Allegory wrote:
gbaji wrote:
not by total popular vote of the country as a whole.
That is exactly what the most populous states wanted.
No, it's not. For two reasons:
1. You're confusing a raw popular vote, which means every single person votes independent of where they live, and the totals are just added up, versus "each state gets a delegation based on that state's total population, and each states delegation is in turn determined via a vote of the people in that state". Those are *not* the same thing, and will not always cause the same outcome. And again, that assumes that each state determines the makeup of their delegations via the same methods (ie: popular vote), which is *also* not a requirement. Remember, we live in the "United
States of America", not "Americaland".
2. While it's what would have benefited their states the most, that does not mean that's what the folks coming up with the system fought for tooth and nail. You're assuming a straight up adversarial process here, with the small states each wanting every state to have the same number, and the big states wanting each state to have a number of representatives based on population, and then they compromised in the middle. The reality is much more like how we actually do things in the real world. Both sides realize that either one of those extremes would be unfair for various reasons and collectively seek out a solution that provides the best mix of the two.
Your argument is like saying that combining a sweet flavor (like say grated carrot) into your high acid tomato sauce, was a compromise between those who wanted "sweet" marinara and those who wanted "acid" marinara with both being steadfastly committed to their "side" of the flavor issue, when the reality is that most sane people realize that by putting both in there, it simply makes for a better tasting sauce. Most people recognize immediately that delegations based on pure population is unfair, and that those awarded to states regardless of size is *also* unfair. Most people then seek out a solution that works better. Um... Which is what happened in this case.
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It's the only relevant point besides the faithless electors debacle. If the exact number of delegates from each state was exactly equal to their proportion of the population then there would be no discussion to be had.
Incorrect. It's not even a very complicated math problem and easily demonstrated. Let's say there are 5 states in our hypothetical country. Let's also say that there are exactly 5 million voters in the total national election. Let's also assume there is one big state with 3 million voters (state A), and 4 smaller states, with .5 million voters each (states B through E). Let's also assume that each state gets a representative in the EC for every 100k voters. So the first state has 30 EC votes, and each of the remaining 4 states have 5.
First obvious outcome is that it doesn't matter how anyone votes in the other four smaller states, right? You win a simple majority of the voters in the one big state and you automatically win 3/5ths of the electoral college and win. So... um... Way to totally disenfranchise 40% of your population, right? So if 51% of the voters in state A vote for candidate A, and 100% of the voters in states B, C, D, and E vote for candidate B,, then candidate A wins, despite the popular vote going to candidate A (just under 3.5 million votes to just over 1.5 million).
That's an extreme example to illustrate the point, but you don't really need that much extreme for this to happen. The point I'm making here is the fact that we weight the EC in favor of small states a bit by granting each delegation 2 extra votes regardless of size, the same issue of the EC providing a different outcome than the majority opinion by raw popular vote still occurs.
We could change the numbers just a bit and say that state A contains 2 million voters, states B and C each have 1 million voters, and D and E each have half a million voters, and come up with a scenario where say 51% of the voters in states A and B vote for candidate A, while 100% of voters in C, D, and E vote for candidate B. This would result in 30 EC votes for candidate A, but only just over 1.5 million votes. And just in case you think this means that the EC always favors big states, we could also have a scenario where 100% of voters in state A vote candidate A, and 49% of voters in states B, C, D, and E for for candidate A. That would result in candidate A winning only 20 EC votes out of 50, but having won just under 4 million popular votes out of the total 5 million.
Point being that in a diverse enough set of states and populations, there are a nearly infinite number of possible scenarios where the EC results will differ from the popular vote, even without the extra weight our system puts in to help out small states. So arguing that the scenario where that happens is somehow the "fault" of a disagreement over that weighting factor is just plain flawed. It does not matter (well, not much). What really matters is that we determine the election by delegations and not by popular vote. Now, if you disagree with that methodology, then you're free to do so. But the issue of delegation size by pure population versus weighted value isn't relevant to that. You either think that each state sending its own delegation to vote is wrong, or you think it's right. Pick one, and then defend it.
There's no "compromise" here that resulted in this possibility. The folks who came up with the method we use for electing presidents were pretty much all on board with the idea of using state delegations from day one, and I'm not aware that anyone seriously considered trying to use a straight popular vote for this. So your talk about it not being an intent, but a compromise is meaningless. You're free to argue that the EC delegation process should change, but that does not address the issue of whether we should use the EC or populate vote in the first place.
You're mixing up two completely different issues IMO.
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Yes, and that's a flaw.
No. It's not. It's how representation works. The same exact "flaw" exists when you elect a member of your political party to congress. He could choose to vote in a way you don't like on a given issue, right? It's possible. Heck. It even happens from time to time. Um... But it's less likely to happen here because this would be like if the people voted in members of congress, not to vote on a wide variety of different bills that may come up over the course of their term, but to literally make one and only one vote on one and only one thing. Each person is being selected specifically because he has promised to vote for A, or for B. You elect that person to that position based on his promise to vote A or B. Period.
That's not a flaw. That's how representative government works. I'm not sure how you can't grasp this. How else would you do it?
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Ultimately the popular vote is irrelevant, and the presumed electoral vote is irrelevant. The electors can and have voted against their assigned vote. I guarantee you most people would be upset if multiple electors were to break from their assign votes and elect someone other than the president elect, and yet this is a legitimate, Constitutional result. Why continue to support a system that is designed to fail?
Because it's better than every other system we've tried?