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Electoral College


JOEBIALEK

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The debate has started again as to whether the US Constitution should be amended in order to change the presidential election process. Some promote
eliminating the Electoral College in favor of a direct popular vote for president while others believe the Electoral College should remain unchanged. Just as compromise solved the initial problems of the framers so it is that compromise can solve this problem. The solution is to change the electoral votes to electoral points and reward each candidate a percentage of points based on the percentage of popular votes received in each state.

This would eliminate the "winner take all" system thus allowing for all the votes to count. A voter is more apt to believe their vote counted when a percentage of popular votes are taken into account rather than the "all or nothing" system currently in existence. Further, this new system would integrate the desire for a popular vote for president with the need for the individual states to determine who actually gets elected.
 
As for political primaries the number of delegates awarded in each state should be determined by the percentage of votes won by each candidate.
 
For 2016 multiplying the percentage of votes each candidate received {in each state} times the number of electoral votes {in each state} results in the following: Clinton 256.985 and Trump 253.482.

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  • The title was changed to Electoral College
 

The effect would generally be the same as a purely popular vote.  That is, since a significant proportion of voters in all states are now dependent on the largesse of government, one party would consistently be in control. It is a path to dissolution and anarchy.  If the Constitutional process is adhered to fully, the change should be accepted.  IF the process is followed.  If not, there should be a crisis and open political warfare.  Non-constitutional shortcuts will kill this republic.

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3 hours ago, JOEBIALEK said:

Just as compromise solved the initial problems of the framers so it is that compromise can solve this problem.

There isn't a problem to be solved.  It's only a shamefully contrived grievance from the losing side of the election.

3 hours ago, JOEBIALEK said:

The solution is to change the electoral votes to electoral points and reward each candidate a percentage of points based on the percentage of popular votes received in each state.

This would eliminate the "winner take all" system thus allowing for all the votes to count. A voter is more apt to believe their vote counted when a percentage of popular votes are taken into account rather than the "all or nothing" system currently in existence. Further, this new system would integrate the desire for a popular vote for president with the need for the individual states to determine who actually gets elected.
 
As for political primaries the number of delegates awarded in each state should be determined by the percentage of votes won by each candidate.
 
For 2016 multiplying the percentage of votes each candidate received {in each state} times the number of electoral votes {in each state} results in the following: Clinton 256.985 and Trump 253.482.

Reads like your just trying to find a way to justify Shrillary stealing an election.  She was and is un-electable, she was and is a terrible choice.  Just deal with it.

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1 hour ago, Thorvir said:

There isn't a problem to be solved.  It's only a shamefully contrived grievance from the losing side of the election.

Reads like your just trying to find a way to justify Shrillary stealing an election.  She was and is un-electable, she was and is a terrible choice.  Just deal with it.

It simply wasn't meant to be. 

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So because people don't like the Election result then they want to change the US constitution.One wonders whether if Trump had won by popular vote if the ensuing dummy spitting would have been as vitreous?

The reality is the US voting system prevented the worst candidate from being voted in as President.

Edited by A rather obscure Bassoon
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Both Clinton and Trump campaigned knowing full well that it's Electoral Votes (not popular votes) that determine the election. It was set up this way so that dense population centers (at the time Boston, New York and Philadelphia) could not simply eclipse the rest of the nation. How many times did we hear about "the path to 270" being this way or that way for the candidates? How anyone can claim "it was unfair" after the fact is just being ridiculous.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The thing that most Americans can't seem to grasp and remember is that we live in the United STATES of America and NOT the REPUBLIC of America. The electoral college has to do with the rights of the individual states. This has been an on going misunderstanding for over a hundred years. The Civil War was fought over this very thing. Lincoln was the first Republican President. There has been a friction almost from the first between the people like the Founding Fathers that wanted to protect the rights of individual states and the BIG government people that want to put all the power in one place as it would be done in a monarchy.  

The thing is that if the people in any individual state wish to they can change their system to reflect the popular vote. THIS is a state right NOT a decision for Washington. The reason very few states do this is because it totally eliminates any power that they might have over who the next president might be and no way to influence that person. Even in the states that are heavily leaning one way or another the percentage difference is relatively small. If say California was done by popular votes Clinton would have gotten 30 electoral votes and Trump would have received 16. In most states the split would be nearer and even split. As it was Clinton got 55 electorial votes and Trump got none from California.

By putting all of your electoral votes in a winner takes all category it makes your state more important. If you live in a small state and we went to a strictly popular vote you might as well not vote. The way it is set up the STATE gets some votes and then the people of that state get some votes. Little States actually have a little more individual power than the big states to insure that they get heard too. It is just like the tiny ranch sized states like Rhode Island and such have just as many votes in the Senate as Texas does. 

Our system was set up to protect us from our government and to some extent from ourselves. The way it is change is slow coming under our system and it would be almost impossible for America to legally elect a dictator like Germany did with Adolf Hitler. 

Democrats are mad because their candidate lost. They are blaming it on nearly everything except the real problem. They had a really bad candidate and ran an election campaign that failed to understand our electoral system. 1.2 billion dollars and she brags that she is going to put all the coal miners our in the streets. She won California, she could have won there and not spent a penny. The Truymp campaign understand that this was an AMERICAN election and that means you will win or lose in the electoral college. He didn't waste time in the states that were going to go to Clinton no matter what. He went and told the people in the smaller states the things that they needed to hear and on election day they got out and voted. The fact is the election wasn't even close. Clinton was like a figher that wins round one and two and then thinks the fight is over. Trump cleaned up on all the little places and then won his share or give me states. Just as Clinton was going to Win California Trump was going to get Texas. He won because he ran the smarter campaign and if it had been that popular votes had been what would have counted he would have still run because he would have run a different sort of campaign. 

Let's leave our system alone. It may not be perfect but it protects us from mistakes. The REALITY is that the president actually doesn't have all that much power. The congress can stop anything he does and then the Supreme court can stop both of them from doing anything big real fast. Understand, the main thing that the founding fathers tried to do for us was make it so our government couldn't easily or quickly become too overbearing. Let's leave it that way. If you want to live under that sort of government then move to another country. Leave America the United STATES. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest MamaMia1981

What people miss is that the electoral college is a popular vote..by STATE instead of the entire COUNTRY.

The person who wins the popular vote in the most states, wins the election. (Most of the time)

What I wonder now, is if the results had been reversed; Trump winning the overall popular vote, but losing the electorate....would the same argument have been made?  

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  • 1 month later...

One of the problems with the popular vote thing is that in the places that require NO, none, ZERO, ZIP in the way of identification in order to vote seem to have a problem with places that vote 120% with lots of dead people voting. Texas is under fire for requiring a photo ID that they then match that to the precinct voter registry to make sure that you only vote once.

Any state that wants to split up their delegates to represent the popular vote has the constitutional right to do so but requiring every state to do it will require rewriting the constitution basically eliminating the states rights and in so doing end the actual existence of the USA and replacing it with the Republic of America. If you want to know how that will go over read up on the Civil War. 

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As was said above me, what people need to remember is that the states elect the president. REmembering this eliminates a lot of confusion about what the EC is or why it was made. They get a certain number of votes and can assign them any way they want. They don't need to have elections at all, technically, I thin South Carolina was the last to adopt popular elections, shortly before the US Civil war. The only two to do anything other than winner-take-all today are Maine and Nebraska, but there's no reason that the others couldn't come up with different systems of their own.

The electoral votes are based on representation which is partially based on population, so in a sense it is the popular vote filtered through the governments of the states.

A lot of things have changed in 200+ years, though, like mass urbanization and the information revolution, so I'm not averse to new ideas as to how the government should work.

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