America’s democracy is failing. Here’s why.

[homersapien 11,370]

Four ways America’s system of government is rigged against democracy (and Democrats).

By Ian Millhiser

Let’s start with a plausible scenario that could play out in the 2020 election.

Democrats win the popular vote by an even wider margin than Hillary Clinton’s nearly 3 million vote lead in 2016, running up the score in solid blue states and closing most of the gap in large red states like Texas. Pennsylvania and Michigan return to the Democratic fold, but Trump ekes out the narrowest of victories in Wisconsin. He walks away with exactly 270 electoral votes and the presidency.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have a strong year, but not nearly as strong as 2018. Democratic candidates win every congressional district where Hillary Clinton prevailed in 2016, plus every district where Clinton lost by less than 3 percentage points. Democratic House candidates win the total popular vote by a few percentage points, but it’s not enough. Despite her party’s popular vote victory, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is once again demoted to minority leader.

In the Senate, Democrats pick up seats in Colorado and Maine, but they never really have a shot at replicating Sen. Doug Jones’s fluke win in Alabama. Republicans end up with a 52-seat majority in the Senate — and, with it, the ability to keep filling the courts up with Trump judges. Although the Democratic “minority” would represent about 17 million more people than the Republican “majority” in this scenario, Mitch McConnell still controls the Senate.

Solid majorities of the nation, in other words, could vote for a Democratic White House, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate, and yet Republicans could gain control of all three.

The system is rigged. It was rigged from the outset, quite intentionally, to favor small states. Under current political coalitions, that’s become an enormous advantage for Republicans. The country’s framers obviously could not have known that they were creating a system that would give Donald Trump’s party an unfair advantage over Hillary Clinton’s party more than two centuries later. But they did create a system that favors small states over large states.

That means that a political coalition that is largely powered by voters in dense, urban areas — like, say, modern-day Democrats — are at a terrible disadvantage under this constitutional arrangement. (And, to be clear, the system would be just as anti-democratic if it put Republicans at a disadvantage instead.)

Republicans, meanwhile, take their unfair advantage and build on it by gerrymandering the states they control, using their Senate “majority” to fill the courts with Republican judges, and then using their control of the judiciary to bolster their own party’s chances in elections.

This is how United States now finds itself barreling toward a legitimacy crisis.

Four features of our anti-democratic democracy

Broadly speaking, there are four features of our system of government that make our democracy less democratic, many of them working in interlocking ways. These features also happen to give the GOP a structural advantage.

1) The Senate is deeply unrepresentative of the country

According to 2018 Census Bureau estimates, more than half of the US population lives in just nine states. That means that much of the nation is represented by only 18 senators. Less than half of the population controls about 82 percent of the Senate.

It’s going to get worse. By 2040, according to a University of Virginia analysis of census projections, half the population will live in eight states. About 70 percent of people will live in 16 states — which means that 30 percent of the population will control 68 percent of the Senate.

Currently, Democrats control a majority of the Senate seats (26-24) in the most populous half of the states. Republicans owe their majority in the Senate as a whole to their crushing 29-21 lead in the least populous half of the states. Those small states tend to be dominated by white voters who are increasingly likely to identify with the Republican Party.

Senate malapportionment is a relic of an unstable alliance among 13 young nations. As Yale law professor Akhil Amar explains, the Articles of Confederation that preceded the Constitution were “an alliance, a multilateral treaty of sovereign nation-states.” The Constitution did not simply change the rules that governed an existing nation; it bound 13 independent and sovereign states together.

The Founding Fathers came together at Philadelphia to achieve union at nearly any cost, because they wanted to avoid the persistent warfare that plagued Europe. Without a union, Amar says, “each nation-state might well raise an army, ostensibly to protect itself against Indians or Europeans, but also perhaps to awe its neighbors.”

Nor was this merely a hypothetical concern. When large states proposed a fair legislature, where each state would be given seats proportional to its population, Delaware delegate Gunning Bedford literally threatened that his state would make war on its neighbors. “The large states dare not dissolve the Confederation,” Bedford insisted, or else “the small states will find some foreign ally of more honor and good faith.”

This is why we have a Senate: In a negotiation among 13 sovereign nations, each of these nations may demand equality as the price of union. Whatever the wisdom of this devil’s bargain in 1787, America is a very different place today. There is little risk that Utah will make war on Colorado, or that New Hampshire will invade Vermont.

Instead, we are heading toward a future where — barring some kind of major partisan realignment — the Senate will routinely feature a majority that represents far less than half of the nation as a whole. In the current Senate, the Republican “majority” represents about 15 million fewer people than the Democratic “minority.” And if current trends continue, the Republican advantage is likely to grow.

A common defense of our current arrangement is that Senate malapportionment wards off a “tyranny of the majority.” As the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Feulner argues in a piece that’s fairly representative of Senate defenders, malapportionment “keeps less-populated states from being steamrolled.”

But there’s no reason to believe that residents of small states, as a class, make up a coherent interest group whose political concerns are in tension with residents of large states. The residents of Vermont (population: 623,989) vote more like the residents of New York (population: 19,453,561) than they do like the residents of Alaska (population: 731,545). The people of Wyoming (population: 578,759) vote more like the people of Texas (population: 28,995,881) than they do like the people of Delaware (population: 973,764).

There are over 20,000 more farms in California than there are in Nebraska. There are rural regions in large states. And there are some urban centers in small states.

There’s another factor to consider when thinking about the small state advantage: race. The Senate does not simply give extra representation to small states, it gives the biggest advantage to states with large populations of white, non-college-educated voters — the very demographic that is trending rapidly toward the GOP.

Data for Progress

Republican dominance of the Senate is a relatively recent occurrence; Democrats, after all, held a supermajority in the Senate as recently as 2009. Yet the GOP’s dominance is also likely to remain durable for as long as many white voters continue to sort into the Republican Party. The Democratic supermajority in 2009 was made possible by Democratic senators in places like Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. It’s tough to imagine any of those states electing a Democrat so long as America’s current political coalitions remain stable.

Of course, Democrats could try to buck this trend by becoming more like Republicans. They could shift their positions to appeal to the whiter, more socially conservative voters that dominate many of the smaller states. But that’s hardly a solution for the majority of voters that support the Democratic Party’s current positions, who would become even more isolated from power.

And there’s one other point that’s worth making here. Two years ago, Neil Gorsuch made history, becoming the first member of the Supreme Court in American history to be nominated by a president who lost the popular vote and confirmed by a bloc of senators who represent less than half of the country. The second was Brett Kavanaugh.

Similarly, Senate malapportionment also allowed Republicans to hold the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat open until Trump could fill it. When Scalia died in 2016, Republicans had a 54-46 majority in the Senate, despite the fact that Democratic senators represented about 20 million more people than Republicans in 2016.

Malapportionment, in other words, does not simply give Republicans an undemocratic advantage in the Senate. It also gave them control of the courts.

2) The next winner of the Electoral College could lose the popular vote by as much as 6 percentage points

The best case for the Electoral College was offered by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers. The choice of a president, Hamilton wrote, “should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station.” Such a process, Hamilton assured us, “affords a moral certainty” that “the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”

Hamilton’s argument is refuted by three words: “President Donald Trump.”

Setting aside the fact that the Electoral College is the reason why a man who is not in any degree endowed with the requisite qualifications is in the White House, the Electoral College is not capable of achieving Hamilton’s stated goal. The people who make up the Electoral College are rarely “men most capable of analyzing” who would be an excellent president. They are typically partisan loyalists, selected by their party to perform one and only one task — robotically voting for whoever the party nominated to be president.

To date, this system has allowed five men who lost the popular vote to become president— Trump, George W. Bush, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, and John Quincy Adams. Barring a political realignment, it’s likely that such “inversions” will become more common (as they already have in the past couple decades). A recent study by three researchers from the University of Texas found that “a 3.0 point margin favoring the Democrat (i.e., 48.5% Republican vote share, or a gap of about 4 million votes by 2016 turnout) is associated with a 16% inversion probability.”

In other words, a Democrat could potentially win the popular vote by as much as 6 percentage points and still lose the Electoral College to a Republican.

Michael Geruso, Dean Spears, and Ishaana Talesara

A more modern defense of the Electoral College is similar to the conservative defense of the Senate. The Electoral College, according to Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky, “prevents candidates from winning an election by focusing only on high-population urban centers (the big cities), ignoring smaller states and the more rural areas of the country.”

But if ensuring that candidates focus on the nation as a whole is the goal, the Electoral College defeats this goal. Thanks to the Electoral College, candidates focus almost exclusively on a handful of swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, or Michigan, while solid red states and solid blue states are largely ignored.

The real reason why the Electoral College exists is hotly contested. Some scholars, such as Amar and Harvard historian Jill Lepore argue that, in Lepore’s words, the Electoral College “was a compromise over slavery.”

This theory points to the Three-Fifths Compromise, which allowed slave states to count each slave living within their borders as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining how many representatives those states should receive in the House. Because states gain electoral votes as they gain representation in the House, the Three-Fifths Compromise inflated slave states’ ability to choose a president.

Another theory, recently offered by political scientist Josep Colomer at the Monkey Cage, is that the framers never intended for the Electoral College to choose presidents. They merely expected the Electoral College to whittle down the list of candidates.

Under the original Constitution, the Electoral College would vote on who its members believed should be president. But, if no candidate received a majority, the House would choose the president from among the five candidates who received the most votes.

According to Colomer, “delegates in Philadelphia expected states would put forward a variety of candidates; none would win a national majority in the electoral college; and the election would typically pass to the House of Representatives.” The framers’ error was that they “didn’t expect candidates to emerge and run nationwide.”

So the Electoral College was either a poorly designed kludge that failed to achieve its intended purpose, or a misbegotten device intended to preserve a great evil.

3) Partisan gerrymandering is still allowed

As mentioned above, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh owe their jobs to Senate malapportionment and the Electoral College — and Republicans owe their dominance of the judiciary to these two men. That dominance, in turn, has profound implications for who controls the House of Representatives.

Gerrymandering, to be clear, is not a uniquely Republican sin. When the Supreme Court took up the question of whether partisan gerrymandering violates the Constitution earlier this year, it heard two cases. One involved a Republican gerrymander in North Carolina, the other a Democratic gerrymander in Maryland.

But states must redraw their legislative maps every 10 years, shortly after the completion of the decennial census. This means that if one party dominates in an election year ending in a zero — as Republicans did in 2010 — that party will get to gerrymander a disproportionate number of states. Large swing states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania drew maps that locked Republicans into power in the state legislature. Their control over the state legislatures then gave the GOP an unfair advantage in the US House.

Some of these gerrymanders have since been weakened or dismantled by courts. But the legacy of others will persist into the 2020 election — and potentially beyond — thanks to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), in which the Court ruled it can’t stop partisan gerrymandering. Rucho, it is worth noting, did not even attempt to defend partisan gerrymandering on the merits — indeed, it described it as “incompatible with democratic principles.”

Nevertheless, a majority of the justices believed that federal courts should not even consider challenges to partisan gerrymandering because they believed that the task of devising a legal test that could sort illegal gerrymanders from permissible maps is too difficult.

In Rucho, all five of the Court’s Republicans voted that federal courts are powerless to stop partisan gerrymandering. All four Democrats agreed that, at the very least, courts should dismantle the most egregious gerrymanders.

Again, Republicans owe that five-justice majority to Senate malapportionment and the Electoral College. Without these two anti-democratic features of our Constitution, it is likely that, at the very least, the most aggressive partisan gerrymanders would also be forbidden.

4) The Constitution is virtually impossible to amend

And that brings us to the last way that the Constitution is anti-democratic — it is almost impossible to amend it in order to remove these defects.

The United States Constitution, according to University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson, “is the most difficult to amend or update of any constitution currently existing in the world today.” It takes three-quarters of the states to ratify constitutional amendments — which means that Republicans will almost certainly be able to block any attempt to remove the Constitution’s anti-democratic features.

Now, in fairness, there are good reasons why a constitution should not be too easy to amend. The Constitution’s difficult amendment process prevents a transient majority from coming into power, and then enacting a raft of amendments that entrench themselves in leadership.

But a difficult amendment process is only a virtue if the Constitution’s underlying structures are, themselves, conducive to democracy. If those structures become hostile to democracy — or if they tend to cement a minority faction in power — a difficult amendment process prevents the nation from replacing those flawed structures with a more democratic system.

Democrats can resort to nuclear tactics. If Democrats somehow manage to overcome the odds and capture Congress and the White House, they could divide large blue states like California and New York up into several states (provided that the legislatures of those states agreed to such an arrangement), thus changing the makeup of the malapportioned Senate. They could also add new seats to the Supreme Court to cancel out the GOP’s treatment of Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

But such moves invite retaliation if Republicans regain control. If there can be 10 Californias, why not 50 Alabamas?

Realistically, the most democratic solutions, such as abolishing the Senate or replacing it with a body that fairly represents all Americans, are off the table in a nation that cannot amend its Constitution. And so we’re likely left with our undemocratic system for a long while, pushing for reform when and where possible, but likely unable to fix the system absent a major political realignment.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/30/20997046/constitution-electoral-college-senate-popular-vote-trump

[autigeremt 6,606]

The Republic is failing. Socialist Democracy is alive and growing. 

[aubaseball 2,602]

It seems that the only time that this topic comes up is when Democrats don’t win the presidency.   You never hear about this when Clinton won two terms or Obama won two terms.   

Isn’t that funny???

[AUFriction 1,179]

The issue is that we aren’t a true democracy and never have been. We’re a representative democratic republic operating under a federalist system. The system was set up to balance state interests and national interests. As it still largely is today, there are regional differences in views on government. That’s why states, not the federal government, have the most laws, why there’s a lot of regional differences in laws, etc. this goes back to the start of our country when we were a confederation. We could change the system, but it would literally take us throwing out the constitution and starting over for that to happen, something that will never happen in the current political climate. 

 

FYI... I can’t stand Trump and will probably supporting Biden. I don’t like the results of the last election either. But you don’t just throw out the system when you don’t like the result. 
 

To those replying with socialist conspiracy jumbo jumbo, stop. There are real problems in this country. If you all would have admitted that and pushed your conservative politicians to actually address them, we wouldn’t have such a strong contingent of far left folks pushing such extreme measures to do so now. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

38 minutes ago, AUFriction said:

The issue is that we aren’t a true democracy and never have been. We’re a representative democratic republic operating under a federalist system. The system was set up to balance state interests and national interests. As it still largely is today, there are regional differences in views on government. That’s why states, not the federal government, have the most laws, why there’s a lot of regional differences in laws, etc. this goes back to the start of our country when we were a confederation. We could change the system, but it would literally take us throwing out the constitution and starting over for that to happen, something that will never happen in the current political climate. 

 

FYI... I can’t stand Trump and will probably supporting Biden. I don’t like the results of the last election either. But you don’t just throw out the system when you don’t like the result. 
 

To those replying with socialist conspiracy jumbo jumbo, stop. There are real problems in this country. If you all would have admitted that and pushed your conservative politicians to actually address them, we wouldn’t have such a strong contingent of far left folks pushing such extreme measures to do so now. 

 

[AUFriction 1,179]

My apologies. I admittedly stopped reading after the first two points. I agree with the third. Gerrymandering needs to be banned. Districts should be drawn by independent contractors rather than partisan politicians. As for point 4, that’s my reason why points 1 and 2 won’t work. Any major change would require at least an amendment if not an outright abandoning of the current constitution. 

[RMillander 32]

The Dem party of today, indeed the Socialist/Marxist party of today, will create far more problems than they solve if allowed to regain power. The Electoral College works precisely as designed, and is the one thing holding this nation together. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

14 hours ago, RMillander said:

The Dem party of today, indeed the Socialist/Marxist party of today, will create far more problems than they solve if allowed to regain power. The Electoral College works precisely as designed, and is the one thing holding this nation together. 

No, it really doesn't.  The Founders didn't conceive an electoral college with a hard cap on electors.  The number of Representatives in the House was always supposed to be proportional.  When the House was capped at 435 members, smaller states arguably received a larger boon in the electoral college than originally planned or considered.

Also, calling the party that pushed through NAFTA and recently fought for the TPP socialist (those are two huge examples of capitalism working at their finest), along with it's two most recent presidents (Clinton and Obama) overseeing the largest percentage increases in the S&P over any two Presidential administration's is hilarious.

[homersapien 11,370]

On 8/3/2020 at 10:26 PM, aubaseball said:

It seems that the only time that this topic comes up is when Democrats don’t win the presidency.   You never hear about this when Clinton won two terms or Obama won two terms.   

Isn’t that funny???

Clinton and Obama got a majority - or at least a plurality - of the votes. They would have won without the electoral college.

It's the Republicans - a minority party - who consistently benefits from the electoral college.

 

[homersapien 11,370]

15 hours ago, RMillander said:

The Dem party of today, indeed the Socialist/Marxist party of today, will create far more problems than they solve if allowed to regain power. The Electoral College works precisely as designed, and is the one thing holding this nation together. 

Most of the problems that Democrats are forced to deal with were created by Republicans.

As for "holding this nation together" how has that worked out under Trump? 

[homersapien 11,370]

On 8/1/2020 at 7:57 PM, autigeremt said:

The Republic is failing. Socialist Democracy is alive and growing. 

"Socialist Democracy" has always been alive.  It's just that historically, it has served the well-off, instead of the underprivileged.  And it is typically hidden.

For example:

"......Charles Tilly, one of the great sociologists of our time, coined a term: “opportunity hoarding.” His notion was that certain groups can accumulate all sorts of advantages that reinforce their political power or socioeconomic advantages. The post-WWII American suburb was a place where whites could “opportunity hoard” — particularly by getting access to a well-funded, first-rate public education — and during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, civil rights activists made the case that the way to move toward racial equality was by opening up housing opportunities in places that were exclusive......

.......And this gets to another critical dimension of suburban history: The federal government played a major role in creating suburbia. It provided subsidies to homeowners through programs like the Veterans Administration, the Federal Housing Administration and its predecessor, the Homeowner’s Loan Corporation, which made possible the dramatic expansion of single-family housing. When you drive through new suburban housing developments, you don’t see a sign that says, you know, “Whispering Forest: Brought to you by the federal government.” The federal role is largely invisible.

But the federal government underwrote suburbia by providing significant funding for highway construction. It played a critical role in changing suburban economics by providing tax breaks — particularly in the form of tax appreciation — for new commercial developments in suburban places. It encouraged the decentralization of industry, particularly the defense industry, which was a boon for suburbia in places like Orange County, California; Suffolk County, Long Island; and suburban Phoenix.

The federal government played a critical role in the rise and growth and prosperity of suburbia. But it has not played a significant role in making the advantages of suburbia available to lower-income Americans.......

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/06/suburbs-history-race-politics-391966

[AUFriction 1,179]

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

Clinton and Obama got a majority - or at least a plurality - of the votes. They would have won without the electoral college.

It's the Republicans - a minority party - who consistently benefits from the electoral college.

 

Here’s the problem. I have yet to hear a valid argument for why the electoral college is unfair. The argument I always hear from my more liberal friends is that it is unfair because their candidate didn’t win (usually disguised by various poorly thought out cover arguments). Either that, or they say something about how the popular vote isn’t matching the electoral college. The former is an invalid argument for obvious reasons. You don’t change the system because you don’t like the outcome.  The latter doesn’t match our political system as we are not a direct democracy or a unitary system.
The system isn’t supposed to elect the president that the majority of the country wants. It’s supposed to balance the voice of the people with the voice of the states. That input is important because the biggest role of the federal government inside the country is to maintain state relations. 

[AUDynasty 585]

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

Clinton and Obama got a majority - or at least a plurality - of the votes. They would have won without the electoral college.

It's the Republicans - a minority party - who consistently benefits from the electoral college.

 

Actually, there have been five US Presidential elections where a candidate lost the popular vote and won the Electoral College. All 5 winners? Aside from John Quincy Adams (Democratic-Republican Party) all of them came from the Republican Party. This is where the states in Electoral College come in play.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, AUFriction said:

Here’s the problem. I have yet to hear a valid argument for why the electoral college is unfair. The argument I always hear from my more liberal friends is that it is unfair because their candidate didn’t win (usually disguised by various poorly thought out cover arguments). Either that, or they say something about how the popular vote isn’t matching the electoral college. The former is an invalid argument for obvious reasons. You don’t change the system because you don’t like the outcome.  The latter doesn’t match our political system as we are not a direct democracy or a unitary system.
The system isn’t supposed to elect the president that the majority of the country wants. It’s supposed to balance the voice of the people with the voice of the states. That input is important because the biggest role of the federal government inside the country is to maintain state relations. 

The electoral college as it sits now gives citizens in certain states more voting power than others.  Good breakdown of what I'm talking about here.

https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/how-much-voting-power-do-you-really-have-in-your-state

Point being, if everyone is required to pay into the same federal tax code, then everyone's vote should count the same for the only two federal offices for which we all have a say (President and VP).

[SocialCircle 570]

41 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

The electoral college as it sits now gives citizens in certain states more voting power than others.  Good breakdown of what I'm talking about here.

https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/how-much-voting-power-do-you-really-have-in-your-state

Point being, if everyone is required to pay into the same federal tax code, then everyone's vote should count the same for the only two federal offices for which we all have a say (President and VP).

But not everyone “pays into” the same federal tax code. Some actually pay zero and yet get a “refund.” Are you saying these people shouldn’t be allowed to vote? 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

4 minutes ago, SocialCircle said:

But not everyone “pays into” the same federal tax code. Some actually pay zero and yet get a “refund.” Are you saying these people shouldn’t be allowed to vote? 

No, not what I'm saying at all.  We all live under the same federal tax code.  And if those folks work, they do have to pay via social security taxes, Medicare taxes, etc.  The refund is only on income tax.

If we're required to all live by the rules set forth by the federal government, then we should all have an equal say in those two offices, which are the only two elected offices in this country that represent everyone.  It's not a complicated concept.

[AUFriction 1,179]

36 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

No, not what I'm saying at all.  We all live under the same federal tax code.  And if those folks work, they do have to pay via social security taxes, Medicare taxes, etc.  The refund is only on income tax.

If we're required to all live by the rules set forth by the federal government, then we should all have an equal say in those two offices, which are the only two elected offices in this country that represent everyone.  It's not a complicated concept.

Again, not how the system was designed. I’m not saying we shouldn’t change it, but it would at least take an amendment. I think it’s not a stretch to say that an amendment of this magnitude might not be possible. We’d potentially have to throw out the constitution and restart since we are under a federal system rather than a unitary system. (Removing the electoral college removes the state voice in the process.)

For the record, we did this once before when we switched from the articles of confederation (a confederal system) to the constitution (A federal system) in the 1790s. Congress voted unanimously to throw out the articles of confederation and just form a new government under a new document.

The latter, which again may be necessary for this big of a change, isn’t happening any time soon. Even if congress agreed to start over, there would never be agreement on what goes in. For the former, an amendment, if it is legal or possible to make this drastic if a change purely by amendment. I still don’t see it happening. As a reminder, to pass an amendment, 2/3 of Congress in both houses have to approve the amendment. Then, 3/4 of the state governments have to ratify it. (Oddly enough, the president has no role.) Even if you somehow managed to get 2/3 of Congress to approve, you’d never get 3/4 of the states to vote to literally give up their voice in the presidential election. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

30 minutes ago, AUFriction said:

Again, not how the system was designed. I’m not saying we shouldn’t change it, but it would at least take an amendment. I think it’s not a stretch to say that an amendment of this magnitude might not be possible. We’d potentially have to throw out the constitution and restart since we are under a federal system rather than a unitary system. (Removing the electoral college removes the state voice in the process.)

For the record, we did this once before when we switched from the articles of confederation (a confederal system) to the constitution (A federal system) in the 1790s. Congress voted unanimously to throw out the articles of confederation and just form a new government under a new document.

The latter, which again may be necessary for this big of a change, isn’t happening any time soon. Even if congress agreed to start over, there would never be agreement on what goes in. For the former, an amendment, if it is legal or possible to make this drastic if a change purely by amendment. I still don’t see it happening. As a reminder, to pass an amendment, 2/3 of Congress in both houses have to approve the amendment. Then, 3/4 of the state governments have to ratify it. (Oddly enough, the president has no role.) Even if you somehow managed to get 2/3 of Congress to approve, you’d never get 3/4 of the states to vote to literally give up their voice in the presidential election. 

I understand completely that it won't happen due to the complications of passing an amendment.  However, that wasn't the challege you posed.  It was one of:

"I have yet to see a valid argument as to why the electoral college is unfair."

I was simply giving you a prime example using simple math.  If you'd like to respond to that, I'm all ears.

[homersapien 11,370]

6 hours ago, AUFriction said:

Here’s the problem. I have yet to hear a valid argument for why the electoral college is unfair. The argument I always hear from my more liberal friends is that it is unfair because their candidate didn’t win (usually disguised by various poorly thought out cover arguments). Either that, or they say something about how the popular vote isn’t matching the electoral college. The former is an invalid argument for obvious reasons. You don’t change the system because you don’t like the outcome.  The latter doesn’t match our political system as we are not a direct democracy or a unitary system.
The system isn’t supposed to elect the president that the majority of the country wants. It’s supposed to balance the voice of the people with the voice of the states. That input is important because the biggest role of the federal government inside the country is to maintain state relations. 

That's ridiculous.  (And naive about how our national politics really work.) 

If - by "maintaining state relations" - you mean transferring wealth from the most productive states to the less productive states, then I suppose it might make sense.  But that's pure socialism.  If you want to apply  a more pure federalism to our political system, then cut out the subsidies to the states who can't cut it, and allow the "free hand" of capitalism to do its work. 

Meanwhile, these deadbeat Republican states are holding the whole country back, like a ball and chain.  Trump is just the current example.

 

 

 

[homersapien 11,370]

3 hours ago, AUFriction said:

Again, not how the system was designed. I’m not saying we shouldn’t change it, but it would at least take an amendment. I think it’s not a stretch to say that an amendment of this magnitude might not be possible. We’d potentially have to throw out the constitution and restart since we are under a federal system rather than a unitary system. (Removing the electoral college removes the state voice in the process.)

For the record, we did this once before when we switched from the articles of confederation (a confederal system) to the constitution (A federal system) in the 1790s. Congress voted unanimously to throw out the articles of confederation and just form a new government under a new document.

The latter, which again may be necessary for this big of a change, isn’t happening any time soon. Even if congress agreed to start over, there would never be agreement on what goes in. For the former, an amendment, if it is legal or possible to make this drastic if a change purely by amendment. I still don’t see it happening. As a reminder, to pass an amendment, 2/3 of Congress in both houses have to approve the amendment. Then, 3/4 of the state governments have to ratify it. (Oddly enough, the president has no role.) Even if you somehow managed to get 2/3 of Congress to approve, you’d never get 3/4 of the states to vote to literally give up their voice in the presidential election. 

Thus, the dilemma.

It's a recipe for an authoritarian/totalitarian takeover.

[AURex 1,995]

"I have yet to see a valid argument as to why the electoral college is unfair."

Except of course that the votes of the majority of U.S. citizens are irrelevant in the Presidential election. The votes of a minority of U.S. citizens determine the presidency of the U.S. in Gore vs Bush and Clinton vs Trump This has resulted in two recent Republican candidates in office (with disastrous results) despite the large majority off U.S. voters who voted against that candidate.

So, what argument do you offer as to why the Electoral College should be retained? It was a system created to get the slave states to  agree to creating a "union."

 

 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

43 minutes ago, AURex said:

"I have yet to see a valid argument as to why the electoral college is unfair."

Except of course that the votes of the majority of U.S. citizens are irrelevant in the Presidential election. The votes of a minority of U.S. citizens determine the presidency of the U.S. in Gore vs Bush and Clinton vs Trump This has resulted in two recent Republican candidates in office (with disastrous results) despite the large majority off U.S. voters who voted against that candidate.

So, what argument do you offer as to why the Electoral College should be retained? It was a system created to get the slave states to  agree to creating a "union."

 

 

Not that I really care about down votes, but I have to ask, what in my post did you find objectionable enough to down vote considering the stance you're taking here?  Seems like we're arguing on the same side of the issue.

[AUFriction 1,179]

1 hour ago, AURex said:

"I have yet to see a valid argument as to why the electoral college is unfair."

Except of course that the votes of the majority of U.S. citizens are irrelevant in the Presidential election. The votes of a minority of U.S. citizens determine the presidency of the U.S. in Gore vs Bush and Clinton vs Trump This has resulted in two recent Republican candidates in office (with disastrous results) despite the large majority off U.S. voters who voted against that candidate.

So, what argument do you offer as to why the Electoral College should be retained? It was a system created to get the slave states to  agree to creating a "union."

 

 

The last sentence might be where you are confused. This government was founded to originally be closer to how the European Union looks today under the articles of confederation. The government was however too loose. They had no ability to effectively defend the country, and had problems negotiating among states. Thus the Articles of Confederation were abandoned to create a slightly stronger centralized government that balanced state power with federal power. Hence the term “federal.” Federalism is a political system that balances centralized and regional power evenly (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism). The goal of the constitution was to give the government domain over a few more things, while largely allowing states to mostly rule themselves. (That’s why the powers of the federal government are explicitly listed, but no limits are placed on states in the constitution.) Thus, the state is really the more powerful governing body under our current constitution. The electoral college system was designed to give the state a voice in the presidential election as well. (Under the articles of confederation, the president was just elected by a congress of appointed senators with no public vote. The electoral college ultimately was designed to balance public opinion with state opinion.)This is also why, by the way, senators used to be appointed by the governor rather than elected as well. The goal of the senate is to provide a voice for the state on the national stage, while the house was designed to represent the voice of the people more directly.
 

Again, it goes back to the fact that we are not and never have been a true democracy. And, while I mostly agree with your view on the current stance of the Republican Party and would be much happier without the orange clown in office, that doesn’t change the fact that our system is just not set up that way. You want to change it? Call your senators and beg for a new constitutional convention. Maybe they’ll shoot more for a unitary system this time. But, as it stands under our current government, electing by popular vote makes no sense. 

[AUFriction 1,179]

5 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

I understand completely that it won't happen due to the complications of passing an amendment.  However, that wasn't the challege you posed.  It was one of:

"I have yet to see a valid argument as to why the electoral college is unfair."

I was simply giving you a prime example using simple math.  If you'd like to respond to that, I'm all ears.

It’s illogical to elect by popular vote in this political system. Read the enumerated powers: (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers_(United_States)
 

Almost all the responsibilities are either a) outward reaching, with the government serving as a representative of the collective of states or b) inward for the point of regulating interstate commerce. The purpose of the federal government inside the country is primarily about maintaining state to state relations, and resolving differences across states. With the states being such a focal point in our constitution, it would be illogical to not have state politics play a role in the election process for the presidential election. By solely deciding the election by popular vote, you are taking the state voice out of the election, which clashes with the federalist system we operate in. 
 

I say more in the last post I made on this as well, in response to AURex. What it comes down to is that going to a direct popular vote for president requires us to redefine what the purpose of the president and the central government of the United States is. If we continue to define ourselves as a federal governmental system, this system is fair because it balances the will of the people across the country with the will of the states.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

13 minutes ago, AUFriction said:

It’s illogical to elect by popular vote in this political system. Read the enumerated powers: (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers_(United_States)
 

Almost all the responsibilities are either a) outward reaching, with the government serving as a representative of the collective of states or b) inward for the point of regulating interstate commerce. The purpose of the federal government inside the country is primarily about maintaining state to state relations, and resolving differences across states. With the states being such a focal point in our constitution, it would be illogical to not have state politics play a role in the election process for the presidential election. By solely deciding the election by popular vote, you are taking the state voice out of the election, which clashes with the federalist system we operate in. 

So the state's voice should outweigh that of the people?

Again my question come back to this: how can you justify someone in Wyoming having their vote actually count for more than mine or yours in an election where we are all voting for the same office?  Why is that person's vote more valuable than mine?

You initially asked a question about fairness.  Now having been shown that actually, the electoral college isn't inherently fair to every voter, you are changing the conversation to one of how the federal government works.

So which is it?

Also, your argument is that the state's voice is being taken out of the government.  Well no, it isn't.  That's what the Senate is for.