Thank God for the Electoral College

Mike · Nov 10, 2016

Kharn said:
When does that map go into effect? 2018?
Even Harris's seat would be D with that map.

I believe that is the present voting district map for MD. Did I pull up a wrong reference?

dogbone · Nov 10, 2016

Mike said:
I believe that is the present voting district map for MD. Did I pull up a wrong reference?

I am not sure what you posted but you can see the current MD district maps here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Maryland_congressional_districts

RoadDawg · Nov 10, 2016

clandestine said:
The people who made those videos are fvckimg morons.

Idiotc arguments wont diminsh the Founders Genius.

Exactly...

In place of my thousand words... I leave this thought...

Doobie · Nov 10, 2016

I maybe wrong, but isn't it every time that a Democrat loses the election, they claim that they won the popular vote? I maybe wrong, but hasn't that been the case? More than likely, I'm gonna say that the beast did NOT win the popular vote...I'm inclined to think that its being said that she did as a "participation trophy" if you will for the liberals to help comfort their little feelings. And now I hear the "Bern" camp..."The liberals gave Trump the White House...if Bernie woulda ran he would've crushed Trump."
Yeah ok

sxs · Nov 10, 2016

Boondock Saint said:
I am on the record as saying that the Electoral College is broken. With great respect to aray and those who agree with his argument, I find it harder and harder to defend a system whereby it's possible, though unlikely, to carry a majority of EC votes while having the support of just 22% of the electorate. I think it's very important that the chambers of Congress be split as they are (though this is significantly less meaningful thanks to the 17th Amendment), but the executive is beholden both to the states and to the citizens. An executive with the backing of less than a majority of voters (or a plurality in rare three way races) is necessarily weakened by the fact that more people voted against them than did for them.

I think the argument that politicians would only campaign in large cities is mostly without merit. Surely, the densest population centers provide the most bang for the whistle-stop campaigning buck, but we know two things to be true about large cities: 1) They are overwhelmingly full of Democrats (and thus already ceded territory, for the most part) and 2) the overwhelming majority of the population of the US is actually outside of the cities. The top 10 cities in the US by population account for roughly 25 million citizens, or about 8% of the population. A campaign that focused exclusively on even the top 50(!) cities by population would cater to only ~47 million. Everyone else (read: the overwhelming majority of the US) is in "fly over country."

I'm quite eager to hear a well-reasoned argument in support of the Electoral College. In the meantime, I'd ask that those of you who are curious either way take a look at these videos that I believe make a compelling argument for change:

Strongly disagree with the highlighted. In fact, right now the candidates tend to do the most campaigning in the 'battleground states'. Why wouldn't they do most campaigning in the largest cities (NY, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, etc). And, consider this: if that's where they are campaigning, that is who likely to whom they would pander. Further, the electoral system adds a 'regional representation' (actually state by state....much like the idea of the Senate) to the Presidential Election.

3paul10 · Nov 10, 2016

Thank you for that explanation OP. I never understood the EC, and thought it was a "rigged system". I appreciate your time to explain it.

sxs · Nov 10, 2016

Doobie said:
I maybe wrong, but isn't it every time that a Democrat loses the election, they claim that they won the popular vote? I maybe wrong, but hasn't that been the case? More than likely, I'm gonna say that the beast did NOT win the popular vote...I'm inclined to think that its being said that she did as a "participation trophy" if you will for the liberals to help comfort their little feelings. And now I hear the "Bern" camp..."The liberals gave Trump the White House...if Bernie woulda ran he would've crushed Trump."
Yeah ok

Interestingly enough, it is possible that Al Gore in 2000 did not win the popular vote despite the many Democrat claims that he did! Hear me out. While Bush won the electoral college, Al Gore's election day results did, in fact, suggest he won the popular vote. However, when the results were actually certified, there were 2 Million + outstanding absentee ballots for California alone at that time which were later processed for down ballot counts, but were never added to the California popular vote totals for President since it had no impact on the awarding of California Electoral votes for Gore. There were also some votes in other states not officially certified for similar reasons as well. Conventional wisdom of the time was that most of the vote would be from military personal who were expected to vote 2-1 in favor of the Republican Bush. Bush lost the popular vote by a bit more than 1/2 million votes officially. But if the complete tallies of the absentee ballots had been added, it is entirely possible that Bush actually won the popular vote as well.

Rickman · Nov 10, 2016

I posted this in the WC as well. It shows very clearly the significance of the EC.

oops, see it if further up the page. Sorry

Threeband · Nov 12, 2016

sxs said:
Interestingly enough, it is possible that Al Gore in 2000 did not win the popular vote despite the many Democrat claims that he did! Hear me out. While Bush won the electoral college, Al Gore's election day results did, in fact, suggest he won the popular vote. However, when the results were actually certified, there were 2 Million + outstanding absentee ballots for California alone at that time which were later processed for down ballot counts, but were never added to the California popular vote totals for President since it had no impact on the awarding of California Electoral votes for Gore. There were also some votes in other states not officially certified for similar reasons as well. Conventional wisdom of the time was that most of the vote would be from military personal who were expected to vote 2-1 in favor of the Republican Bush. Bush lost the popular vote by a bit more than 1/2 million votes officially. But if the complete tallies of the absentee ballots had been added, it is entirely possible that Bush actually won the popular vote as well.

We will never know what the true vote was, not only because millions of legitimate votes are never counted, but because millions of fraudulent votes actually are counted.

How many dead people voted? How many illegal aliens and felons voted? Why does one party refuse to allow simple voter ID laws? Why does one party refuse to allow the voter rolls to be corrected: purged of dead and ineligible names?

We will never know, but it seems entirely likely that Bush and Trump did indeed win the popular votes.

But to be clear, I strongly oppose eliminating the Electoral College. It is a vital safeguard.

Docster · Nov 12, 2016

MikeTF said:
We should never abolish the electoral college. It is pure genius. We are a democratic republic, NOT a democracy. This means that we are not governed by 'mob rule' when it comes to selecting a President. The electoral college insures that 'state and regional views' are represented. I wish the news media and everyone else would remember that we are a Republic, not a Democracy. Democracies fail (2 wolves and a sheep decide by vote on what they're having for diner).

Technically the US is a Constitutional Republic. The rest is spot on correct and why the Founding Fathers Fathers designed it that way. :thumbsup:

swinokur · Nov 12, 2016

as I said, the passage of years has not diminished the light of their genius.

Boondock Saint · Nov 12, 2016

This is a drive by post for the time being (I haven't read anything since my initial post in the thread as yet), but I wanted to get this video out here now. It's from the same guy who does the videos I first linked. I believe it to be a must watch. It's a follow up to his prior videos on the matter. The EC does not provide the state-level protection that some folks think it provides.

JPG · Nov 12, 2016

Keep electoral college, or each state gets one vote for whoever gets the most votes of their state. Then whoever gets 50%+1 becomes president.

Jim12 · Nov 12, 2016

danb said:
One thing to note abut the "popular vote" is that we have no idea what the actual popular vote would have been without the electoral college. the EC creates an incentive to get-out-the-vote only in certain states. Not much point in TX or CA. CA actually has tens of millions of republicans, many don't turn out because whats the point?

Presidential campaigns only focus on certain states as a result.

No way to know what the popular vote really would have been without the incentives of the EC.

Excellent point!

Look how many Republicans and conservatives in Maryland, our own lovely bastion of democracy, were actively encouraged to stay home -- and did -- because they consider it futile to vote for a Republican here.

And another thing -- look how many voted for 3rd party candidate Johnson, arguing vehemently that a vote for Trump wouldn't have done any good in this state anyway, so they cast a futile vote for Johnson that would have been important if the popular vote had been determinative.

One might as well toss all the Johnson votes into the Trump column if we're playing "could'a, should'a, would'a."

RoadDawg · Nov 13, 2016

It would appear, from recent reports, that D. J. Trump took both the EC AND POPULAR vote...
Go Donald. :rockon:

frogman68 · Nov 13, 2016

RoadDawg said:
It would appear, from recent reports, that D. J. Trump took both the EC AND POPULAR vote...
Go Donald.

haven't seen that yet but if true I hope that will shut ~~George Soros' wallet~~ the snowflakes up

Haides · Nov 13, 2016

I've sure learned a heck of a lot about the electoral college this past week, and I'm grateful to people from here and other places for sharing their knowledge.

What I want to know now is, what about the electors themselves? The electoral college has a purpose and is important, but having the electors be actual people who can just change their minds and vote for someone else anyway seems extraordinarily stupid. It would make more sense to me to have EC votes function more like "points" than actual people. Is there any benefit to having the electors be actual people?

Mark75H · Nov 13, 2016

Haides said:
I've sure learned a heck of a lot about the electoral college this past week, and I'm grateful to people from here and other places for sharing their knowledge.

What I want to know now is, what about the electors themselves? The electoral college has a purpose and is important, but having the electors be actual people who can just change their minds and vote for someone else anyway seems extraordinarily stupid. It would make more sense to me to have EC votes function more like "points" than actual people. Is there any benefit to having the electors be actual people?

In theory it prevents a populist dictator from becoming president.

Think back to 1788 ... suppose some extremely popular pro-reunification with England candidate had won the popular vote ... the electors would have chosen someone else.

Whether a current group of electors would be able to both recognize and stand up to a populist dictator is unknown.

babalou · Nov 13, 2016

Bingo!!!!

MikeTF said:
We should never abolish the electoral college. It is pure genius. We are a democratic republic, NOT a democracy. This means that we are not governed by 'mob rule' when it comes to selecting a President. The electoral college insures that 'state and regional views' are represented. I wish the news media and everyone else would remember that we are a Republic, not a Democracy. Democracies fail (2 wolves and a sheep decide by vote on what they're having for diner).

Exactly, my friend

WatTyler · Nov 13, 2016

An acquaintance (who lives in CA, and who the last time I checked was not even a citizen) just sent me an appeal to convince a minimum of 23 electors to change their pledges and vote for Clinton. And a link to a petition. So many errors there, I cannot even begin to count. But if I felt it was worth a response and probably messing up a business relationship, I would caution her that unless she knows she has more guns and ammunition than all of her neighbors combined, she should be careful what she wishes for. People pushing for something like this are pushing for a civil war. And not some kind of quaint and honorable one, with a Gettysburg and an Antietam, bad as that would be. No, something more modern, like Russia, 1917-1923. No front lines, starvation and disease, cities put to the torch and towns completely wiped out with ropes, axes and hammers. To save bullets for the real fighting. So yes, liberals are stupid. But they should be reminded that Bush-Gore 2000 is how a government peacefully changes hands under tough circumstances. Reds-Whites 1920 is how it is done differently.

Thank God for the Electoral College

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