Posted on Aug 1, 2015
Has the time come to abolish the Electoral College???
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What is the purpose of a popular vote by the American public IF a select group of people can negate that popular vote and choose someone else? IT HAS HAPPENED.
Election 2016
Politics
Elections
Voting
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 253
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no...seems like we get this every time someone loses a close election.
Given how the popular vote is heavier in urban areas for instance, w/o the College we'd have a nation where presidential elections would be won or lost in a handful of tiny counties.
What we should do however is increase representation in the House from it's current 1 per 1.5m (rough est) to one in line w/ Art 1 Sec 2. That would increase the odds urban areas would get heavier but not disproportionate electoral votes.
Given how the popular vote is heavier in urban areas for instance, w/o the College we'd have a nation where presidential elections would be won or lost in a handful of tiny counties.
What we should do however is increase representation in the House from it's current 1 per 1.5m (rough est) to one in line w/ Art 1 Sec 2. That would increase the odds urban areas would get heavier but not disproportionate electoral votes.
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Just because the outcome is not what we like, doesn't mean we need to scrap it. Had someone else won, would be be having this discussion? So, there must be a reason WHY we have the EC as the goto for electing our president, why was it established to start with. We need to stop this acting like a 5 year old everytime something doesn't go our way. As much as I do not like the lady, Megan Kelly said we are turning into a "cup cake" nation and the protesters who were out in the streets are not protesting, they are throwing a temper tantrum. I have to agree. But hey, it's their right to "protest". But get over it and move on. This changes nothing nor should it. People laughed at Gore for the very same reason. Now it's an issue?
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I would say keep the electoral college but change it. If you get rid of the electoral college all you have to do is win California, Florida, and New York to win the election. What we really need to do is change it like I believe Maine did and make it so that the electoral vote is split between urban and rural so that a large city like Seattle doesn't decide a state like it did in Washington State when all but four counties voted republican this year.
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This is only the 5th time out of 45 where someone was elected POTUS and didn't win the Popular vote. That's a 89% success rate. You want to trash something with that high of a success rate?
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I use to think so. The electoral collage was up to prevent tyranny by population. Let New York State be an example. Hillary Clinton carried New York State, and yet she only won 13 of the 62 counties in New York. New York city has two thirds of the states voters, the other third residing in the rest of the state. Financially the city is doing great, the rest of New York is in ruins. Syracuse leads the country in vacant store fronts. In Rochester there are streets that aren't cleared of snow in the winter because no one lives in the houses. We've all heard about how bad it is in Detroit. Buffalo is the second poorest city in the country. I've driven through Buffalo, there are blocks of abandoned buildings and vacant lots. The electoral collage was set up to prevent this from happing on a country wide scale.
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Yes. This is the fifth time in our history that it has blocked the candidate who won the popular vote. In this most recent election, about half-a-million votes didn't count. That's not democracy by any definition. If we're going to claim to be a democratic nation, then every vote should count and the candidate winning the popular vote should win the election. If we're going to peddle democracy abroad, we should be practicing it at home.
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SSgt Ray McCaslin
TMAJ (Join to see) - Major the same can be said about linking to left work great think tanks. I guess we all seek sources that agree with our arguments. Ultimately we'll see how this plays out. As for now, I respect your opinion and points and I disagree with them, so we can end this by agreeing that we disagree.
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LTC (Join to see)
Sgt Jerry Genesio - HA! HA! HA! This is funny! Having been already unmasked as a mere political operative trying to push an agenda, you now resort to name dropping to try to justify the unjustifiable. And since you can´t argue effectively against the role of the Electoral College TODAY, I see it took you a while to dig up a palm reader who writes (his words, not mine) "in my view" this is what happened 200+ years ago. Really! And oh! how easily he dismisses the "we are not a democracy" argument! But interestingly, he DOES NOT SAY that the word "democracy" DOES NOT EVEN APPEAR IN THE CONSTITUTION. It looks like the fact that we are a Constitutional Republic perhaps escaped him, huh? And your "preferred scholar" goes ape about "Wilson" who he claims wrote the words "We the People" in the Constitution. A brief fact check on this indicates that it was Morris (not Wilson), a delegate from Pennsylvania, who came up with the draft for the Preamble because he was a member of the Committee of Style. But that is in the PREAMBLE, and the Preamble was added more or less as an afterthought. It was never proposed or discussed at the Constitutional Convention. But INTERESTINGLY, he also OMITS to say that as the Supreme Court stated in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11 (1905):
“The United States does not derive any of its substantive powers from the Preamble of the Constitution. It cannot exert any power to secure the declared objects of the Constitution unless, apart from the Preamble, such power be found in, or can properly be implied from, some express delegation in the instrument.”
But, hey! Drive on! ...unencumbered by facts or reason. Your agenda and your REAL motivations have already been described elsewhere. And I would be the last to hinder your right to free speech, even if it doesn't make any sense and even if is motivated by an intense desire to engage in propaganda. So you can "prefer" or spout any position you want, because as a mere political operative with an agenda, that's what you have to do. Of course, those of US who respect the Constitution and respect the fact that we are a Constitutional Republic do not have to pay too much attention to nonsensical meanderings about "national popular vote" and other flights of fancy.
But you may want to review a previous post where I noted that self-designated "liberals" in universities who are distressed with the electoral results of 2016 have resorted to playing with Play-Doh, coloring books and playing with bubbles to calm their snowflake spirits. Perhaps you may want to explore this avenue instead of hunting down essays by people who attempt to mislead by omission and who present their "views" as facts.
“The United States does not derive any of its substantive powers from the Preamble of the Constitution. It cannot exert any power to secure the declared objects of the Constitution unless, apart from the Preamble, such power be found in, or can properly be implied from, some express delegation in the instrument.”
But, hey! Drive on! ...unencumbered by facts or reason. Your agenda and your REAL motivations have already been described elsewhere. And I would be the last to hinder your right to free speech, even if it doesn't make any sense and even if is motivated by an intense desire to engage in propaganda. So you can "prefer" or spout any position you want, because as a mere political operative with an agenda, that's what you have to do. Of course, those of US who respect the Constitution and respect the fact that we are a Constitutional Republic do not have to pay too much attention to nonsensical meanderings about "national popular vote" and other flights of fancy.
But you may want to review a previous post where I noted that self-designated "liberals" in universities who are distressed with the electoral results of 2016 have resorted to playing with Play-Doh, coloring books and playing with bubbles to calm their snowflake spirits. Perhaps you may want to explore this avenue instead of hunting down essays by people who attempt to mislead by omission and who present their "views" as facts.
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Sgt Jerry Genesio
LTC (Join to see) - Angelo, there are now so many scholars and others who are advocating for the National Popular Vote Bill because they believe it is right for America that opponents like yourself who simply have to believe they are right will very soon be little more than a faint echo in the wilderness.
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LTC (Join to see)
My, my, my! It appears that you went back on your promise not to read any more of my posts because they upset you. I see that you still refuse to face the fact that the word "democracy" does not even appear in the Constitution. You are also dead set against the US being a Constitutional Republic. It has already been established that for all your posturing, you are just upset at the electoral results of 2016 and that all your "arguments" are simply an effort to push for a result you wish would have happened.
I suspect that the objective - as it is in all these cases - is to satiate that internal desire to tell other people what to do... and IMPOSE a government and way of life that has little to do with the principles of LIBERTY that the Founders had in mind. The flaunting of the word "democracy" is - of course - the excuse (although it does not appear in the Constitution). The REAL objective is the achievement of the tyranny of the majority.
So while you are all busy plotting for "better days" in your dark little rooms and hoping that those who understand and defend LIBERTY become "echoes in the wilderness", I really think that you should seriously explore the Play-Doh and bubbles option. It fits right in with the psychological make-up of that particular group. You can contact the Law School at the University of Michigan for more info.
I suspect that the objective - as it is in all these cases - is to satiate that internal desire to tell other people what to do... and IMPOSE a government and way of life that has little to do with the principles of LIBERTY that the Founders had in mind. The flaunting of the word "democracy" is - of course - the excuse (although it does not appear in the Constitution). The REAL objective is the achievement of the tyranny of the majority.
So while you are all busy plotting for "better days" in your dark little rooms and hoping that those who understand and defend LIBERTY become "echoes in the wilderness", I really think that you should seriously explore the Play-Doh and bubbles option. It fits right in with the psychological make-up of that particular group. You can contact the Law School at the University of Michigan for more info.
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Sp4 Byron Skinner…The straight forward answer is NO. As weird as it is it works. Most of the responses below I agree with and all have part of the reason. The only one missing is that the framers of the Constitution though that the typical American was an idiot and incapable of casting a sober intelligent vote. So they invented the Electoral Collage which still preserved the power of the large states but gave disproportionately more power to the smaller states. The number of electro votes is based on the two Senators and congressmen. The Electoral College voters are chosen by the state legislatures. If the 2016 election was a purely popular vote the President Elect would be Hillary Clinton by as of last Friday over 400,000 votes. California, New York, Texas and Florida have political power but when it comes to electing the President that power is dampened by the at least three votes every state has.
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It may be time to look at it in the context of a constitutional convention, but I don't see the EC going away anytime soon, if ever. It would require an amendment that would have to pass supermajorities in both chambers of Congress and the vast majority of state legislatures, which I don't see happening, at least not in my lifetime.
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The same experts that claim Hillary won the popular vote, are the same ones that said she would win by a landslide. Also fraudulent votes are hard to detect, especially without photo IDs required to vote.
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Look at Illinois Senatorial election...Duckworth won only a handful of Counties...Kirk won 102 Counties.. but she won... she got the Chicago and East St Louis counties and therefore, we are stuck with Durbin and Mini-Obama-ite Duckworth. I'm 63 and this has come up after each Presidential election by the losers. Our Founding Fathers were incredibly smart...or aliens...not sure.
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