But the federal government is supposed to deal with things that matter to everyone in the country - and for that - the electoral college favors the concept of the state over the concept of the person. Why does going to a popular vote for the federal government (which is what should represent every person in the country) remove anything from the state government that deals with local matters? I absolutely think this is an out of date idea that is kept alive because it protects the political fiefdoms people built.
And I'm saying that why stop with the electoral college? Why not get rid of congress and the senate? If you feel so strongly about pure democracy, why be a democratic republic at all?
I have long believed we need a National Initiative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_initiative I would do that first before even thinking of getting rid of the EC.
Because of the very good points you yourself brought - which are the regional differences. But, if the country is one country - the federal government that is supposed to care about everyone in the country - should emphasize people over states imho. I do not understand why there is a need to be black and white - there are good things about the regional / hierarchical structure, but there are things that were designed over 200 years ago that no longer make sense - these are the ones I think need to tweaked.
Because they stand for the same thing. The EC exists so that each state gets a fair (not necessarily equal) say in who gets to be President. In much the same way that each state gets a fair say in different initiatives that are put before Congress or the Senate. I'm sure there are bills that go before congress that the majority of Americans (by population) would want passed, but do not pass because they don't have a majority of the votes in Congress. It's the same principle. Hillary lost the Presidency because she did not engage with many of the people who got Obama elected in the first place. She lost many of the states who voted Democrat in the past two elections. To me, that's the electoral college working as intended. The Presidency should not come down to a hand full of cities and states.
We clearly disagree about that. The federal government should work for all people in the country equally, not for the states. The senate / congress division is what keeps the "states rights" on the legislation front. Of course not, it should come to people. But, right now, it comes down to the states, not the people. That's wrong, imho. The electoral collage punishes people based on their location - it's just a different sort of discrimination, plain and simple.
There's a good reason for representative democracy - time. We can't all get up to speed on every issue and voting on them, we'd spend all our time on that. Your question could have been, why not elect congresspeople and senators on a national basis, rather than by district. barfo
The Federal government would not exist if not for the states. The only reason why we have a unified government is because the states agree to it. That all goes away if the system breaks down. This is a Democratic Republic. It was designed that way to keep the states together on the same page. Population is converted into representatives. More populated states get more representatives. Trump won because he got more representatives. That's how our entire government works. We are not marginalizing people. We are giving a fair voice to the less populated states because to go strictly off of population would be to tell the less populated states that their opinion does not matter. Their beliefs do not matter. Their problems and their needs do not matter in the grand scheme of things. The electoral college got our first black president elected. Why was it working back then?
Well, it always did. That was the original intent. It does seem you never liked the idea from the get go. But it is the system.
Obama won the popular vote in both 2008 and 2012 - so it did not matter. I would have still supported the popular vote over the electoral vote even if Obama were to lose the popular vote in one of those - as I still think that if the everyone should be equal when it comes to electing our representation - we should not have location based discrimination.
It is working as intended - to make the votes of people in small states more important than the votes of people in large states. The question is whether that's desirable or not. It exists solely due to a historical compromise which isn't terribly relevant in today's world. Once upon a time black people counted for less than white people. Women counted for less than men. Is it really defensible that urban people should count for less than rural people? barfo
Please. Are you calling to remove women's right to vote or return of racial discrimination? "It was always like that" is a stupid argument that ignores changes and context.
Hardly! The Unitied States is still a union of States. Sorry if you find that stupid to acknowledge, but States elect the President. All 50 of them. Much better in my mind then having 5 Cities do it.
It would be easy to scam the voting public which has neither the time nor the ability nor the staff to carefully study an 800 page bill before voting on it. People worry about the representatives not reading a bill before they vote on it - the average voter would be far more likely to cast uninformed/misinformed votes. barfo
Spoiler alert: They don't read the bills either. They just vote the way the people writing them checks on the DL tell them to vote.
