Posted by dahsdebater on 8/9/2019 12:28:00 AM (view original):
I support the electoral college. Maybe some time later I'll take the time to spell out why, but it's long for a forum post.

Remember when Trump 1st started to publicly campaign for the EC to get canned and all his haters threw a fit. Now most of those haters are in agreement with him. "Interesting" development, no?

Is California really thinking of reviving efforts to tax texts? Now THAT would certainly fit the "Delusion" title of this thread. Of course, it would also fit most things CA does.

Posted by all3 on 8/9/2019 10:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/9/2019 12:28:00 AM (view original):
I support the electoral college. Maybe some time later I'll take the time to spell out why, but it's long for a forum post.

Remember when Trump 1st started to publicly campaign for the EC to get canned and all his haters threw a fit. Now most of those haters are in agreement with him. "Interesting" development, no?

And vice versa

Posted by all3 on 8/9/2019 10:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/9/2019 12:28:00 AM (view original):
I support the electoral college. Maybe some time later I'll take the time to spell out why, but it's long for a forum post.

Remember when Trump 1st started to publicly campaign for the EC to get canned and all his haters threw a fit. Now most of those haters are in agreement with him. "Interesting" development, no?

Not sure who you mean by most. I admit to being a Trump hater (as OUR POTUS), but I sure don't agree with him or ANYBODY who promotes the concept of the elimination of the Electoral College.

This seems like a good time to interject this:

I RARELY support the idea of amending our Constitution, however I just did my civic duty and served jury duty and it reminded me HOW BADLY we need the passage of the so-called "fully informed jury" amendment.

We're supposed to be guaranteed a "Jury of our peers", but that is NOT what we have now.
Jurists are shackled, controlled, and limited in the exercise of their best and honestly rendered decisions BY the Court and many of the instructions of Law given to Jurists by the Judge in His/Her desire to control the basis for determination of guilt and innocence.

THIS practice denies ALL of us of our right to a jury of our peers.

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/9/2019 12:28:00 AM (view original):
I support the electoral college. Maybe some time later I'll take the time to spell out why, but it's long for a forum post.

OK. Can I make the case against the electoral college first?

Go for it.

if we always had popular vote i cant imagine switching to electoral college.

Completely irrelevant. It's what our framers gave us.

my opinion is i dont think people would think that the electoral college as an idea would be an improvement if we always had a popular vote.

i think over 20 states have signed on to abolishing the electoral college and if there are 7 or 8 more states the constitution will be changed.

The case against the electoral college:

1. It's unfair to voters in larger states.

An electoral college vote in Wyoming represents 200k people. An electoral college vote in California is worth 725k people. A person is a person. Everyone's vote should count equally, and right now it isn't counted equally. If I moved to California right now, my vote would be less valuable. Land can't vote. Where people live should be irrelevant. If the electoral college was actually proportionate, a lot of my issues would go away.

And fwiw, I do recognize the value of giving smaller states more leverage, that's why I support the senate. The President should be representative of what the majority of Americans want.

2. Electors don't always vote for the candidate that they should vote for.

Clinton ended up getting 227 electoral votes instead of 232. She lost 3 votes to Colin Powell, one to a Dakota Pipeline protester, and one to Bernie. Trump lost two votes to Rand Paul. This is pretty irritating, and could make corruption easier in the end since the majority of Americans opinions don't matter.

3. Why it was created.

The electoral college was created to give more power to small states. I would argue that a main reason for this is to protect slavery, and several historians would agree with me. I don't buy the argument that without the electoral college, a tyrant could come to power. Most 'tyranny of the majority' arguments are rooted in the idea that there is a 'real America' (you may differ on this). I live in semi-rural Kansas. If we are the real America, then America is ******.

4. Likely elimination of battleground states.

If I'm in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, etc. I am extremely frustrated with the fact that every four years, politicians come in and promise the world to me, leave with my vote, and come back four years later and do it all over again. You might say that in a popular vote system, politicians would only campaign to large hubs of people. I say GOOD! I would much rather politicians campaign to where the people are instead of where the electoral votes are.

And it isn't like candidates campaign to small states today. They don't.

5. State winner take all.

This is a minor issue for me personally, but under this system, you can win while getting less than a third of the votes. That's pretty silly.

Make Election day a National Holiday(or 3 day weekend), hold all primaries and caucuses on the same day, so small States such as Iowa and New Hampshire can't have such a huge impact on the electoral process.

Not only should all States have all elections the same day, they should all have the same rules. HTH do some have Closed Elections and others not? Total BS.

We have an electoral college for the following reasons.

In order to get the smaller states to sign up, a compromise was made that was intentionally unfair to the larger states. Otherwise, therer would not have been a ratification and, thus, no USA. Further, this was in place as additional states were formed, all of which were small (population) when they signed on. Every state knew and understood the implication. The only way to undo that compromise is to amend the Constitution with a 3/4 majority ratification. Good luck getting the states that have remained small to give up their advantage.

Equally important, we are a Republic and not a Democracy. The Electoral College is based upon the Centurial Assembly of the Roman Republic. The framers of the Constitution intentionally placed a barrier between the citizen's vote and the selection of the national office. They considered a bunch of ways to do this...Congress make the selection, State legislatures make the selection. The College is what was agreed upon.

really good stuff.

the national popular vote interstate compact is the vehicle to going to popular vote....15 state plus d.c have signed on.......36.2 % of electoral votes of needed 72.4% have signed on.......10/16 signees have 10 or less electoral votes....the big states are california and new york.
this is under the radar.

among pending states are ohio...minn.....pennsylvania.