• Warren calls for eliminating the Electoral College
    35 replies, posted
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/19/elizabeth-warren-eliminate-electoral-college-1226686 Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday called for abolishing the Electoral College as part of an effort to expand voting rights, making her one of the first Democrats running for president in 2020 to propose such a radical shift in how U.S. presidents are elected. So here we go, and Andrew Yang is the only Democratic candidate so far opposing the idea of abolishing the Electoral College. https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1107346979611463680
Yang is wrong here, because the electoral college currently does even worse than highlighting urban areas. It makes a few key swing states all that matter, and campaigning in opponent's secure states completely pointless, not to mention that it makes some people's votes arbitrarily more important than other's. With the popular vote, at least all votes will be equal and winning red votes in blue states or blue votes in red states will help instead of being wasted votes.
"Better to have proportional electoral college votes so that candidates can lose the popular vote by millions and still get elected president" lol fuck off yang
If there were Americans living on the Moon they'd have to go up there to campaign as well? That's what Yang is saying right?
Yang's not wrong about the dynamics, though. The EC protects rural interests, and abolishing it is a solid move towards protecting urban interests. And specifically, it's a way for Democrats to shift the way that the presidential election is conducted in their favor that isn't gerrymandering but still is—to a lifelong democrat—a bit of a power grab nonetheless. There's merit to protecting rural interests so that they don't get drowned out by the mass population centers. People are concerned about "fly-over" country not being represented well enough, already, and feeling left behind in the development that takes place in urban centers. Your opinion may be that rural interests and voices actually aren't disadvantaged compared to urban centers, and that is a matter of some debate. I'm not sure where I fall on that question, which makes me a little uncertain as to whether it is worth it to abandon the electoral college for popular vote. If I were confident that the motives behind the support wasn't just a way to gain a political advantage, I might be more immediately open to it. But I'm not.
how about protecting rural interests by not having a political system where you (mostly) either win all or lose all because there's one elected dude who has that much power make the president more ceremonial, elect at least the house of representatives proportionally there you have it, your rural interests are represented
He has a point, no matter how indignant some people are about it. The EC is generally a bad thing, but it doesn't have to be. The fear of removing the EC is very much that the population centre's become disproportionately influential in elections. Writing that off as if it wasn't a relatable fear to a large group of people who may very well side with you on many issues, is kind of silly, IMO. But that's just me.
besides it throwing off a city-countryside balance the republic is founded on, it would also cause national parties to be increasingly defined by a few core population strongholds. the argument that a popular vote would allow opposition voters in red/blue states be relevant is only half-true, if they want to be relevant they would still have their interests fall into the shadow of other parts of the country. in contrast, the EC ideally allows a degree of sectionalism, or how regions given artificial weight must be a part of a party's national coalition of regional interests. without it, we get less for equality and more for centralization and ideological bubbles.
I think the popular vote would be a much better reflection of what the American citizens want as the president rather than the electoral college. Just because rural areas are small doesn't mean their votes dont count. All votes would matter regardless of state. Sure, you might not see campaigning in your state if you're in a small rural area but that was the case regardless. In fact, I would lean towards seeing more campaigning everywhere since all votes would matter. I'd say more power to the citizens of America.
No matter how you try to justify it, a system that gives some citizens more voting power than others is just never acceptable in a democracy. Call it "tyranny of the majority" all you want, guess what, that's what democracy fucking is.
but they do just that already. The votes of democrats in texas and the votes of republicans in california are meaningless, so the rural voters in california and all the other blue states are not being represented by the EC
you kinda need to since we aren't equal in the first place. the point of the EC, as a founding bargain of the union, is to essentially adjust for the fact the local majority of a less populous state can give that area more self-government than a simple national majority determined by a few populous states. in that case, why be a part of the union?
I see lots of chatter about how the EC protects rural interests but does it? Rural areas get ignored regardless.
Good luck getting the 3/4s of states for ratification while pushing to decrease their influence lol
Warren is killing it in terms of putting forth tangible radical progressive policy proposals
Representation would be far more fair without the EC than we have it now, though, because right now every POTUS election is decided by Florida, Pennsylvania, and maybe one other swing state. My state, TN, goes red so reliably they call it 35 minutes in with 2% reporting and never fuck it up. It's 95% of why I don't bother voting on POTUS elections; there's no point, my voice won't be heard as long as the electoral college is in place. And similarly, candidates never campaign here, not even half-assedly by throwing a couple TV spots out this way. I'm not sure how you'd make it truly 100% fair to rural and to urban voters, but I do know for 100% goddamn sure that abolishing the EC is a step in the right direction. I'd actually have reason to vote if that were gone...
Sure, but I don't really like she's backing some of her policies down (e.x. Medicare for All) as "optional" in days later after she promised to support them, as to please the Moderate/Centrist and Conservative vote. And this has but me to given her as my third favorite 2020 Democratic candidate between Gabbard and Yang now, when comes to commitment those policies.
Rural states are still being ripped to shreds over the opioid epidemic last I heard.
Wouldn't want to veer from our current system of making Florida determine elections
Even if it did it's literally giving rural interests more favor and going "there, that fixed it" while ignoring how urban areas, with more people, are shafted.
Plus, the vast majority of rural areas are ignored anyways with the EC.
Electoral votes proportionate to popular vote per state makes more sense
Uh, no? In fact, they would have less incentive than in a popular vote system, since large states like Cali and Texas have a lot less electoral votes per capita. We've been over this a thousand times already. There is simply no valid justification whatsoever to the EC. It doesn't even function as the anti-demagogue barrier it's supposed to be. If you care about geographical minorities having more self-determination, then increase local political power and reduce the power of the president's office, which, as we've seen extensively now, can easily be abused. None of that min-maxing bullshit, that pretends to protect a minority but effectively disenfranchises practically every other one. Really hoping this Yang dude doesn't split the votes and make more serious progressives lose the nomination as a result. Between this and his nonsensical VAT UBI, he really doesn't seem to think policies through.
I generally agree that the EC disproportionately helps some voters over others due to the nasic dynamic of swing states. With the EC you're going to have voters in static/non-swing states be disenfranchised more because their vote will feel comparatively weak compared to a swing state vote. But removing the EC is only half of the equation, you need to cut down gerrymandering as that also disenfranchises minority voters due to alot of factors ranging from accessibility to the voting site or the corruption of votes getting "miscounted". If everyone's vote is on a level playing field you'll still get equal representation federally. That's why we have levels of gov't. So that if federal votes favor cities over rural, local municipalities/regional govts can apply laws that can reflect rural voters more. /two cents
How would population centers' influence be "disproportionate"? That's where the population is. It would be exactly proportionate to the number of people there. Why should we take land into account?
It’s called tyranny of the majority guy. I am not defending the EC. If there’s a law passed that only helps the city dweller so and only hurts those outside of cities, how is that just? Its about not having a group of the nation disposed of because they’re small. Since when was that NOT a liberal tenant?
I don't get why the tyranny of the majority is so terrible when the US has been living under the tyranny of the minority for the last 3 years or so.
It's not about balancing a broken system by breaking it more If the EC is removed, which it very well could be, it would NOT fix the central problems the US suffers from. You'd need to create other systems to help support the new lack of an EC. This isn't as easy as saying "remove it" and everything is peachy. That doesn't mean I support the EC, or a tyranny in either direction.
You're both right. The EC is garbage. So is the Popular Choice. I'd argue for a Majority and Minority cabinet; which is elected in via Ranked Choice elections. The party(or coalition) that wins the most preferred stastically, not the most votes, gets their representative into the majority cabinet position while the runner up gets into the minority. Essentially; the most preferred by the majority of Americans can lead while the minority protects the rights which was the intention of the EC in the first place.
I may have a fundamentally different view, but I think the states should work as a union in deciding their president. Proportionate electoral college would be a better middle ground in defining representation in proportion to popular vote and state representation. Afterall, we have HOR (proportionate to population) and Senate (2 delegates per state). Governments and cultures are very different from state to state. Though I understand concern for tyranny of the minority, it's also obvious that the United States is far to large of a country to be ruled as a democracy. There should be more focus on decentralized governance because it is far more effective.
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