make sense.
Comment on The Reason for the Electoral College
Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 4 days agoI like how you act like you really believe these things and that they make sense.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 4 days ago
They do make sense. We have a very stable government for a reason. A popular vote is something people who do understand the Constitution or the power of the states.
Being president isn’t about being popular. It is about the states picking the person to represent them.
We are a representative government. We are not a boy band where popularity matters.
Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I can’t parse that sentence.
What? Within each state it’s a popularity contest.
So you’re saying popular vote or ‘boy band popularity contest’ is fine within each state, but not for the whole nation at once, because we have to disproportionately select electors where people in North Dakota count 3x as much as people in Texas or California. Why’s that? The Senate is already bad enough where 30 million people in Texas get the same weight as 4 million people in Oregon or 700,000 in North Dakota.
The idea that the US is a coalition of independent states made sense over 150 years ago or 250 years ago, but not so much now. As much as say, some idiots in Texas fantasize about it, states are not free to leave the US and it’s no different than any country made up of provinces.
I would be more fine with the electoral college if the number of electors was updated to match growing populations. The system also is super lame in how it makes the entire election come down to tens of thousands of votes in ‘swing states’.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 4 days ago
It sounds like you don’t understand how the system works or why it works the way it does. If you are not aware of electors then you really don’t get how the ELECTORAL college works.
It makes more sense now than ever. That is the basic structure of our government. The 10th amendment even clarifies the power structure.
That is why we have the Electoral College. That way, each state will have a fair vote for president.
Now that is something I can agree with. It puts to much focus on a few states every few years since it is unlikely anyone will visit a solid red/blue state but the popular vote will lead to instability that would cause another civil war.
It would also require a constitutional amendment, which would never pass. Most states would never pass a system that would diminish their power.
It is something the left whines about but that isn’t going to change in our lifetime. You would 3/4 the states to agree to change it and that isn’t happening anytime soon.
Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I’m obviously aware of electors. They’re selected by what you called a ‘popularity contest’.
A ‘fair vote for president’ is not really what I’d call the electoral college. Why would my vote count for more in Wyoming than Florida? It’s not consistent either. Large states still have way more power, so I’m not sure what that’s solving.
Okay, glad we can agree on swing states. How could that change under the current system, though? I guess small population states are never going to be as popular for campaigning as places where you can go visit 20x the population in just one city.
The left complains about this system because gives conservatives power disproportionate to their actual numbers, while we are still nominally a democracy. If there was anything like reasonable bipartisan legislative work, it might be better, but things have become so contentious. And yes, I don’t expect to see it change because conservative states would have to choose to give up power.