US inches closer to change in how presidential elections are counted

T. A. Gardner said:
Aside from that, you are also now stating that people vote on the basis of racism rather than on the basis of politics.
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You are stating that everyone in California will vote a certain way, so if we allow a popular vote, they will dominate the country. I point out that if you accept that, you could also accept that all whites would vote the same way, and they would dominate the country. If you want to give people in red states extra votes for not being a majority of the country, why not give Blacks extra votes for not being a majority of the country?
 
Walt said:
You are stating that everyone in California will vote a certain way, so if we allow a popular vote, they will dominate the country. I point out that if you accept that, you could also accept that all whites would vote the same way, and they would dominate the country. If you want to give people in red states extra votes for not being a majority of the country, why not give Blacks extra votes for not being a majority of the country?
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No, I'm stating that if we allow a popular vote and voting splits like it historically does, then just 7 states determine the outcome of the election. The other 43 states become almost irrelevant.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
No, I'm stating that if we allow a popular vote and voting splits like it historically does, then just 7 states determine the outcome of the election. The other 43 states become almost irrelevant.
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There is logic in a state like Cali having more sway than states with fewer than a million population. The reverse makes no sense. A complete majority winning a vote ,like every other vote in the country, makes sense. That is how it should be.
 
Nordberg said:
There is logic in a state like Cali having more sway than states with fewer than a million population. The reverse makes no sense. A complete majority winning a vote ,like every other vote in the country, makes sense. That is how it should be.
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No, there's not. Let's say California gets some of the mandates it already is pushing but on the national level:

EV's and no alternative.
HSR and rail in general
Solar and wind
Banning small gasoline / fossil fuel engines.

Now, you live outside a small town in some low population state, say S. Dakota. Battery powered tools like a chain saw, power supply (versus generator), etc., are nearly impossible to use for you. Solar and wind have driven your electrical costs up 3 x what they were. You can't buy natural gas (banned), so you are forced to cut wood and use it for heating because you can't afford electricity. The people that voted all that fuck you into law can't even comprehend how you live or your lifestyle. It is totally alien to them.

An EV is totally impractical so you've stuck with your elderly ICE vehicle and make wood gas for it on your property. Highly inefficient, but at least you have a working vehicle.

California dominating national politics in a popular vote way (along with several more blue states with high urbanization) screwed the rural population with their politics and policies. This is why Russia was fucked under Communism. The urban areas got all the attention from a strong central government that only really paid attention to the big cities while the rural areas languished under shit conditions pushed on them by that central govenment.

The constitution as written and intended was supposed to limit central government power and put it in the hands of the states and people instead. What a popular vote on everything does at the federal level is concentrate power. Socialists and Communists love that because it means they can then enact their beloved economic and social policies. Fuck the little guy.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
No, I'm stating that if we allow a popular vote and voting splits like it historically does, then just 7 states determine the outcome of the election. The other 43 states become almost irrelevant.
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No, if you have popular voting, each voter is equal, no matter which state they are in.
 
Walt said:
No, if you have popular voting, each voter is equal, no matter which state they are in.
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States still exist, unless you are suggesting their governments are now totally subordinate to the federal one. States perform most day-to-day functions people rely on, not the federal government. So, while each voter may be equal, states won't be, and voters in low population states will get screwed royally by voters in high population ones.
 
Taichiliberal said:
Eliminate the electoral college .. an outdated and antiquated system.
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Eliminate the Constitution...an outdated and antiquated document. That's what we'd have to do to eliminate the electoral college because America is far too divided to amend it with the means provided by the existing constitution. We'd essentially need to incorporate a new nation,
and it would probably end up being at least two or three.
 
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T. A. Gardner said:
No, the electoral college was designed to give the smaller states a bit more say in electing a President. The 17th amendment destroyed the Senate which was to represent the states, not the people. The House was for that.

Turning everything into a popular vote ends in anarchy, not better government.
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If the electoral college was designed to give smaller states a “bit more to say” it has since transpired into giving smaller states an exaggerated if not controlling “say” in electing a President. Hard to get beyond the fact that Wyoming, which is smaller than metro Buffalo, NY, has more input than California which is 68 times Wyoming’s population. It is a problem

If you claim the Senate was intended to represent the States you are actually saying the State Legislatures, not the people of the State, and given gerrymandering, the political bosses of the States

The popular vote doesn’t automatically mean anarchy, there are, least there used to be, checks and balances, designed to curb anarchy
 
T. A. Gardner said:
The state is also a government in being. While it is elected by the people, Senators before the 17th amendment were appointed by the state's government in one way or another. That is, the senators from a state were beholden to that state's government first and foremost. That meant that the Senate answered to state governments and weren't elected at all. The states were represented at the federal level.

The 17th Amendment turned the Senate into a second House, and that's why nothing ever gets done there. It fucked everything up with relation to the Senate.
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So now the Senate is beholden to the State’s voters

Making everything a majority vote is what ruined the Senate
 
CasualLurker said:
Eliminate the Constitution...an outdated and antiquated document. That's what we'd have to do to eliminate the electoral college because America is far too divided to amend it with the means provided by the existing constitution. We'd essentially need to incorporate a new nation,
and it would probably end up being at least two or three.
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Don’t need to eliminate the Constitution rather forget the textualism understanding of the Constitution. It was intended as a framework not as a gospel
 
archives said:
Don’t need to eliminate the Constitution rather forget the textualism understanding of the Constitution. It was intended as a framework not as a gospel
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A Constitution is the definition of how an incorporated nation will be constituted. It has to be pretty specific in terms of how the government will functionally work. Things like rights and obligations can be made flexible as culture evolves, but how the government operates cannot. That's how our constitution has failed badly. I don't see it as worth keeping for that reason alone.
 
California is 11 percent of our population. They do not control the country or its politics. However, in a democracy, the majority should have the power. How can you logic out that the minority should have the power? In every other election in the country, the one with the most votes wins. The electoral college was installed to get slave states and small states to join the union. Until Trump came along, slave states were not possible to return. It may be possible now.
 
I don't see how the "Compact" can override an essentially unamendable Constitution article.
We're nowhere near a national popular vote for president. We're not even close to reasonable districting for congressional elections.
Hume said:
“I think this is a very straightforward, long-term plan to get us to a point where the United States is frankly what most people think it is, which is a place where every person’s vote counts the same as every other person’s vote,” Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger said after signing legislation to add the state to the National Popular Vote Compact.

“Unfortunately, that is not the case when it comes to presidential elections, where by virtue of having the Electoral College, depending on the state you live in, your vote does count differently.”

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see
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Use parliamentary procedure, for example. One party, not wanting the other to pass something, could simply debate it endlessly taking all the time they have on the floor, one after the other. They could by sheer numbers attach riders and other nonsense to the bill overwhelming the original intent. Imagine some committee with 50 members split roughly in two. A quorum requires, let's say 60% present. The objecting party doesn't show up. Or, they do and endlessly add crap to keep things from happening. Much easier with bigger numbers. Or a Congressional hearing that drags on for weeks to give each member their time to badger witnesses...

Then you have to office and house all these representatives. In the 60's they all need phones, mimeographs, and other office equipment. They take up a huge office building apart from the Capitol building, or the Capitol building has to expand and expand. Getting a quorum to even vote on something could become difficult or impossible. They all need staff too.

Then there's the problem of some state having so few people that it has 1 or 2 representatives out of a 1000 or more. They become irrelevant and their state likewise becomes irrelevant. It has no voice.

It would be an endlessly expanding bureaucracy of inefficiency and nonsense.


They likely couldn't govern at all.
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Good argument against an infinite House.


Not a great argument for a permanently frozen House.


We already have delay, bloat, theatrics, quorum games, useless amendments, and grandstanding now. What we do not have is representation that scales with population.


So yes, a bigger House might be messier.


But a frozen House gave us bigger districts, pricier campaigns, less local voice, and permanent redistricting war.


That is not efficiency. That is just a different kind of dysfunction.
 
zymurgy said:
Good argument against an infinite House.


Not a great argument for a permanently frozen House.
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There's nothing that says the proportioning can't be changed. It just hasn't been changed.
zymurgy said:
We already have delay, bloat, theatrics, quorum games, useless amendments, and grandstanding now. What we do not have is representation that scales with population.
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We've always had delay, bloat, theatrics, and quorum games. These get worse when you have more actors on stage so-to-speak.
zymurgy said:
So yes, a bigger House might be messier.
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A bigger House becomes unmanagable at some point.
zymurgy said:
But a frozen House gave us bigger districts, pricier campaigns, less local voice, and permanent redistricting war.
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This isn't true. Those things are not the result of a frozen number of House members but rather a result of how much money is available for politics.

zymurgy said:
That is not efficiency. That is just a different kind of dysfunction.
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In a way, the House was always intended to be somewhat dysfunctional. The Senate was supposed to be the deliberative and more rational body but that died with the 17th Amendment.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
This isn't true. Those things are not the result of a frozen number of House members but rather a result of how much money is available for politics.
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If you can't even admit to something so clearly axiomatic, I won't waste time on the other disagreements

which of these things are "untrue" exactly?

bigger districts, pricier campaigns, less local voice, and permanent redistricting wars.
 
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