The Trump Presidency

[James]

No, no you didn't fix anything. You're being obtuse on purpose. If one vote = one vote we'd have Clinton at president. A 2.1% difference in favor of Clinton should not have resulted in 57.2% of the electoral college going to Trump and 42.7% to Clinton. This is the result of a broken system.

[Calliander]

If a zillion people on the coast, vs. a hundred thousand in the middle, vote for the representative of the whole US it should probably go to the zillion. The middle still has plenty of representation on the local and state level. That the whole fucking point of local government.

See, Drew's argument is perfectly reasonable. Bringing up the weight of majority views about things like slavery and homosexuality is important and great context. The electoral college, however, is an old answer. We are facing new problems and the electoral college is a way to stymie progress & solving those new problems. Yet the popular vote, too, feels like an old answer. It's better than the electoral college for current needs, for sure. I wish I could put my finger on it. I just know we're still trying to solve things the way we always have, but we need like some Common Core for society or something like that.

EDIT: Forgot the main thing! Even if the zillion liberals were to overrun everything, I don't see any reason why they would be like, "Lol farmers," and ignore important industries. I guess that may be due to my political viewpoint, but whatever.

[Drewbacca]

What about the people in those less populated states who don't vote with that state's majority?

I think I'd rather it be my vote that counts than my state's vote.

Actually I do agree delegates should be divvied out according to local population party splits. It looks like it differs from the national norm. And it would still help different regions get representation. Joust can yell his uninformed “it’s arbitrary!” all he wants but I’ve given both state and municipal examples of the problem with how people are organized (literally an actual border not chosen on whim). One dense city like New York City with a population of 8 million cannot accurately rep the needs of Wisconsin (5 million across the entire state).

That rebalancing of power is a feature.

[Drewbacca]

No, no you didn't fix anything. You're being obtuse on purpose. If one vote = one vote we'd have Clinton at president. A 2.1% difference in favor of Clinton should not have resulted in 57.2% of the electoral college going to Trump and 42.7% to Clinton. This is the result of a broken system.

No, it’s not. One of many contributing factors to Hilary’s loss was that she didn’t spend any time listening or campaigning in battleground states. Having politicians at least somewhat interested in less popular parts of the country is a great thing. My initial problem with this conversation (and why I decided to play devils advocate here) was because of just how self serving you and Joust are being. It’s transpsrent the message behind “popular vote!” is “fuck you guys for voting Trump!”

It truly is not an honest or just position to begin reform from.

[Frogacuda]

From what I understand not all states get an equal number by design — states with more population tend to get more delegates in general but it doesn't just outright scale with population. States with less % of the national population still get a guarantee of 3 or whatever.

While it is true they set a minimum number of delgates so that underpopulated states are still represented, it has affected the outcome of zero elections in American history. That's not a conjecture, it's a historical fact that states with the min delegates have never been the deciding votes EVER. The fact that Wyoming gets 3 delegates instead of 0.6 or whatever is not nearly as much of an issue as the fact that millions and millions of Republican voters in California, or Democratic voters in Texas do not get their votes counted.

So this means states is a less population density still have their way of life and ideas represented on the larger national stage

Think it through, man. No they don't. In making the giant, populous states into a huge bloc, it further marginalizes those small states. If they split delegates based on population (as a couple states do), then what you're saying might be nominally true, but as it stands now, this is a completely bullshit talking point with no basis in reality whatsoever.

It's also not one of the things that was argued by the people that designed the system. The actual intent was because Hamilton didn't trust the population to not elect a moron, so he wanted to instill a safeguard to override their vote if they did. For good or bad, elitism is the reason we don't have a popular vote election, not protecting dirt farmers views.

It's a bit strange it's winner-takes-all-delegates. If delegates were split up by local populate vote that MIGHT be a good compromise if local popular split differs from national popular split.

NO SHIT?

[Joust Williams]

lol.

The actual intent was because Hamilton didn't trust the population to not elect a moron, so he wanted to instill a safeguard to override their vote if they did.

yep. best part is, they fucked up this time.

way of life

nope. local government.

[kedawa]

"We're going to solve the problem of the nation's popular vote superseding the will of each state by having the popular vote of each state supersede the will of the individual."

Brilliant!

[Fe 26]

I think there are bigger problems than just the ones discussed so far.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a bigger issue with the current system is that it is biased towards the unemployed? Primarily retired whites? It seems like the electoral votes based early voters. Like, almost every state picks someone before all the invidual votes are counted.

Maybe a little time delay for the votes to all be counted and the ec to actually mull over what they are about to do?

Also, maybe we finally need to adopt a neither option? I'm sure a lot of Republican felt forced to vote trump.

Of course, trump is proof that the religious right's faith is non existent. They could have organized a write in. But they had no faith in their country or god. They settled on slime.

[Josh]

But then we can't have Live Local Latebreaking coverage on Election night and sell all that ad time.

[Fe 26]

Good