What do you know about the Electoral College?

[BCRanger10]

Do you know what it is and why we have it?

[Anonymous]

The electoral cottage is a single propose congress by which the states CAN if a majority agree directly elect the president.

This was not originally thought to be commonly successful. In what was before often multi-candidate elections. Instead the way Presidents were expected to be elected by congress most of the time as was the case under the constitution for most of the convention when a majority of electors failed to agree.

Regardless the electoral cottage as designed effectively function to isolate every state's elections to that state allowing states to run their own elections (as many of them had for centuries at that point) without effecting other states.

This is why some states can use alternative election systems & rules with significantly differently turnout rates.
Like Instant run offs and proportional representation etc...

The complains about the electoral cottage not being proportional really is a reflection of the longevity of the person making it as that is unrelated to the collage itself which is simply a reflection of congress, and can easily be fixed without an amendment.

Indeed it was progressives who fixed the house to 435.

[AviatorTom]

The Electoral College was a compromise from the men who wrote the US Constitution. One group wanted the people to vote for the President, with the President winning the country's popular vote. Another group wanted the states to determine the President, with each state getting one vote.

Some of the Founding Fathers didn't trust people, who knew little about politics, to select the President via popular vote. Others didn't like the idea of small states (and fewer people) having the same power as large states (with more people) in selecting the President. After much discussion and debate, the Electoral College was a compromise between the two.

It's important to note that the Constitution describes the Electoral College and how to allocate electoral votes to each state, but it does not describe how each state selects its electors. Originally, each state legislature voted for its electors, and it wasn't until a few decades later that states decided to award its electors based on the state's popular vote as winner-takes-all. Only recently, have two states (Maine in 1972, Nebraska in 1992) dropped its winner-takes-all and now allocates one elector to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district, and 2 electors to the winner of the state's total popular vote. As of 2024, other states are reportedly considering doing something similar, and some states are considering allocating their state's electoral votes to the overall winner of the country's popular vote.

[monorprise]

@AviatorTom That is BS, Few people wanted a popular vote for president the default position as was held for most of the convention was to have congress elect the president like it does if nobody wins a majority of the electors.

Thereafter the electors were mostly cast by State legislators for the next 30 years.

[WindAtMyBack]

I know enough about it to be a strong supporter of it. I also know that most people don't understand that it's more representative.

They also don't understand that "winner takes all" for the states is entirely their choice, and not something inherent in the electoral college. Since "winner takes all" is what a lot of people have against it, they need to petition their state to change that, instead of blaming the electoral college itself.

Personally I want to see it go back to the early days when people didn't vote for president at all. Let the states decide without a popular vote. The more I've seen of the chaos we call a presidential election, the more firmly I believe that people should not be allowed to vote for president.

[seeyounexttuesday]

I know that the democrats are trying to dismantle it. However, California, Oregon, DC, New Mexico, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Maine all signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. That means if Trump wins the popular vote, all of their electoral votes have to be awarded to him.

Its fun watching their political stunts backfire on them.

[monorprise]

swing states are going to find it most objectionable.
Democrats have such a dominating position in media that no republican can win the popular vote until after having taken office to prove what democrat media says about him is a lie.

[seeyounexttuesday]

@monorprise Trump’s winning the popular vote by a good margin.

[monorprise]

@seeyounexttuesday
Yes but if people didn't know how trump would actualy govern from his prior time as President trump likely would have lost the popular vote and perhaps also the electoral vote.

The same story was true of the last republican Bush. In both cases they did much better upon reelection than their original election because people knew the left's media lies were just that.
This is true of the 2020 election too which trump did far better than he did in 2016.

[seeyounexttuesday]

@monorprise Again. Trump won on every metric.

[monorprise]

@seeyounexttuesday
What is your point? The fact is Trump like the every other republican presidential canadit this century lost the popular vote in their first election, while doing much better in subsequent elections illustrates that republicans structurally do better when people know them which tells you they don't know them in the original election.

[DrPepper12]

An anachronistic afterthought and sop to slave states that is responsible for rancorous hyper partisanship and counter to democracy. it's painful that it even exists

[BCRanger10]

Did you say that in 2020? Or in 2012 or 2008?

[monorprise]

@DrPepper12
That is a lie, the electoral cottage has little to nothing to do with slavery. Few people wanted a popular vote for president and most people didn't even vote on their state's electors until 30 years later.
The default position was a congressional vote (like in parliamentary systems) as it still is if nobody wins a majority of the special congress that is the electoral cottage.

[DrPepper12]

Another failure who never read the federalist papers... Sad!

[DrPepper12]

@BCRanger10. Yes I've said since Reagan's landslide in 84

[BCRanger10]

When you were...12.

[DrPepper12]

Ummmm... ok?

[BCRanger10]

Why don't I believe you?

[NathanDavis]

I know why it does no longer work as it was intended

[NathanDavis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mky11UJb9AY

[monorprise]

@NathanDavis
You can't change the borders of states therefore you can't Gerrymander them. We are basically stuck with what we have until all 3 parties agree to change it.

[NathanDavis]

@monorprise do you also want a video explaining the difference between State borders and electoral district borders?

[monorprise]

@NathanDavis No unless you want to argue they are something other than a relatively fixed border of a state.

[NathanDavis]

@monorprise that's what I thought...

[Grond21]

I do, and it is one of the best counters to mob rule ever invented

[worldscolide]

It was created to prevent high population states from controlling who runs the federal government.

[monorprise]

Not exactly @worldscolide remember the original system under the Articles of Confederation which the federalist at the convention were ONLY SUPPOSE TO Amend taxing powers to had all states as equally represented.

Instead the federalist (People who wanted centralized power) who were just about the only ones who showed up to the Convention of 1787 the others largely boycotting it.
Dishonestly threw out their instructions from the States and Congress and instead wrote a new Constitution.

In that convention they added a house of representatives on the grounds that people pay taxes and therefore should have a say. There we have a debate on the power of large states vs small states which today is really more a reflection of the what would happen if we did a popular vote. Only its the top 12 cities not states.
There would also be enromous amounts of electioneering on how state's report their vote numbers to inflate the value.

States which for example move to rank choice voting could claim everyone voted for what the majority selected as that was the last choice which won.

So really is a big mess because of how states run all elections.

[worldscolide]

Huh, interesting.

[In_Trance]

Sounds like a fancy way of saying that someone has too much disposable income

[Anonymous]

Yep
It’s incredible that our fore fathers had that much foresight.


I applaud them.

[saraupstairs]

It never made sense to me.

[monorprise]

What is soo complicated @saraupstairs about a system that effectively isolates all elections to the states that run them?

Remember in 1787 states had been running elections for hundreds of years at point with different systems and rules effecting different turn out rates and vote totals.

The electoral cottage allowed states to control the process of electing presidents without centralizing control over elections nor giving state's a motivation to electioneer their own elections for greater influence over other states.

Think about it for a moment.

Say Alaska has rank Choice voting automatically rolling over the losing votes to their next choice.
So The number of people voting for candidate 1 in Alaska is far higher than the number of people in a similarly sized state of Idaho who does FPP for the same candidate 1.

Vermont by contrast might have No rules on voting at all so people might be voting 5 times and thus run up huge numbers for candidate 2 perhaps more than there are people in the state.

In such a situation both Alaska and Idaho would basically be forced to adopt Vermont's system just to have a fair chance at the same office.

Given this is a problem that ONLY exist for the presidency the only common office, the electoral cottage is a clever solution to simply fix the state's vote to the same size by which congress has fixed it's size. which happens to be 435 for the last 100 years thanks to progressives.