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Thread: The Electoral College

  1. #1
    Member Trolls_r_us's Avatar
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    The Electoral College

    To the people who think that "our votes don't matter anyway because the electoral college elects the president, not us"

    OR

    "We should just have a popular vote system"


    Don't forget that in each individual state, the popular vote decides which candidate's electors go to vote in the electoral college. In almost every state, the electors are bound by LAW to uphold the popular vote of that state.

    Thus, citizens elect the president, albeit indirectly. That's how our country works.

    I'm not saying you are doing this, but it drives me crazy when some people try to misconstrue or misrepresent the electoral college. Some say things like "our votes don't matter because the Electoral College elects the president anyway" when that completely misses the point and the REALITY of the situation.

    As I said, the electoral college was an act of genius. We are a very large country, and so it was deemed important for the concerns of ALL Americans to be taken into serious account.

    With a straight popular vote, large areas of the country would be irrelevant. Entire states would be hardly worth campaigning in or worrying about. This i still somewhat true even with the electoral vote system, but at least under our current system, smaller states have more say than they would under a straight popular vote system.

    For example, Vermont has 3 electoral votes (the fewest possible). There are 538 electoral votes in total.

    Therefore, Vermont has about .5% of the total vote (half of one percent).

    Under a straight popular vote system, Vermont would have .2% of the total vote (about 1/5 of 1%)

    Vermont Population 623,908
    USA Population 299,398,484

    Note that the electoral college system more than doubles the impact a small state like Vermont has over the election. It is still a small percentage and smaller states with that few votes are often overlooked, even now.

    On the other hand, a state like NY State is effected as follows:

    Under the electoral college: 31/538= 5.7% of the overall vote.
    Under a popular vote system: 6.4% of the total vote.

    As you can see, the numbers are not drastically different, yet they are different enough that the concerns of any one geographical area of the country cannot dominate the entire country.

    NY is still many times more important than Vermont. Ditto for California (55 votes and the biggest prize), Texas (34), Florida (27) and Pennsylvania (21).

    I like the idea that you must appeal to a broad enough cross section of America to get elected. State with huge population bases still have the most pull (see the house vs senate debate when our country was formed).

    Few know this (sadly), but when our country was being formed, the original idea was to have a LEGISLATURE. NOT a house and a senate, but one legislative body. Big states wanted the number of representatives from each state to be decided based on population. Smaller states wanted equal representation for all.

    Thus the compromise: each state has 2 senators regardless of population, and varying number of house members based on population. The legislative powers are divided between the two houses.

    The electoral college is the same principle. A COMPROMISE.

    But anyone who thinks that the electoral college is the "true decider" of the elections does not understand the basic structure of the system.

    The electors themselves are simply a formality. They are sent by the people of each state and BOUND to obey the people's will.
    The truth from a troll is still the truth.

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    Member OneEmerald's Avatar
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    Thank you for the refresher course.
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    The one thing i like about the idea of the popular vote, is that my vote counts.

    In NYS any one who wants to vote republican in basically wasting there vote, the Dem's out number them almost 2 to 1. However if it were a popular vote i knwo many more people that would vote. And i'm sure the same thing would go for red states like texas and the carolinas!

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    Member buffaloagain's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dougles
    The one thing i like about the idea of the popular vote, is that my vote counts.

    In NYS any one who wants to vote republican in basically wasting there vote, the Dem's out number them almost 2 to 1. However if it were a popular vote i knwo many more people that would vote. And i'm sure the same thing would go for red states like texas and the carolinas!
    Yeah, the argument against it is that the stacks are rigged against us.
    It's a popular vote, of course, but it's divided into sections that dilutes/pollutes the people's will.
    Like, my protest vote against Barry and Joey will likely go unheard, as we are here in NYS, land of the Dems.
    "You show what you are willing to fight for when you fight friends." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

  5. #5
    Member mikenold's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trolls_r_us
    To the people who think that "our votes don't matter anyway because the electoral college elects the president, not us"

    OR

    "We should just have a popular vote system"


    Don't forget that in each individual state, the popular vote decides which candidate's electors go to vote in the electoral college. In almost every state, the electors are bound by LAW to uphold the popular vote of that state.

    Thus, citizens elect the president, albeit indirectly. That's how our country works.

    I'm not saying you are doing this, but it drives me crazy when some people try to misconstrue or misrepresent the electoral college. Some say things like "our votes don't matter because the Electoral College elects the president anyway" when that completely misses the point and the REALITY of the situation.

    As I said, the electoral college was an act of genius. We are a very large country, and so it was deemed important for the concerns of ALL Americans to be taken into serious account.

    With a straight popular vote, large areas of the country would be irrelevant. Entire states would be hardly worth campaigning in or worrying about. This i still somewhat true even with the electoral vote system, but at least under our current system, smaller states have more say than they would under a straight popular vote system.

    For example, Vermont has 3 electoral votes (the fewest possible). There are 538 electoral votes in total.

    Therefore, Vermont has about .5% of the total vote (half of one percent).

    Under a straight popular vote system, Vermont would have .2% of the total vote (about 1/5 of 1%)

    Vermont Population 623,908
    USA Population 299,398,484

    Note that the electoral college system more than doubles the impact a small state like Vermont has over the election. It is still a small percentage and smaller states with that few votes are often overlooked, even now.

    On the other hand, a state like NY State is effected as follows:

    Under the electoral college: 31/538= 5.7% of the overall vote.
    Under a popular vote system: 6.4% of the total vote.

    As you can see, the numbers are not drastically different, yet they are different enough that the concerns of any one geographical area of the country cannot dominate the entire country.

    NY is still many times more important than Vermont. Ditto for California (55 votes and the biggest prize), Texas (34), Florida (27) and Pennsylvania (21).

    I like the idea that you must appeal to a broad enough cross section of America to get elected. State with huge population bases still have the most pull (see the house vs senate debate when our country was formed).

    Few know this (sadly), but when our country was being formed, the original idea was to have a LEGISLATURE. NOT a house and a senate, but one legislative body. Big states wanted the number of representatives from each state to be decided based on population. Smaller states wanted equal representation for all.

    Thus the compromise: each state has 2 senators regardless of population, and varying number of house members based on population. The legislative powers are divided between the two houses.

    The electoral college is the same principle. A COMPROMISE.

    But anyone who thinks that the electoral college is the "true decider" of the elections does not understand the basic structure of the system.

    The electors themselves are simply a formality. They are sent by the people of each state and BOUND to obey the people's will.
    The electors are not bound to vote with the majority. Granted they almost always do, but they are not bound by the majority. Check this site for all your electoral college questions:

    http://www.archives.gov/federal-regi...llege/faq.html

    This is the answer from this official site:
    The Presidential election is decided by the combined results of 51 State elections (in this context, the term "State" includes DC). It is possible that an elector could ignore the results of the popular vote, but that occurs very rarely.
    **free is a trademark of the current U.S. government.

  6. #6
    Member gorja's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Trolls r us:
    To the people who think that "our votes don't matter anyway because the electoral college elects the president, not us"
    In the 2000 presidential election 50,999,897 people voted for Al Gore and 50,456,002 voted for George W Bush. So in this case, the electoral college did elect the president, not us.

    Georgia L Schlager

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by gorja
    In the 2000 presidential election 50,999,897 people voted for Al Gore and 50,456,002 voted for George W Bush. So in this case, the electoral college did elect the president, not us.
    i think he was refering to NYS

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