That's the whole point of the EC - the electoral votes. The simplest way to solve it - is to go to the popular vote. Anytime you have electoral votes - you will have some kind of discrepancy, at the moment it is pretty absurd as shown by the example I gave above.
Why because most people vote dem? I disagree with this premise. To that end, get MFs to vote for you... Plain and simple.
My math is 100% right. the number of electoral votes assigned is not directly related to the population - or you would not have 40% difference in the weight of a vote as shown above. States with a small population get an unfair advantage in the number of electoral votes they get - the entire system is wrong, imho.
It was an example. Replace her name with your preferred nominee. Candidates (and Political money) will only focus on large cities.
It favors Dems because urban population tends to vote Democrat and rural tends to vote Republican. Obviously this is a very general definition of urban and rural, but the most heavily dense cities tend to go left, no?
See, that dynamic will probably change. More republicans will come out of the woodwork because right now, they are "wasted votes" in the electoral system. Conservative think tanks will flood money into California, New York, etc to get the vote out. Abolishing the electoral college will absolutely help the right, both in national elections and in local ones in Blue States. People just don't know it yet.
So, the way it is currently running, the people in more densely populated areas are given less political clout than those in rural areas. Thanks for proving my point.
I totally understand. The way things have shifted though, the rural areas are now screwing over the highly populated areas. I don't pretend to have a definitive answer for this problem. I'm just willing to admit that there is indeed a problem.
If you want to really get to the nitty gritty of this discussion, you have to expand it to the US Senate. Why should a dinky state like Rhode Island have the same number of senators as California or New York? Why do citizens of those states get more effective say on things like confirmation of Supreme Court justices than more populous states? The answer, of course, is history. The founders weren’t creating what they thought of as a single nation as much as they saw it as inventing a way for a federation of separate and equal states to work together on common areas of interest such as defense and interstate commerce. We don’t think of it that way as much today, but the separate states still want to be sure that their individual interests are represented. I don’t see that changing.
This isn't a democracy. It's that simple. So yes, a person who lives in a smaller state will have a more impactful vote than someone who lives in California. But that's how a Democratic Republic works. That's how our entire system is constructed. Otherwise our system of government is a sham. Why do you think the EU is having troubles? The EU is not that much different than the US, except that it's newer and those countries have been around a lot longer, but it's a collection of states who came together for the common good. And just like how there's cultural and political differences between England and Germany, there are cultural and political differences between Arkansas and California. If we go to a straight up popular vote, you will have a national problem similar to what we have in Oregon. I don't even vote half the time because I know the Democrat will win. Hell, the Democrats can run a guy who is being investigated of a crime and he'll STILL win. They can run a candidate that doesn't give a shit and doesn't want to debate her opponent because she knows she only needs to just show up to win. Do we really want that on a national level? Someone that can court the major cities and then just mail it in?
There are many reasons. A vote cast in California or any other populous state is worth about 60% of a vote cast in a moe rural state. Only 5 times in US history has a president lost the popular vote and still won the electoral college, and 2 of those instances were in the last 18 years, both times favoring a Republican over a Democrat. Clearly, something is eschewed currently. Small town America is making the decisions for the rest of the nation. It should not be the opposite either. I'm not asking to reverse this in the opposite direction. I personally believe that some tweaks need to be enacted which can help even the current discrepancy.
That might or might not be true - but if so, then it's the right result. It would be a more fair system. barfo
I agree with much of this, and have stated that several times in this very thread. I'm not for abolishing the EC. I'm still making my mind up. I'm also leery of creating hinterlands in small town America where people end up feeling underrepresented. That is dangerous and unfair. I do however think that things aren't running as intended and some small tweaks might be needed to even things out.
It will be the Pareto Principle. 20% of the country (areawise) will make 80% of the decision for President!
The DNC and RNC will basically abandon the use of funds for anywhere besides big city folk like myself! rural communities and states will die in favor of the big megalopolis. a glorious future!
Exactly. In most states, a big fraction of the population's votes don't count because the state reliably tilts one way or the other. The country as a whole, though, is much more evenly split than most states are. Would you be as sure that the Democrat would win nationally as you are that the Democrat will win in Oregon? Not if you are rational. No, you'd vote in a national popular vote election, because your vote might actually matter. But you are arguing for keeping a system where your vote doesn't matter. barfo
