Why not award the presidency to the popular vote winner?

[Fenixgoon]

A better modification would be to award electoral votes proportionally within the state instead of winner take all and introduce ranked choice voting.

i was just about to type this out.

 

[dainthomas]

Ideally, I would keep the electoral college but change it from winner-take-all to proportional delegates. And I would require a majority of electoral college votes required but require a run-off in the absence of that. This way, people could vote for third-party candidates much more freely.

Good idea.

 

[Fern]

A better modification would be to award electoral votes proportionally within the state instead of winner take all and introduce ranked choice voting.

That's up to the states themselves. A few do allocate electoral votes proportionately, the vast majority have chosen the 'winner take all' method of apportioning.

Fern

 

[Bird222]

I would say the problem with the Electoral College currently is not that a person with less than a majority vote can win. The problem is that, if no candidate wins an outright majority, the decision is taken out of the hands of the people and given to the House. This leads to a two-party system, and to polarization, people aligning with those two parties even if other parties might fit them better.

The fix would be some kind of instant runoff, nationally, when no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes. I'd prefer a system where I could specify candidates I want to win, ranked in order from best to worst, followed by "none of the above" when there are no candidates left that I want to win the election. In this election, probably "none of the above" would win, and then we could have new candidates nominated and maybe vote again in a couple of months.

But the House is supposed to be the people. They are supposed to represent the people just like the EC.

 

[Ken g6]

But the House is supposed to be the people. They are supposed to represent the people just like the EC.

If the House is the People, the People have all been transformed into Gerrymanders. (Which look like this, by the way.)

 

[Bird222]

If the House is the People, the People have all been transformed into Gerrymanders. (Which look like this, by the way.)

Oh I agree that's why I used the phrase 'supposed to'.

 

[realibrad]

Changing the presidency to a majority vote would leave the minority with enormous means at their disposal to enforce their interests in the legislature.

That has only become true in recent history with the fact that the total sum of minorities now out number the majority group of white. Up until now, that would have been had for minorities in terms of voting power.

It's not the other extreme at all or even remotely close to it. The House and Senate both advantage rural populations to a very large degree, a degree vastly larger than when the Constitution was designed by the way. As it exists today you could technically have a Senate majority with only about 20% of the population voting for you. You could filibuster and block all legislation with about 10% of the population if it all worked out right. There is no indication that our system of government was EVER designed to cope with disparities this large. As shown in this article, when the Constitution was enacted the largest state was about 13 times the size of the smallest. Currently the largest state is about 66 times the size of the smallest. This isn't surprising as the US (and the world) has become much more urban in the last 225 years, but what it does mean is that population centers have had their influence hugely diluted.

If anything, electing the president by popular vote would probably restore some of the urban/rural balance that has been lost over the centuries and could mark an important step towards returning things to some sort of balance. It would be a move AWAY from extremes, not towards them.

Agreed. What I am talking about is how our system went from Urban centers having too much power in their eyes, to giving Rural centers too much power. It was a swing in the wrong direction. I think you thought I was trying to argue that the power balance was good, but that would be incorrect. I think small states and their interests should not be equal or greater than larger states in terms of population.

No it wouldn't have, Lyndon Johnson won the popular vote in a landslide and the representatives voting for the civil rights act represented a clear majority of US citizens. If you're talking about the civil rights act by referendum, that wasn't what was being discussed?

I am talking about when the government passed bills that were not popular with the majority of its people. Popular vote is susceptible to mob mentality voting. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes its bad. Many in the establishment hated Trump, but were powerless to stop him because he won the popular vote. Then again, Gore had the popular vote but Bush was chosen to be the winner.

Point is, most dont want a pure Democracy, and most dont want a dictatorship.

 

[Muse]

^^^Here is the problem Fsky, to make a change to popular vote would require amendments which no law maker from a rural area would support and no rural State would support but I suppose you already knew this.

In a purely hypothetical sense I'd much rather direct popular vote.

Did you read the OP? Since the middle 2000's there's been a movement to get 270+ electoral votes worth of states to sign onto a pledge to cast all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote for the POTUS. That would circumvent the necessity to have an amendment and the antiquated electoral college could persist like a vestigial tail.

President Al Gore supports this idea.........

Uh, you mean almost president (erstwhile vice president) Al Gore. He would have been president if this had been implemented.

 

[glenn1]

Agreed. What I am talking about is how our system went from Urban centers having too much power in their eyes, to giving Rural centers too much power. It was a swing in the wrong direction. I think you thought I was trying to argue that the power balance was good, but that would be incorrect. I think small states and their interests should not be equal or greater than larger states in terms of population.

Essentially modern voting is nothing more than a contest between the large metropolitan city cores and their collar suburbs versus the smaller cities, suburbs, and rural areas. The expanse of federal government power at the expense of states and localities along with increased partisanship means that every election is seen as a mandate for transformational change by the winners. Once upon a time it was more a 'live and let live' situation with most folks accepting that big cities would have the policies they wanted and it didn't impact the suburban and rural folks (and vice versa) but that basic understanding has eroded and may be dead for good. There's a good amount of truth in the way this writer semi-satirically characterizes movies like the Hunger Games as being symbolic of the urban vs. suburban/rural divide.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

 

[Darwin333]

I'm not sure that popular vote is the answer but I do think there are things very wrong with our current EC system. In our current system the candidates focus almost all of their attention on a select few states and worse is that there are a ton of voters in states who know well beforehand that their votes simply won't count. If you live in a solid blue state and want to vote for a republican president it's basically a waste of time and vice versa in solid red states and your vote for president won't be relevant for the foreseeable future. There is something just inherently wrong with that.

I do like the idea of ending the winner take all and splitting a states electoral votes by percentage of votes received by the candidates. That would truly make every vote count and should force the candidates to campaign in more than just a few states.

 

[edro]

Because popularism is too volatile.

 

[fskimospy]

That has only become true in recent history with the fact that the total sum of minorities now out number the majority group of white. Up until now, that would have been had for minorities in terms of voting power.

I wasn't talking about race, just a minority of any kind.

Agreed. What I am talking about is how our system went from Urban centers having too much power in their eyes, to giving Rural centers too much power. It was a swing in the wrong direction. I think you thought I was trying to argue that the power balance was good, but that would be incorrect. I think small states and their interests should not be equal or greater than larger states in terms of population.

I don't know where the balance should be struck exactly, but it needs to come back into alignment some in my mind. Rural areas now exercise absolutely massive influence as compared to their tiny percentage of the population. That's not healthy.

I am talking about when the government passed bills that were not popular with the majority of its people. Popular vote is susceptible to mob mentality voting. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes its bad. Many in the establishment hated Trump, but were powerless to stop him because he won the popular vote. Then again, Gore had the popular vote but Bush was chosen to be the winner.

Point is, most dont want a pure Democracy, and most dont want a dictatorship.

Well sure, but electing a president by popular vote isn't a pure democracy either, it's the same sort of representative democracy we use for literally every other elected office in the country. The presidency is the only office where their constituency is literally the entire country. Every other senator, representative, etc, is tasked with representing a state or a district. In those states or districts they are elected by the popular vote of their constituents. I think the president should be elected the same way.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I think we should draw people randomly out of a hat.
It is my belief that approx 100% of candidates that "run for office" are already corrupt and have something to gain by becoming elected. Instead, it should be a civic duty that citizens do out of obligation, sort of like Jury Duty.

 

[Jaskalas]

Florida's hate of Cuba single handedly dictating US policy really sours it for me. Our nation should not bow to the selfish interests of a single "swing" state, especially if the result is losing US power and influence across the Americas.

 

[realibrad]

I wasn't talking about race, just a minority of any kind.



I don't know where the balance should be struck exactly, but it needs to come back into alignment some in my mind. Rural areas now exercise absolutely massive influence as compared to their tiny percentage of the population. That's not healthy.



Well sure, but electing a president by popular vote isn't a pure democracy either, it's the same sort of representative democracy we use for literally every other elected office in the country. The presidency is the only office where their constituency is literally the entire country. Every other senator, representative, etc, is tasked with representing a state or a district. In those states or districts they are elected by the popular vote of their constituents. I think the president should be elected the same way.

A president is not part of a pure democracy, but choosing one by the popular vote would be a purely democratic way. I would agree that a representation is better than a pure democracy, but the pros and cons are the same. The system we have is an attempt to balance things in a way that they thought would work best. The fear was mob rule on one side, and fascism on the other. Your argument is that you want to go more left because you believe we have adjusted too far to the right. You actually agree with me that we as a society have over corrected for a single problem.

 

[realibrad]

I think we should draw people randomly out of a hat.
It is my belief that approx 100% of candidates that "run for office" are already corrupt and have something to gain by becoming elected. Instead, it should be a civic duty that citizens do out of obligation, sort of like Jury Duty.

And how would that deal with corruption? Are you trying to say that random people will not be tempted by money or power from outside sources? Civic duty means shit because even random people would have something to gain by becoming elected. How do you not see that you did nothing to address the very issue you already pointed out? Amazing.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I like the idea of the electoral system providing a buffer for when majority becomes mob rule or group think populism.

I do think electoral votes should be allocated more proportionally. It is absurd that we have red states and blue states largely ignored and a handful of swing states that decide elections.

 

[Fern]

Rural areas now exercise absolutely massive influence as compared to their tiny percentage of the population.

Please explain how this is so.

Fern

 

[fskimospy]

Please explain how this is so.

Fern

Rural areas have disproportionate representation in the house, senate, and electoral college.

Do you doubt this?

 

[OutHouse]

Looks like Trump got the Electoral and popular vote.

 

[momeNt]

This is off wikipedia. Not sure what electoral college numbers they use or what populations, but its pretty close to accurate.

The northeast smaller states have a pretty big representation (DC, Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine), as well as rural areas like Wyoming, North/South Dakota, Alaska, Montana, Idaho.

Surprisingly, Texas and Florida carry the highest burden of votes per population..

 

[imported_tajmahal]

A better modification would be to award electoral votes proportionally within the state instead of winner take all and introduce ranked choice voting.

This is the best idea, or we could award the vote to the winner of Congressional Districts. Either way it would have to be through a legal change of our Constitution, not through some ad-hoc kangaroo court.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

The electorial college is only bad when your favored candidate loses.

 

[BurnItDwn]

And how would that deal with corruption? Are you trying to say that random people will not be tempted by money or power from outside sources? Civic duty means shit because even random people would have something to gain by becoming elected. How do you not see that you did nothing to address the very issue you already pointed out? Amazing.

It would removed the institutionalized aspect of the corruption, and instead, the corruption would be only at the individual level. People would look after their own interests as they do now, but, people from all walks of life would wind up in the meat grinder, not only the people with silver and golden spoons shoved up their ass.

 

[Jhhnn]

Looks like Trump got the Electoral and popular vote.

Incorrect. Hillary narrowly won the popular vote as did Gore in 2000.

https://www.google.com/search?q=popular+vote+2016&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#eob=enn/p//0/1///////////