What Are The Consequences Of The EC-Popular Vote Mismatch Longterm?

[Jhhnn]

And the EC was a well-kept secret from Hillary until Trump exploited the wrongfully exploited this loophole in the election process?

Also, you are proven wrong using basic logic, per usual. I'd point out the obvious stupidity, but it's obvious. I have faith even you can figure out that it's more difficult to manipulate fifty things than one thing.

Oops, the cats out of the bag!

Please. Everybody knew about the EC. Which why swing states like WI, MI & PA are so important. Trump's narrow margins in those states gave him the win.

Trump fooled enough people in the right places to win but he didn't fool the majority of Americans. Don't mistake a technical win for a mandate from the people. It's not that but I doubt it'll prevent a hard right turn & pedal to the metal towards the horizon.

 

[mrjminer]

Please. Everybody knew about the EC. Which why swing states like WI, MI & PA are so important. Trump's narrow margins in those states gave him the win.

Trump fooled enough people in the right places to win but he didn't fool the majority of Americans. Don't mistake a technical win for a mandate from the people. It's not that but I doubt it'll prevent a hard right turn & pedal to the metal towards the horizon.

So, Trump won fair and square. We are on the same page.

 

[Brainonska511]

What are the consequences? The continued concentration of power in fewer total individuals.

http://nyti.ms/2fdFveI
Despite the complaining we're seeing for representing small/rural states, they have a have a disproportionate share of the power in today's system. For example, "[t]oday, states containing just 17 percent of the American population, a historic low, can theoretically elect a Senate majority."

 

[fskimospy]

If all the states went to a system like Maine or Nebraska would it fix the issue for the left? I think they would run into the issue of 3rd party candidates causing a deadlock which send it to the house to fix. Saw somebody went through this exercise to divvy up electoral votes based on proportionality and both Clinton and Trump failed to get 270 electoral votes.

That wouldn't work as if you're doing it proportionally and you still need a majority of the electors then that's the same thing as saying you need a majority of the popular vote. (Not just a plurality). It would basically ensure that any election with more than two parties of any consequence would fail to meet the standard.

As I've said many times the right answer is just to have a majority of electors given to whoever wins the national popular vote if that's the goal. (Which I think it should be)

 

[fskimospy]

As for the long term consequences a piece I read recently spelled it out pretty well. Over time we have economic power and prosperity increasingly concentrated in urban areas and we have political power increasingly concentrated in suburban and rural areas. This wasn't a big problem in the past because major national political cleavages weren't urban/rural based the same way they are now.

I imagine if that continues or intensifies then eventually the areas with the economic power who aren't being effectively represented will get tired enough of it to do something drastic. I doubt that's any time particularly soon though.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I think it's worth considering a few things. Non representative voting can get a lot more unbalanced in a political system than America has it right now, look at the UK where I am. UKIP got 1 seat for 3.9M votes and the Tories got 11.3m votes and 329 seats. So this kind of boogeyman of potential violence and all that I don't think is realistic for where the states is right now, I'd wager things could get a lot worse for a long periods of time and nothing of any significance would happen.

There's also this kind of unspoken assumption that should the USA get rid of the EC and go by popular votes that the election results would be the same. That's not the case, you have to consider that both candidates knew how the system worked and went out to the areas they thought would most benefit them and campaigned there, heavily making use of the swing states. But had this been a popular vote then trumps tactics would not have been to campaign in the swing states, it would be to head for population dense areas and promise policy that entices them to vote for him.

Who is to say that Trump would have lost a popular vote if that's what he campaigned for, in fact it's plausible his win could have been even bigger with a popular vote, who knows? We don't know what he'd campaign for and what he'd offer or where he'd spend his time, these things would all certainly be somewhat different.

I think the take away point here is that these discussions come up not because of the relative benefits of each system but rather than the people who lost are salty and are coming up with any excuse. Which is why these assumptions and errors in reasoning are made, because the point isn't to be genuinely fair, it's just to do damage control. You could bet your bottom dollar that in another universe where it was Trump Vs Hillary where it was a popular vote and Trump had won we'd see outpouring asking that we have some EC equivalent to be in place to stop the kind of behaviour we'd see (campaigning in major cities almost exclusively)

And I have no doubt the same would be true for Republicans if they lost, there'd be plenty of salt and cries for more fairness and it'd probably be just as irrational. If you want to debate the EC the time isn't really right after a loss when everyone is about as bias and irrational as you can get, it should be away from major elections when there can be somewhat more of a reasoned discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of each system.

 

[agent00f]

I think it's worth considering a few things. Non representative voting can get a lot more unbalanced in a political system than America has it right now, look at the UK where I am. UKIP got 1 seat for 3.9M votes and the Tories got 11.3m votes and 329 seats. So this kind of boogeyman of potential violence and all that I don't think is realistic for where the states is right now, I'd wager things could get a lot worse for a long periods of time and nothing of any significance would happen.

There's also this kind of unspoken assumption that should the USA get rid of the EC and go by popular votes that the election results would be the same. That's not the case, you have to consider that both candidates knew how the system worked and went out to the areas they thought would most benefit them and campaigned there, heavily making use of the swing states. But had this been a popular vote then trumps tactics would not have been to campaign in the swing states, it would be to head for population dense areas and promise policy that entices them to vote for him.

Who is to say that Trump would have lost a popular vote if that's what he campaigned for, in fact it's plausible his win could have been even bigger with a popular vote, who knows? We don't know what he'd campaign for and what he'd offer or where he'd spend his time, these things would all certainly be somewhat different.

I think the take away point here is that these discussions come up not because of the relative benefits of each system but rather than the people who lost are salty and are coming up with any excuse. Which is why these assumptions and errors in reasoning are made, because the point isn't to be genuinely fair, it's just to do damage control. You could bet your bottom dollar that in another universe where it was Trump Vs Hillary where it was a popular vote and Trump had won we'd see outpouring asking that we have some EC equivalent to be in place to stop the kind of behaviour we'd see (campaigning in major cities almost exclusively)

And I have no doubt the same would be true for Republicans if they lost, there'd be plenty of salt and cries for more fairness and it'd probably be just as irrational. If you want to debate the EC the time isn't really right after a loss when everyone is about as bias and irrational as you can get, it should be away from major elections when there can be somewhat more of a reasoned discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of each system.

Political communism is flawed in similar ways to economic communism.