cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/news@lemmy.world/t/488620
65% of U.S. adults say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency.
65% of U.S. adults say the way the president is elected should be changed
Hmm this seems unfair. How about we redo the survey but this time break it down state-by-state where the majority option in each state will be considered the “winner” of the entire state (except for in Maine and Nebraska, in which the minority option is still given some points) and then these states will appoint a certain number of people (the number of people each state can appoint is equal to how many representatives they have plus two for their senators, except in DC where its capped at the state with the least amount of appointed people) where they will redo the survey again but now they have the opportunity to change the results if they feel like it (but don’t worry that basically has never happened so it’s all good) and after that each state will count the actual votes and then mail them to DC where Congress will count the votes from each state and the members of Congress get a chance to vote to ignore a state if enough of them feel like it (but again don’t worry this has never happened! It’s all good!) and after that hopefully one of the options has a majority because if not then the house gets to choose and if they can’t decide then the senate gets to pick and if nobody can make up their minds then the Speaker gets to temporarily decide until everyone figures their stuff out.
I think that’s how Americans should answer all their surveys since it’s more fair.
Had me in the first half, ngl
You don’t happen to have ADHD do you? Dont read to much into this, that wall of text tho
I copy and pasted how the electoral college works from Wikipedia and made it a run-on sentence to emphasize how nonsensical it is.
How nonsensical…what…is…?..\n
Edit: Wat
I would modify the electoral college rather than get rid of it. Make it so that states are obligated to assign their electoral votes to candidates in proportion to the number of votes received.
Why? You’re accepting the premise but then stopping short. Yes, a candidate’s final outcome in the election should be proportional to the number of votes they received. You want to make it less unfair, but we can just as easily make it completely fair by making the outcome exactly proportional to the vote.
not completely disenfranchise rural voters
According to the US Census, roughly 20% of Americans live in rural areas. Under the Electoral College, most of these people get effectively no say in who is the president. Nobody cares what rural voters in Texas or California or Wyoming or Oklahoma think because they’re not swing states. In a popular election, these 20% of Americans would get 20% of the say, and their individual vote would carry the same weight as everyone else. That’s the only fair system. Making it less rigged is still rigged.
Bro what? Am I reading this wrong? The Electoral College ensures rural votes have an outsized say compared to their population.
See almost every GOP state with maps redrawn in the last 4 years.
On the whole, yes, the Electoral College gives a larger weight to rural voters by stealing it from urban voters. I was merely highlighting that it also effectively disenfranchises a lot of rural voters by consolidating all electoral power in roughly a dozen swing states. I think the argument that we need to give special privilege to rural voters is bogus, but even accepting the premise, the EC still sucks at that. The specious arguments made in its favor don’t hold up.
I think the argument that we need to give special privilege to rural voters is bogus
Yeah, nearly everyone would agree with that because the argument isn’t about voters, it’s about the states.
What does the Electoral College breakdown look like on that poll?
Why does that matter? The people want a better electoral system, one that treats all votes equally.
“Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States, or to the People.” -10th Amendment to the United States Constitution
Restrict the federal government’s power to only those powers explicitly delegated to them by the Constitution and I’d be ok with eliminating the Electoral College.
Why would that be relevant to switching to a voting system that produces winners that more accurately reflects the will of the people?
Because the will of the people in your definition is the will of a handful of cities and our country is too big for that.
Also it’s the law. It’s literally in the Constitution.
Because the will of the people in your definition is the will of a handful of cities
No it’s not. A popular vote is a vote that reflects what the majority want. It has nothing to do with the location of the voter. We should not have the weight of our votes be effected by where we live, like we currently have with the electoral college. My vote should count the same way as anybody else’s, and so should yours.
Ideally the presidency and all other offices would be handled with STAR or approval voting, as they do not produce spoiler effects, weights by voter location, and help reduce extremist candidates.
It’s literally in the Constitution.
And it needs to change because the current system is fundamentally flawed. Our current system weights a voter’s voice by where they live, ignores huge swaths of people, has a spoiler effect, and does nothing to stop extremist candidates.
People in swing states should not get the only say.
Swing states don’t get the only say, a vote in an uncontested or lopsided race is still counted. All you are complaining about is you want your state to feel special on election night.
Swing states don’t get the only say
They effectively do.
a vote in an uncontested or lopsided race is still counted.
But they are effectively meaningless because California will always vote blue and Texas will always vote red. If you try to vote against your state’s pre-selected candidate your vote basically just gets tossed.
Actually it’s worse, since your population contribution actually ends up going towards electors that vote against what you voted for.
All you are complaining about is you want your state to feel special on election night.
No, I want all votes to be counted equally. I live in a swing state, and unless you live in a tighter swing state, my vote means more than yours ever will. That’s bullshit, and a fundamentally bad design.
My state shouldn’t be special. That’s the whole point of getting rid of the electoral college, to ensure all votes are counted equally regardless of origin of state.
Slabs of stone don’t have will. People have.
It matters which people want it. Certainly, if the sample was all in Kansas it would be different than if they were in New York.
Where people live shouldn’t effect their voice in who is president. And the majority of Americans recognize that.
The voice of a New Yorker should not be more important than a Kansan, and a Kansan’s voice should not be more important than a New Yorker.
I’m sure those peo0le in the electoral college’s area of influence agree with you…or do they?
The whole point is that the electoral college is a bad way of determining agreement.
All votes should be equal.
The whole point of the electoral college is to give equitable representation to every state.
But it isn’t equitable because presidential candidates only ever pay attention to swing states.
And people should be represented equally. The location of a citizen shouldn’t effect the strength of their voice.
Ever single other public office in the U.S is voted by popular vote. If there were problems with it then why don’t we have mini electoral colleges for each seat? The president should be a popular vote, no different than any other office.
Why does the state matter at all…?
Why should a vote be counted differently depending on the state it was cast in?
Pretty sure that’s the senate.
Ah, only certain people matter
It was designed to be unequal on purpose. The electoral is what keeps us from being ruled by the masses. It should not change.
So instead we get minority rule. Soooooo much better when the small number of loonies get to derail a functional government with a temper tantrum that ‘the masses’ want.
It’s a badly designed system, and claiming it’s like this on purpose doesn’t negate how bad the system is. Also, we should not be chained to ideas that came around 250 years ago when other people have improved on the idea and made it less shitty.
Not at all. We are ruled by the states.
The system is fine. It allows all states to have some say in the process.
Who gives a fuck about the states’ vote? States are just containers for people, and an excuse that the minority loves to use to explain how they get to rule over majority.
The electoral college is an undemocratic and broken system that makes my vote in a small state worth more than your vote in a bigger state.
A vote is a vote, and only losers need to remove the vote from the masses to be able to win. It’s literally the only reason there’s been a Republican president since H.W., and it’s no surprise they’re desperate to keep around the undemocratic voting method that allows them to steal elections they didn’t win.
Wow fascist much?
States are entities under the government with their own laws.
We are not a democracy fascist. We are a constitutional republic. The founding fathers had no interest in a rule by the masses nor do i.
Maybe you should learn the history of our government and why it was designed the way it was rather than pushing weird fascist ideology that states don’t matter and only the federal government counts.
We’d break as a nation quickly under your ideology.
Wow fascist much?
Lol, you don’t know what words mean and are just trying to sound cool. ProTip: just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it fascist.
But I would love to see your melted brain actually explain how ‘every citizen having an equal vote’ resembles fascistic tendencies like only protecting the in group, but that would require an actual understanding of fascism.
The founding fathers had no interest in a rule by the masses nor do i.
They also didn’t want anyone other than landholding white men to vote, but we’ve realized that’s a stupid idea. The founding fathers didn’t give you a holy document to be reversed, they wrote a framework they expected us to modify.
Maybe you should learn the history of our government and why it was designed the way it was rather than pushing weird fascist ideology that states don’t matter and only the federal government counts.
Bold of you to think I don’t understand why they did what they did and still think it’s a bad system. Also, again with the uneducated claim of fascism.
And you really need to work on your reading comprehension, I said the states’ votes don’t matter, because I think every citizen should vote, not land.
We’d break as a nation quickly under your ideology.
Ahahaha, you clearly don’t see how the nation is breaking down around us under the current system.
So you don’t want democracy?
We are ruled by the states.
Lines on map can’t rule. Only people can.
It was designed to be unequal on purpose
What a convincing argument of its continued existence.
The electoral is what keeps us from being ruled by the masses.
It doesn’t do that, all it does is give people in swing states a bigger voice than anybody else, which is a terrible thing for our country.
Everybody should have a voice, instead it’s just a handful of people in a small set of states.
Doesn’t sound like you’re a conservative or believe in a republic.
A popular vote would mean the costal areas would have the largest vote and rural areas would get ignored.
It would quickly lead to a breakup up of the union.
Doesn’t sound like you’re a conservative
I’m not.
or believe in a republic.
I do. But ours is in need of reform to make it a better republic that more accurately reflects the will of the people.
A popular vote would mean the costal areas would have the largest vote and rural areas would get ignored.
That’s already what happens under the electoral college.
And every single other electected position in government goes by what is essentially a popular vote, if this was such a problem, all other positions would also be electoral college.
It would quickly lead to a breakup up of the union.
The U.S. is the only country that uses an electoral college. All other countries that exist, and are democratic republics use a popular vote and they’re just fine.
If a popular vote for presidency would cause the destruction of this country, why hasn’t popular vote for all other positions done so already? It’s because this is just fearmongering based on zero evidence. Actually it’s worse, because there is plenty of evidence it wouldn’t do this because of the aforementioned other countries that use popular vote.
Not sure you understand what a republic.
Every other vote is at a state level. What other position is elected nationally?
They’re not fine. They’re ok. America is unique and why we are the only super power.
We only do popular votes at the state level.
What other position is elected nationally?
The level at which the election runs is not what I am getting at.
We only do popular votes at the state level.
And they don’t destroy our country despite our states having a rural/urban divide. So our federal elections should be no different.
We have the senate, which is needed to pass any law and gives equal representation to the states. We have the supreme court, which can strike down any law as unconstitutional. We have plenty of checks on mob rule without disenfranchising a gigantic swath of voters.
Then why don’t we institute the “
” It’s not “rule by the masses” but much more representative of what the population wants.
Or why don’t we just keep the system that works and has kept the country running. Why change something when it works as designed ?
Why change something when it works as designed ?
This argument could unironically have been used to support the continued use of gas chambers in Nazi Germany.
Just because something is “working” as designed doesn’t mean we should keep using it. If the design is terrible then it needs replaced.
Godwins law.
The design is fine. It keeps us stable as a nation.
Also it’ll never pass. 3/4 of the states will never approve it. It’s a non-starter
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If two or three states end up picking the president, you’re going to have a problem where some geographical regions have disproportionate choice over who runs the country.
A lot of the systems in the USA are set up to help prevent a national divorce caused by disproportionate power accumulating in a few states. The more you eliminate those systems the faster you expedite a national divorce.
If two or three states end up picking the president, you’re going to have a problem where some geographical regions have disproportionate choice over who runs the country.
Moving away from the electoral college to something like STAR/approval voting would move us away from geographically weighted votes, which means that no such thing would happen. All voters would have equal representation.
Instead we currently have a system where a disproportionate amount of power is given to a select few states with fewer people. Tyranny of the minority is not acceptable. All votes should be equal.
So would you abolish the senate as well, with its 2 seats per state to ensure that each state is represented equally?
If you’re going to have a few regions basically having total dominion over who controls the country, why would the other state want to remain in such a union? The reason for the way things are set up is that different regions in the US had to be convinced to join the union in the first place. The farmers were concerned that the cities would have all the power. Start stripping away stuff intended to prevent a couple geographical areas from totally dominating the discussion and you will end up getting a couple geographical areas from totally dominating the discussion. That might work for a bit, but you could very well see it eventually causes a revolt and the end of the union since there’s no point being involved with a thing like that.
The President is not the representative of the 10 largest cities in America, they’re a representative of all of America. With the current system, a presidential candidate needs to convince people from all around the country that they’re the person to be president. With a pure equal voting system, presidential candidates would never spend any time at all in most states, and wouldn’t have anything in their campaign to help most states.
So would you abolish the senate as well, with its 2 seats per state to ensure that each state is represented equally?
I wouldn’t abolish it, I think the number of senators per state should reflect the population of a given state.
If you’re going to have a few regions basically having total dominion over who controls the country, why would the other state want to remain in such a union?
Why would big states want to remain in a union in which smaller states hold more power than they otherwise would in a system that holds all votes equal?
The system we have already incentivizes the dissolution of the union.
And the big states would not have total domination, because states don’t (or at least shouldn’t) vote, people do. You do realize that a significant number of people in these big states vote red, right? So there would be no domination.
That might work for a bit, but you could very well see it eventually causes a revolt and the end of the union since there’s no point being involved with a thing like that.
Our current system has historically been terrible for avoiding revolt.
The President is not the representative of the 10 largest cities in America,
And the president still wouldn’t be under a system that holds all votes equal. Because cities are not the only thing that exist.
Your whole argument is basically “We can’t have tyranny of the majority, we must maintain our current system of tyranny of the minority!” all while ignoring that all votes being equal is in fact not a form of tyranny by the majority.
With the current system, a presidential candidate needs to convince people from all around the country that they’re the person to be president
No they don’t. They just need to convince the swing states. And that’s all they do, spend time in swing states campaigning. They might go to stronghold states on occasion for funding, but other than that 90% of the time they’re in swing states.
presidential candidates would never spend any time at all in most states, and wouldn’t have anything in their campaign to help most states.
I live in a swing state. EVERY election, both candidates visit my city. Do you know what they don’t do? They don’t ever visit the surrounding states. They don’t ever stop by the smaller towns in my state. It’s only ever my city and 1-2 others for the entire state, then they skip off on a jet to the next swing state, flying over other states in the process.
The current system has all of the problems you are concerned about an equal vote system having.
There’s multiple systems. The house of representatives is basically your democratic vote is a vote part of the government. The senate is the every state is an equal partner thing, and the executive is something where there’s some weighting by population but also some counterweighting for balance, and that’s in between.
Breaking up larger countries into different regional nations makes sense to me, btw. Then the blue states won’t need to worry about subsidizing the red states, they’ll all have to figure their thing out for themselves.
There’s multiple systems
I am aware. The mechanics of these systems doesn’t change the fact that they are inherently bad design. No voter should have more of a voice than another.
Breaking up larger countries into different regional nations makes sense to me, btw.
Oddly, that exact move has been a disaster for Britain. We should not follow suit.
Britain has been a disaster for Britain. Their leadership is terrible. It would be weak as part of the EU as well. At least this way the bad decisions are their own, and they can pay the consequences for them, and perhaps change them at sometime in the future.
Contrast with Greece, which isn’t in good shape, but is stuck doing what other people from competing regions tell them to do.
Their leadership is terrible
Absolutely. Tbeir leadership is a joke. However the actual effect of them leaving the EU was what I was referring to. They have to pay way more for import/export, they no longer have the same freedom to travel, it’s fucked their economy, there is less competition for products so the items available to them are worse.
It’s not just the leadership, it’s the effects of leaving itself that are a huge part of the issue.
Contrast with Greece, which isn’t in good shape, but is stuck doing what other people from competing regions tell them to do.
I’m not super familiar with Greece’s particular situation, but I think what we’ve seen from Brexit would make it pretty clear that it would be a disaster for Greece to leave as well. The economic hardships caused by increasing the barrier to entry for trade is disastrous. It would also make it significantly harder for them to compete, because anything to do with Greece would become more expensive.
And this is all ignoring one of the biggest reasons for the EU, which is to avoid war. The amount of bloodshed Europe had to go through to get to the current level of cooperation and stability was also disastrous. Taking a step towards that happening again is a terrible idea, and that applies here in the U.S. as well.
If each state was it’s own independent country, the incentive for war suddenly increases.
30 percent of voters are idiots and blue how they are told. Leaving it to a party vote is also not a great idea.
So therefore we should stick with a system that treats votes unequally? Fuck that. All votes should be equal.
So leaving our elections up to L.A. and NYC. All Democrats from now on. Hard pass. The founding fathers got it right.
Edit, I love seeing the downvotes. Brings me back to my reddit days
All Republicans have to do is propose policies that actually appeal to the masses and they too can win democratically rather than through gerrymandering and electoral shenanigans
That’s not fair though!
All Republicans have to do is fake a leaky pipe and rescan ballets while the watchers are gone. Fixed it for you.
Lmao, you are even more pathetic than your cheeto-in-command, even he understood he lost the elections fair and square and put up a shenanigan to cover for his failure.
You still believe his lies though and this makes you even stupider than Donald Trump.
Kudos to your lack of intelligence for making you survive this far
Nice to see another Demonrat shill that can’t say anything without insults. Typical lefty nutjob. Do me a favor and go get 5 more vax’s so you can wheeze your insults while having a heart attack.
I absolutely will should the need arise because, guess what? I believe in science and medical professionals unlike you uncultured swine.
Oh, also, the vax you are so adamant you’ll not take was developed and distributed under your cheeto-in-command administration.
“It’s a good vaccine, the best we’ve ever got” were his words if I do recall correctly. Operation warp speed was the name of the development and distribution plan if my memory doesn’t fail me.
How do you feel about that, you poor redneck? Hurts that your idol has betrayed your cause? Of course not, you aren’t able to feel or think like a human since you’re just a step above a monkey but hey, we did already know that even before you answered my comment.
Cheerio
You are a sad, sad person. Your misguided labeling me as a redneck and thinking I’m not aware of Trump’s stance on the vax. He is wrong. I can admit it and not lose sleep. Because unlike you and your pathetic ilk I don’t have to worship him or agree with everything he says to still think he’s a much better choice than the pedophile in chief that is in the white house. And please don’t lower my already abysmal opinion of you by saying his daughter’s diary is fake. Enjoy your myocarditis.
Lmao, like I care what a waste of oxygen like you think about me. Ever seen the videos of Jeffery Epstein and Trump together at a party dancing and having a jolly good time? Well, I guess that they also must have grabbed so many pussies together too, and on the young side, if you get what I mean. And Ivanka? Oh dear, she wasn’t Jeffery’s daughter, do you think Trump did watch while he did what Epstein was used to to his daughter? I reckon he did, Trump has always has a crush for his daughter. Who also married a Jew who controlled Trump during his presidency, so much so that both the Zionists and the Saudis are still very happy with him to this day! 2 billions times happy to be precise!! The weakest president in history when it comes to racist and totalitarian regimes, ask Putin or Xi about that!!
But you won’t do shit about all of this, because even if you could understand how much Trump has fucked with your head and your sense of reality you would still vote for him 'cause you know he would give you the chance to be the worst version of yourself possible and God forbid you might become a decent human being, it’s much easier to remain a husk of a person rather than trying to improve yourself. For the first one you don’t have to do nothing, just existing and enjoying being in an animal-like state is more than enough, while for the second you need to accept that you are not perfect, work each and every day of your life to better yourself as a human by learning something or by changing an aspect of you which is not a good one.
I’ll enjoy my myocarditis as much as I enjoy Santa on December the 25th, I’ll watch children like you believe this fantasy while patting your head and telling you “sure darling, now go play with your glue but don’t eat it, it’s not good for you”. And maybe you are like a child, do you still believe a bearded man in the sky is watching everything you do while being an absolute asshole with his judgment? Please tell me you think Jesus is your saviour and that Mary was a virgin after childbearing, this would complete the picture of the moron you already are XD XD XD XD
So some Americans are more important than others?
So leaving our elections up to L.A. and NYC.
Combined those might round up to 4% of the population of the United States. Explain again how they’ll control the outcome of a popular election?
Implicit in your argument is the self-evidently fair notion that the country should not be controlled by a minority … except that is precisely what the Electoral College allows and what the popular vote makes impossible. Under the EC, the president is effectively decided only by voters in a dozen or so swing states (which exact states are in play varies by year but the number is pretty consistent). Candidates literally don’t even campaign for votes in the other ~38 states, just sometimes making brief fundraising stops.
The founding fathers cobbled together a stop-gap system that placated the oh-so-varied interests of different groups of privileged white men. It wasn’t fair then and it has no moral justification in the present day. It’s an affront to the basic principles of self-government now that we’ve expanded “self” to finally mean all Americans.
Why should your vote be worth more than someone else’s?
So then you agree that it is a terrible idea for our votes to be weighted based on where people live, so that we can avoid things like individual cities swaying the vote?
I think so too. Everybody’s vote should be equal, which is why we should have a popular vote instead of the electoral collage.
So Republican policy represents the population so badly that they’d never win another election if the country switched to a more democratic system?
Land shouldn’t get a vote, much less land controlled by ineffectual leaders.
Should senators not be elected by the popular vote of each state? Should states develop their own state electoral colleges that give votes based on the proportional population of each county?
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Let’s explore limits. Given 50 states, two of which have population of 165,999,976 people each, and rest 48 states have population of 1, such country with Electoral College will be dictatorship of 26 people.
100% correct. The system isnt perfect, but the way it is for a reason. Anybody that wants it popular is just voting for a system that’s easier to overthrow.
How is it any easier to overthrow a popular vote?
It’s incredibly easy to overthrow a popular vote. How many dead people have been found voting for people? How many ballots in trunks of peoples cars last couple years? Take them out, put them in, not like federal oversight works, that was proven in PA during Trump/Biden. Having the electoral college is a layer of insulation for both that, and populous states and cities controlling everything while completely taking a voice from the rest of the country. Given that the popular has only been overridden twice in two decades, it’s hardly a bitching point.
How many dead people have been found voting for people? How many ballots in trunks of peoples cars last couple years?
These are election security issues, none of which are unique to a popular vote. They can happen and have happened under our electoral collage. So this is a moot point.
and populous states and cities controlling everything while completely taking a voice from the rest of the country
That’s not how it works. All votes are counted equal regardless of who they are or where they are from under a popular vote. Neither cities or land votes, only people do and the system should reflect that.
The rest of the country would actually get a say under a popular vote unlike with the electoral college. Most people don’t live in a city in a swing state, which is the only place politicians cater to.
Given that the popular has only been overridden twice in two decades, it’s hardly a bitching point.
That’s not the point though. The point is that all votes should be counted equally.
And if you live in a state that is solidly blue/red then your vote is essentially meaningless. Nobody should get a bigger voice from living in a swing state, it should be everyone’s voice.
Given that the popular has only been overridden twice in two decades, it’s hardly a bitching point.
Well yeah, if you frame an argument badly of course it sounds stupid. But to properly frame the point, 2/5 elections were won while losing the popular vote, and 3/5 presidential terms would not have happened if we voted democratically (Bush won the popular vote based on being the incumbent and war fervor, which he only had because of his fraudulent win).
60% of all presidential terms since 2000 we’re not won democraticly, but that’s not a problem for the people who can only win that way.
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