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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: US Electoral college and doing the right thing
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
It is important to point out that the electoral system helps to structure voter choice and campaign tactics. For example, had Trump needed to win a majority of the popular vote it is likely his campaigning strategy would have been more intense in California and other solid blue states. Clinton, of course, might have campaigned harder in Texas etc.. To assume that Clinton would have won if the outcome had been based on the popular vote, therefore, is not the obvious assumption it might at first seem.
It's not a slam-dunk case, but the preponderance of evidence is in favor of that conclusion. The first piece of evidence is that Clinton did, in fact, win the popular vote. The second is that of all the big, populous states only Texas is reliably Republican. A run-up-the-score-in-big-states strategy would require Texas to counter all the extra turnout motivated in California, New York, Illinois, and the individually small but collectively quite populous states of the northeast. Most of the other, mid-sized population centers (Ohio, Florida, etc.) would be split fairly evenly. So no, it's not a certainty, but it does seem much more likely than not.
Still, leaving specific outcomes aside, a system where the winner has the unambiguous support of more people than the loser(s) seems more inherently stable than one where minority-rule results are, if not commonplace, frequent enough that they can't be dismissed as freak occurances.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What about abolishing the electoral college? Not going to happen. To pass a constitutional amendment requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of congress plus approval by 3/4 of the states. Democrats are the minority in both the House and the Senate. They control the state government in only 7 states. If you have the political power to pass a constitutional amendment, you aren't worried about the electoral college.
Do I think the electoral college is fair? Yes, I think the electoral college does what it is supposed to do. I wonder how many British shipmates bothered by Clinton winning the popular vote but losing in the electoral college are equally bothered by the fact that UKIP received nearly 2.5 million more votes than the SNP in 2015 yet SNP has 55 more members in parliament than UKIP.
As to your first paragraph, what needs to happen is for the US govt to provide the mechanism for the elections of Senators, Representatives, as well as the President and V-P. Not rely upon the States, provide it directly. That should deal with some of the problems outlined by others. I do not know just what legal problems may lie in the path of that.
As to your second, at least Senators and Representatives are elected by popular vote. Canada has an appointed Senate; the election in the UK for some seats in the House of Lords is restricted to hereditary peers, while the other seats are held for life by those appointed by government. Neither the Canadian or UK system can be called democratic.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
So far in American history there have been five presidential elections where the winner of the popular vote did not win the election. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:
Link here
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
No, Kansas was not a sovereign state while under direct federal control. It was a federal territory. Quite likely it can be considered a legal fiction, but territories like Kansas were granted statehood (which includes sovereignty in certain spheres) by the federal government that controlled it, but that statehood was conditioned upon ratification of the Constitution and entry thereby into the Union.
Like I've said, the constitutional set-up is an attempt to blend popular and population-based decision making for the country as a whole, and decision making by the states, which remain sovereign in certain areas. The Constitution is a grant of power by the states to the federal government, not a grant of power by the federal government to the states.
The two assertions I've highlighted seem to be in direct contradiction with each other. You can't claim that Kansas was "granted statehood (which includes sovereignty in certain spheres) by the federal government" and then claim that it was the states (like Kansas) granting power to the federal government.
That's not quite what I said. I said that the Constitution is a grant of power by the states to the federal government, which is correct. The original 13 created the federal government by ratifying the Constitution to start with. Well, technically, the first 9 states to ratify the Constitution did that. (Art. VII: "The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same." Note "Constitution between States.") By ratifying the Constitution, they ceded some of their own sovereignty to the newly-created federal government.
When territories (like Kansas) become states, Congress grants them statehood, but does so conditioned on ratification of the Constitution—it's more or less "we give you the full powers of a state, but only if you immediately give some of them back to us." If the state were not granting power to the federal government, there would be no need for the state to ratify the Constitution. Congress could just make Kansas a state and have done with it.
quote:
The Constitution itself claims to represent the people generally (carrying over the whole "consent of the governed" from the rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence), rather than the states individually, and went to a great deal of trouble to craft a ratification process as free from existing state institutions as possible.
You seem to me to be drawing an unwarranted distinction between the state (which seems to equate to state institutions) and the people. The people are the state, and the sovereignty of the state resides with the people.* Conventions, legislative bodies, executives, judiciaries, etc., are all means by which the people exercise their sovereignty. But whether the people act through direct vote, convention, legislature, etc., it's still the state acting.
The distinction applicable here is not between the people and the state, it's between the people of a state and the people of the United States collectively. It's the states—the people of the states through whatever means—that ratify the Constitution or amendments to the Constitution, not the people of the country collectively. It's the states, which by definition means the people of each state as a state, that make up the federal republic.
* See, e.g., Article I, section 2, of the North Carolina Constitution, entitled "Sovereignty of the people" and based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights: "All political power is vested in and derived from the people; all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole."
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Found this the other day.
"The real reason we have an Electoral College: to protect slave states. 'In a direct election system, the South would have lost every time.'" (Vox)
It's an interview with Professor Akhil Reed Amar, "the Sterling professor of law and political science at Yale University. A specialist in constitutional law, Amar is among America’s five most-cited legal scholars under the age of 60.
He’s also written extensively about the origins and utility of the Electoral College, most recently in his new book, The Constitution Today."
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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mrWaters
Shipmate
# 18171
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
"Lessig," the as far as I can tell otherwise unidentified "law professor activist" who wrote that article, provides no citation to support the assertion that the Framers intended the Electoral College to be a "safety valve." His quotes from the Federalist Papers don't really quite back him up.
'Lessig' is easily identifiable with a significant wiki entry.
Posts: 80 | From: Aberdeen | Registered: Jul 2014
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mrWaters:
'Lessig' is easily identifiable with a significant wiki entry.
Thanks very much. He does indeed have credentials. And yes, I know I could have googled him, but I frankly didn't want to take the time to, nor should I have to. Someone with a blog like that should have the information on the blog, so readers don't have to go looking for it. I did look, but didn't see any biographical info on the blog.
In any event, I'm still not convinced by the argument he makes.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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