return2ozmaLarge Majority of Americans Want to End Electoral College
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Large majority of voters want to change a system where the large majority of voters don’t have as much say as a a minority of voters.
If the Democrats actually get the house and the senate this election, they should definitely looking into changing the voting system. It would be in their best interest.
Would require a constitutional amendment to do so. 2/3rds majority of the House and Senate and then ratification by 3/4ths of all state legislatures to outright remove it.
Or the interstate voting compact which just needs a couple more states. But that’s a less direct mechanism that keeps the electoral college intact, just changes the way electoral votes are distributed.
There are still some other things that can be done federally to help. If they change the size of the house (determined by legislation not constitution), it also changes electoral votes for states. Electoral votes are based on house + senate seats per state
On its own that makes the electoral college much closer to representing the population of each state
I would also presume it likely would also make the popular vote compact way closer or cross the needed majority of electoral votes. Though I haven’t done or seen any analysis on that directly so not 100% sure because the ways seats are appropriated can be funky and non-linear
I feel like it would be more realistic to repeal the Apportionment Act of 1911. At the very least, it would correct the massive inequality in congressional apportionment. It would also increase the number of electors in the largest states, which would mostly benefit democrats.
Yes and no.
en.wikipedia.org/…/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta…
The NPVIC may work to get around the electoral college without amending the constitution. It would still be FPTP which wouldn’t be great. But it would at a minimum be an improvement, because it would do away with swing states, red voters stuck in blue states, and blue voters stuck in red states.
because it would do away with swing states, red voters stuck in blue states, and blue voters stuck in red states.
…and replace it with the election being won based primarily on turnout in California. Like seriously, the last few times a candidate won the electoral college but lost the popular vote it was a case where their margin in California was larger than their margin nationally. As in across the other 49 states more people voted for the person who won the electoral college, and California by itself was responsible for the swing to the other direction. Because California is just so ridiculously big compared to the other states.
and replace it with the election being won based primarily on turnout in California
No, it would replace it with a majority FPTP country wide system. Californians are a minority of the country. They do not get sole control, nor would they under a popular vote system.
California was larger than their margin nationally.
But not all of that margin comes from California, and not all of Californians vote blue.
Where you live should have no effect on how much of a voice you have in the federal government. Everybody’s vote should be counted, and counted equally, because we’re all made equally. The current system completely fails at that.
No, it would replace it with a majority FPTP country wide system. Californians are a minority of the country. They do not get sole control, nor would they under a popular vote system.
Unless this also dramatically changes voting patterns nationwaide it’s essentially the same thing. Every time in recent history the electoral college and popular vote have yielded different results, the difference was smaller than the margin in California.
the difference was smaller than the margin in California
That’s arbitrary. The same is probably true of Florida/Texas combined.
The whole point is that the power of a vote is independent of location.
While dramatic things like making the senate votes proportional or abolishing the electoral college might require a constitutional amendment, the text is silent on plurality vs RCW or what have you.
Congress could mandate a switch with a simple law, and point to their power to ensure democracy, same as the post bush v gore laws that mandated electronic voting machines.
Or the interstate voting compact which just needs a couple more states.
Of course, it’s already got every state that benefits from it being passed, and a few more that signed on but only benefit so long as their preferences are always in line with California. Which collectively isn’t enough for it to go active.
Now you’ve got to convince states that will both lose power and routinely get results out of line with their preferences to sign onto the thing that will do that.
…and once it goes active it will go to the courts where the argument will be whether as an interstate compact it has to be federally approved or if the state’s right to assign their electors as they please trumps that.
Don’t the states choose the voting system for their particular state? If so, it will never happen.
As if Dems would do anything that could compromise their own power.
Dems face an electoral cliff if they do nothing. In a few more cycles, it may be impossible to win the senate or the presidency, even with a majority vote behind them, due to too much power in small states.
Democrats generally favor ending the electoral college, if nothing else because it would deliver them more votes. In fact several states, pretty much all the solid blue states in the last couple of elections, have passed a compact to give all electoral votes to the popular vote winner.
Map shows where effort to replace Electoral College stands
Nearly 20 years in the making, the reform initiative seeks to change the way Electoral College votes are counted.
jordanlundThe only reason they want a popular vote system is because it would have worked in their favor in 2000 and 2016.
The minute it goes against “their” candidate they’ll scream to go back to the electoral college.
See the multi-state pact here:
www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation
Currently passed in 17 states for 209 electoral college votes, it doesn’t take effect until there are 270 accounted for.
But do you really think the residents of a state like Oregon, or Washington, or California will just be OK with their electoral college votes being passed to a popular vote winner who is a Republican?
Especially if that person failed to win their state?
Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote
One-page explanation (PDF) The National Popular Vote law will guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It will apply the one-person-one-vote principle to presidential elections, and make every vote equal. Why a National Popular Vote for President Is Needed The shortcomings of the current system stem from “winner-take-all” laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each separate state.
Is the suggestion here that the only people who support the electoral college are those who don’t want the president to represent the majority of the voting population?
No, the suggestion here is that the people supporting the popular vote are doing it because they got burned in 2000 and 2016.
Had it gone the other way, they wouldn’t be agitating for it.
If Trump somehow wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college, WA, OR and CA will be THRILLED.
Your suggestion is wrong. Eliminating the Electoral College is advocated for by everyone who supports Democracy. It is also not a coincidence that the Electoral College disproportionately benefits one party over the other. And to cement that advantage they employ anti-Democratic measures in an attempt at voter suppression.
Everyone who supports Democracy… right up until it goes against their interests.
So you don’t think it’s ok to do the right thing, because people want it for the wrong reasons?
I think people want it now because they feel burned by the 2000 and 2016 elections, but the first time it goes the other way they will be like “Wait, not like THAT!”
I look at the 2000 election like this:
Gore won. If we had completed counting the ballots in Florida, however they were counted, Gore won.
www.theguardian.com/world/…/uselections2000.usa
(Published 8 days after the Bush inauguration)
The problem there wasn’t popular vs. electoral college. The problem was Democrats are spineless and refuse to fight. “When they go low, we go high” and all that.
In the end though, if Gore had also bothered to win his own home state of Tennessee, Florida would not have mattered.
In 2016, again, less of a problem with popular vs. electoral and more that Clinton utterly failed to campaign in key states like MI and WI, taking them for granted and assuming they were a lock. Surprise! Not a lock.
Had she done her job correctly, she wouldn’t have lost the EC.
Gore won. If we had completed counting the ballots in Florida, however they were counted, Gore won.
www.theguardian.com/world/…/uselections2000.usa
(Published 8 days after the Bush inauguration)
The problem there wasn’t popular vs. electoral college. The problem was Democrats are spineless and refuse to fight. “When they go low, we go high” and all that.
There were recounts beforehand. Didn’t change the result. The last recount, the one that got interrupted by the injunction and killed by SCOTUS was of a handful of specific counties and counted under a different standard for over- and under-votes than the rest of the state.
If it had been completed, Bush would still have won. According to some media outlets doing research on the topic, had the entire state been recounted under the standard Gore wanted to use for that handful of places, Gore might have won. Some surveys done after the fact also suggested Gore could have won but surveys aren’t votes, it’s why we don’t just let news media do a poll and decide the president that way.
The SCOTUS decision leaned on two things: Election deadlines are enforceable and using different rules to count votes depending on which district you are in violates Equal Protection. They killed the last recount because it violated equal protection and a version of it that wouldn’t could not possibly have been completed before the deadline (about 2 hours after they released the opinion).
The logic behind Bush v Gore is why Trump switched from launching lawsuit after lawsuit in 2020 to bloviating and whining and hoping for a coup starting at about mid December. He’ll do the same this year if he loses - he’ll launch any lawsuit he thinks might have a ghost of a chance until we reach election deadlines then incessantly bloviate in a vain attempt to foment rebellion.
Thankfully, there are many people who don’t think like this.
I think you’re giving average people too much credit.
“Consider how dumb the average person is and then remember 1/2 of them are dumber than that!” - Carlin
I think the argument boils down to the same one that created both a Senate and House of Representatives, which is does the US have allegiance to it’s citizens or it’s States.
Representation by population vs representation by area. The same kind of arguments made in favour of switching the U.S. to a fully proportional system (getting rid of all forms of representation by area) could equally be made in favour of having one world government with proportional representation.
When we think about it that way (world elections would be dominated by Asia), it’s easy to see why we might not want such a system. Then, returning to the U.S. system alone it’s easier to see why many people want representation by area preserved. Although the cultural differences between states are much smaller than the differences between continents, they’re still very much present and the issues often dominate American politics.
It would be nice to implement stuff like one of the voting systems under the broader ranked choice voting umbrella first before getting rid of the electoral college.
But do you really think the residents of a state like Oregon, or Washington, or California will just be OK with their electoral college votes being passed to a popular vote winner who is a Republican?
Yes, because they won. People who favor democracy understand they won’t always be in the majority, and that’s OK bedause they aren’t shitbags. People who only want the system to work in their favor are called Conservatives.
You have more faith than I do. If Oregonians thought their vote was overturned because of a national popular vote winner, there would be riots.
monkintoTheir vote wasn’t “overturned” their vote counted just as much as anyone else’s they just lost.
Under the multi-state pact, if Oregon voted overwhelmingly for Harris, but Trump won the national popular vote, and our electoral college votes were delivered to Trump because of the popular vote, yeah, that would be overturning the will of Oregon voters and there would be riots.
So when one town votes for trump and Harris wins the state the votes of that town are “overturned” by the state then?
Pretty much, and they’re so pissed off about that they want to split the state and join Idaho.
Really? I grew up in a red town in Massachusetts and I’ve literally never heard a single person talk about their vote like that ever, let alone suggest that the town should join another state.
Welcome to Oregon!
Here’s the thing, the population centers, where people actually live, are super super blue.
The rest of the state is Trump country.
So every election, the people in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Corvallis, Bend and Newport call the shots. Everyone else feels disenfranchised because in those counties there are more square miles and cows than people.
Overturning what exactly? To record their votes in the EC for the losing candidate in a symbolic gesture? No one gives a shit about that, they’re still losing. You’ll have the state tallies, which actually count people, if you really want to say “most Oregonians disliked Trump”.
The way the multi-state pact works is that member states agree to give all their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote, regardless of who the state actually voted for.
It doesn’t actually get rid of the Electoral College, that would take a constitutional amendment, it just re-apportions the Electoral College votes based on the outcome of the popular vote.
So in 2000 and 2016, the Democratic candidate won Oregon, and won the popular vote, they would get all the electoral college votes, not a problem, even though they lost the election overall.
Where it WILL be a problem is if the Democratic candidate wins the state, but the Republican candidate wins the national popular vote.
State voters will be told “Yeah, we don’t care who you actually voted for, the Republican gets the votes from your state.” OMG there will be riots.
Think of it like this… Your vote in your state gets inverted because of voters in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, etc. etc.
Your state EC vote for a losing candidate is a purely symbolic exercise with zero effect whatsoever on the result. And once the NPVC is in effect even the symbolism will be effectively nil as people no longer care or count electoral votes.
If the Republicans win the popular vote, they’ve also won the electoral college, but even if they didn’t, that’s democracy. Trying to overturn the will of the people by reverting to an archaic and undemocratic system is anti-democracy. You have to actually believe the EC has some value to try go to the streets to try to restore it, but it’s a bad system that invalidates people’s votes, whether or not Democrats are winning.
You mean if they lost? How many riots have there been in Oregon when the candidate Oregon shows didn’t win the electoral college? Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, but we didn’t see riots in Oregon.
That’s not your best argument against a national popular vote agreement. The best argument is that no national campaigns would give a shit about Oregon if the goal was winning the national popular vote. Oregon is a progressive coastal state, but it’s still a flyover state.
In fact, states wouldn’t matter at all. State borders are just imaginary lines drawn around population centers. Campaigns would focus exclusively on demographics and high density population zones. Oregonians as a demographic would be considered “safe” for progressives and “lost” for conservatives, so neither side would give them much effort. California Republicans and Texas Democrats would be the big winners. States like New York and Florida would become the new battlegrounds, as candidates spoke to the concerns of the most people.
And in a way, that would be much better. It would encourage more voters to actually show up, and local races would become more important. But with first past the post, winner take all national elections, you’ll still have two parties demonizing the other.
Found the person not from Oregon:
Lol, I’m from Philly, that’s not a riot.
Oregonians as a demographic would be considered “safe” for progressives and “lost” for conservatives, so neither side would give them much effort.
That’s now. You’re describing the electoral college.
Boomer Humor DoomergodThis runs counter to the Lemmy narrative which says we need like 40 years of Democratic rule to unfuck the country.
The unfuck the Supreme Court. That’s still an issue regardless of how the voting is done. And it’s usually referenced to discredit people just saying “let the system work it out” and in favor of quicker solutions like packing the Court.
oxjoxCool. Can we also get moving on Ranked Choice Voting?
Star Voting is better in every way.
Approval voting is the only method that meets all the requirements for a fair election without elevating an unpopular candidate.
IthralI’ll take better over perfect especially since better is on the ballot as an option this year for me, but who knows might try to get approval voting on the ballot for next time
My pet peeve is that RCV has a lot of the same issues as FPtP voting, and some local and state governments that have started using RCV are rolling back their progress.
Better might not be good enough, and if it’s not good enough, it lends credence to the argument that progress is bad and the old corruption is better than the new corruption.
khannieI’m curious to hear what those issues are?
I feel well represented under RCV.
The biggest problem opponents are using to block or roll back RCV is transparency and time. Hand counts take longer and may get vastly different results if there are discrepancies. But those concerns are mostly smokescreen from groups that benefit from the status quo. Any hand recount takes time, and if you fully tabulate the entire vote, it’s easy to locate potential problems with the computer count.
My concerns are transparency and honesty, and both stem from the fact that only your first remaining choice counts in each round, and one candidate is eliminated in each round. Because only your first preference counts, the most important selection is your first choice. Everyone’s second choice gets no votes in the first round and will be eliminated, even if they get 100% of the second choice selections.
Several candidates from the same ideological neighborhood split and dilute the vote from those voters for the first round. If everyone doesn’t rally around one specific candidate, all of those candidates could be eliminated in instant runoffs as the lowest vote getter. You have to vote strategically to make sure that the spoiler candidate on your side is eliminated before the spoiler candidate on their side.
Like, let’s say we have five fictional candidates, and arbitrarily assign them Green, Blue, Purple, Red, and Nazi. Blue and Red are the front runners, Green is the spoiler for Blue and Nazi is the spoiler for Red. Purple is a third centrist party
Blue voters assume Green voters will pick Blue or Purple as their second choice, and Red voters assume Nazi voters will pick Red or Purple as their second choice. It’s in both Blue and Red’s interest to see Nazi and Green beat Purple in the first round and then have their opponent’s spoiler beat their spoiler in the second round. This creates a scenario where strong Blue supporters are strategically voting for Nazi as their first choice, even though that would be there last preference.
So let’s say the preferences roughly break down into 6 categories
30 BPG 30 RPN 15 GPB 15 NPR 5 PGB 5 PNR
With a FPTP election, Blue and Red would convince everyone that Green, Nazi, and Purple have no chance of winning, and therefore voters should pick a frontrunner. And they’d be right, because FPTP sucks balls. But the winner would be whichever frontrunner can convince enough voters to pick their third choice.
With RCV, it is better but still not great. This scenario would be deadlocked at the second round, so Red attempts to convince a few Nazis that their candide cannot win and switch their vote from NPR to RNP. Blue tries a different strategy, and takes some of their own voters to switch from BPG to NBP. Both frontrunner candidates are still vying to convince some of the Purple supporters to change their minds. Anyone that picks some combination of GNP risks having their ballot expire, so they have to pick R or B even if they hate both equally.
So there’s still almost no chance that a third party will win, only now it’s more complicated. Plus if there’s a hand recount, a few votes one way or the other can dramatically change the final tally by changing who comes in last. A better name for RCV is Last Past the Post. It’s better, but it’s still not representing the true will of the voters, and it’s not encouraging campaigns to win hearts and minds. It promotes gamesmanship and back-room deals over voter outreach and turnout.
Approval voting is pretty good, someone else mentioned that one. The only problem I have with that is that it encourages negative campaigning. Every campaign would be attacking Purple, and promoting party purity and loyalty as an ideology. Compromise becomes the enemy, because you have to control the ball.
Star Voting is fair. Every vote counts, and every vote is an accurate representation of the voter’s preference. There’s only one instant runoff, so a recount might change who is included, but there’s no reason to be strategic with your votes. Negative campaigning is discouraged, and candidates are rewarded for finding common ground because ratings are not mutually exclusive. And the best advantage, there’s no way for the frontrunners to use demagogeury or political maneuvering to box out new candidates with their clout.
My biggest concern with RCV is that its flaws are dampening enthusiasm for change. People recognize that the current system sucks balls, but if RCV ends up disappointing those who were on the fence about change, they aren’t going to look for new solutions. They are going to retreat to the devil they know.
Right…I’ll preface all this by saying I live in an RCV country which used to have a 2 party system way back when. The question was genuine because I’m very happy with our voting system and if there were flaws I’m interested to explore better options.
The hypothetical you’re discussing there never happens. I’ve been voting for 30 years and have never come across (or myself done) the kind of shenanigans you mention. There’s just no need for it.
You go in, rank your options in order and the fairest option for you (with some small caveats) comes out on top. Our recent European elections in my district are a good example. There were 4 seats up for grabs and 8 parties and a bunch of independents up. The larger parties will frequently field 2 candidates. In that election, the 6th place candidate overtook 5th on eliminations from the 7th place preferences to take 4th.
In the case of the nazi’s, they get eliminated first round here then 90+% of their votes will pass to some other right wing party with 10% not counting because they are the end of the line for that voter.
One example I’ll give is for a centre left voter. They would hypothetically vote some combination of labour, greens and centre left independents. Once those options had run out on the ballot, you’re looking at whether they’re more likely to go far left or centre right. Where I live, a large number of the votes will actually fall centre right as they’re closer idealogically than far left.
For what it’s worth, here’s how the breakdown of voting was in my district:
www.rte.ie/news/elections-2024/results/#/local/fi…
The counting thing actually adds a bit of spice and voter excitement because you’re keen to see how votes transfer in each round. Certainly I was checking in regularly and was keen to see if the pundits were right on the final elimination I mentioned above (they were).
I have heard of star voting and must read more on it, but I am very happy with RCV for now and I’m not sure Star would represent any meaningful change in a country that moved from 2 party to many party with a strong independent voice in our parliament.
Approval voting still encourages strategic voting and “dishonesty” and does not strongly correlate with actual preference. If there are three candidates, Love, Tolerate, and Hate, 60% could strongly prefer Love, and 30% strongly prefer Hate, but both groups would prefer Tolerate over the other alternative, then Love voters would be smart to not make a second choice even though they would approve of Tolerate.
Australia has optional preferential voting. If there is 10 candidates, you can list them in order you want, but you don’t have to pick them all. You can stop at any point. Pick 3 or 4 in order, or say 7, but you don’t have to rank the nazi at all.
morrowindThat’s pretty much star voting, except you can give candidates the same ranking
Ok. But why rank them the same?
I don’t see the point. In preferential voting you choose your candidates in a ranked order, so if number 5 doesn’t make the cut in the final count, your next vote (number 4) kicks in, and so on. Not exactly - all number 1 votes are tallied, and the losers are eliminated and then the second vote from the loser candidate gets tallied and so on until the winner is chosen. In this way your ranked choice is never exhausted until a winner arises. Your number 3 choice may get voted in. All votes are potentially important. FPTP sounds like a crap shoot.
Because that may be the most accurate description of your actual preference, which is what a vote should be.