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The Supreme Court Just Pointed Out the Absurdity of the Electoral College


aubiefifty

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opinions?

Yahoo
 

Here’s one nice thing we can now say about the Electoral College: it’s slightly less harmful to our democracy than it was just days ago. In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that states have the right to “bind” their electors, requiring them to support whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote in their state. Justice Elena Kagan’s opinion was a blow to so-called “faithless electors,” but a win for self-government. “Here,” she wrote, “the People rule.”

OPINION: Chiafalo v. Washington (19-465) https://t.co/rU5nxkDwci

A State may enforce an elector’s pledge to support his party’s nominee—and the state voters’ choice—for President.

— U.S. Supreme Court (@USSupremeCourt) July 6, 2020

Yet while we can all breathe a sigh of relief that rogue electors won’t choose (or be coerced) into derailing the 2020 presidential contest, the Court’s unanimous ruling is a helpful reminder that our two-step electoral process provides America with no tangible benefits and near-limitless possibilities for disaster. To put it more bluntly, the Electoral College is a terrible idea. And thanks to the Justices’ decision, getting rid of it has never been easier.

The Electoral College we have today isn’t the one in the original Constitution. Instead, it’s a product of the 12th Amendment – put in place after the 1800 contest between Jefferson and Burr so chaotic it got its own number in Hamilton. For those in need of a refresher, here’s how our current two-part presidential contest works: Every fourth November, Americans participate in separate statewide elections, plus one in D.C. With two exceptions (Maine and Nebraska, which award electors by congressional district), the winner of a state’s popular vote receives all its electoral votes—equal to that state’s number of senators plus its number of representatives. Whichever candidate wins a majority of the electors wins the White House.

Why do we conduct our presidential elections in such a complicated way? Today, the conventional wisdom is that the Electoral College benefits small-population states, rural voters, and the Republican Party. None of this is true.

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13 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:
 

Why do we conduct our presidential elections in such a complicated way?

For the same reason we haven't switched to the Metric system.

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3 minutes ago, homersapien said:

For the same reason we haven't switched to the Metric system.

because we are a bunch of dummies?

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what is six inches in metric? if it inflates me manhood..cough cough i am all for it.........lol

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as far as voting goes i think whomever receives the most votes should win period. all this other mess does to me is disenfranchise other peoples votes and i am a firm believer that all votes should count. and hey if you are on the losing step up your game.

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also i understand that with the popular vote only the repubs would hardly if ever win. so i want to hear from any dems that like the electorial thing and why. i want to make sure i am missing something i might not understand.

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1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

what is six inches in metric? if it inflates me manhood..cough cough i am all for it.........lol

15.24cm sounds better....but then again it’s also 0.1524m.....lmao 

 

They already tried making it the official system, but realized it’s futile. 

 

Besides, who wouldn’t want to deal with blobs and slugs?!?! 

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1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

what is six inches in metric? if it inflates me manhood..cough cough i am all for it.........lol

Hate to break to to you, but you were using the wrong side of the ruler.

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2 hours ago, wdefromtx said:

My opinion....keep the electoral college system. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. 

I would argue that it was broken to begin with.  It's an extremely convoluted system that makes zero sense from a logical perspective.

But then again, I don't like voters in Wyoming, Alabama, etc having their ballot count for more than mine.  I believe all votes should count equally, which they currently don't under the electoral college.

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8 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

I would argue that it was broken to begin with.  It's an extremely convoluted system that makes zero sense from a logical perspective.

But then again, I don't like voters in Wyoming, Alabama, etc having their ballot count for more than mine.  I believe all votes should count equally, which they currently don't under the electoral college.

It’s a double edged sword. 

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Candidates would change how they campaigned if the presidency were decided by a straight popular vote, so trying to compare what would have happened in previous elections is pretty futile.

It could drive up participation in states that, electorally, are pretty much in the bag for one party or the other at this point. I imagine Democrats in Idaho and Republicans in California pretty much feel like their presidential vote is wasted right now, but if their vote was part of a nationwide tally, more of those voters would vote.

The other side of that is that the very large cities would hold even more sway, and pretty much wipe out any input whatsoever from residents of smaller states. Basically, I think campaign strategies would focus even more on urban areas where there are more people, and even less on rural areas that just can't provide the sheer numbers.

The electoral college, for any flaws it may have, does give every state guaranteed input on the outcome of a national election, however great or small, and I can live with that.

Would awarding electoral votes by congressional district be an in-between compromise worth considering? 

Just some random spitballing on a Wednesday afternoon...

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36 minutes ago, SLAG-91 said:

Would awarding electoral votes by congressional district be an in-between compromise worth considering? 

Here's the one reason I would be against this idea: gerrymandering.

Districts are drawn by political parties and are often done so to ensure the maximum amount of seats for the party in control.  It would be an even more unfair way to do it and take control from the people.

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i grew up hearing all my life every vote counts and but if i vote and my candidate gets more votes and still loses how is this true?

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27 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

i grew up hearing all my life every vote counts and but if i vote and my candidate gets more votes and still loses how is this true?

Your vote counts in Alabama. It’s not a perfect system, but it at least helps to keep heavily populated areas that almost entirely vote certain ways from having too much influence over the rest of the country. 

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12 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

Your vote counts in Alabama. It’s not a perfect system, but it at least helps to keep heavily populated areas that almost entirely vote certain ways from having too much influence over the rest of the country. 

But the argument you're advocating for is that their vote should be marginalized because of where they choose to live, despite paying into the same federal tax structure that everyone else does.  That's simply not ethical.

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45 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

Your vote counts in Alabama. It’s not a perfect system, but it at least helps to keep heavily populated areas that almost entirely vote certain ways from having too much influence over the rest of the country. 

not in the book of fiddy. if the person i vote for has the most votes over their opponent it should mean something. all it means to me as is? i was robbed, period. that was the way the founding fathers intended it and that is the way it should be in my humble opinion.

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3 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

not in the book of fiddy. if the person i vote for has the most votes over their opponent it should mean something. all it means to me as is? i was robbed, period. that was the way the founding fathers intended it and that is the way it should be in my humble opinion.

I'm anti electoral college and think it's seriously flawed, but the bolded is flat wrong.  There are plenty of writings of founding fathers arguing against majority rule.

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5 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

not in the book of fiddy. if the person i vote for has the most votes over their opponent it should mean something. all it means to me as is? i was robbed, period. that was the way the founding fathers intended it and that is the way it should be in my humble opinion.

The founding fathers are the ones who advocated for and implemented it. 

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Just now, Brad_ATX said:

I'm anti electoral college and think it's seriously flawed, but the bolded is flat wrong.  There are plenty of writings of founding fathers arguing against majority rule.

that is what my parents always told me. well my mom. hell maybe they quoted someone else and i have it confused. that surprises me because she was pretty sharp...

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Just now, wdefromtx said:

The founding fathers are the ones who advocated for and implemented it. 

as an amendment tho right? that is what i got out of the article i posted.

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6 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

as an amendment tho right? that is what i got out of the article i posted.

No, it was in it originally. They amended it in the 12th amendment, but that only pertained to the election of the VP. 

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I like the EC, and it's here to stay. A constitutional amendment requires 3/4 (currently 38) States to ratify before it becomes law. A whole lot of states would have to vote against their own self-interest to do away with the EC. Love it or hate it, barring a revolution the EC is here to stay.

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