Board 8 > If given the option, which recent US presidential election would you flip?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Because raw population isn't really that important in the end aside from "rar big number good should win." You're getting a much more diverse set of needs, topics, viewpoints with that block of states in the west/midwest. Moreover you likely get better production per capita there as there is a lot more in the way of undeveloped resources in the block of states.

California in comparison is more homogeneous.

Kenri posted...

my brother in christ, if the minority is ruling they don't need to "eventually challenge the majority" they are already in control

If the minority is ruling they're no longer the minority.

The point of a system that gives the minority a voice inherently is it can constantly adapt to what the majority becomes and continue to provide a voice to the minority as it continues to change.

Change will always be a process but a system that just stuffs the few immediately makes it that much harder.

you are so deep in an alternate universe right now that you're finding wacky new variants of spider-man

Like...it's not that people don't see what the electoral vote's intention is. We understand coalitions are important and negotiations had to be made once upon a time. It's that the electoral vote overwhelmingly feels unfair in comparison to the popular vote and that is bad for American morale.

An example from 2004: John Kerry was ~159,000 votes away from winning Ohio, which would have given him the Presidency in 2004 despite losing the popular vote by just over three million votes. I wanted Kerry to win, but not like that -- it's not good for voters to vote and not get who they voted for, it's bad for a President to not have that confidence of support from their voters, and there's more context-specific issues of the moment too (two elections in a row where the popular vote lost, this was in the middle of a new war where American support was demanded, etc.).

It's not just about "my guy lost." The process matters for the winner and the voters. Nobody would win the popular vote and then worry about falling short on electoral votes if we switched to electing via the popular vote, right, because where else has examples like that? That's not how it works most elections where people vote -- and for good reason.

The popular vote-change is also supported by its two Presidential catastrophies we got instead of who we as a nation of people voted for...

If given the option, which recent US presidential election would you flip? - Results (218 votes)

The two elections that went to the loser of the popular vote 77.52% (169 votes)
Every named election where the popular vote went to the electoral winner combined - 22.02% (48 votes)

(liberal-minded board to be plenty fair)

...even if the philosophy of the electoral college was sound (which it was to a degree but was flawed then and especially moreso now), we're entangled in the problems from Bush and Trump in ways we don't know that we'll ever escape. These two people are responsible for over half of the Supreme Court, as a reminder. This stat would be less messed up if these Supreme Court picks came from Presidents the American people elected...but they didn't, and that's increased the likelihood of the government not representing the people, which is a large part of why this Supreme Court line-up is the least trusted it's ever been.

Popular vote isn't perfect, I know. In case of actual election fraud or in the pursuit of cases about such a crime, that broadens jurisdictions far beyond state measures. Politicians would change how they campaign too, which seems like a perk but I'll recognize that is Pandora's box in its own right. I would happily compromise with all states giving proportional electoral votes instead of this all-or-nothing mess. Until that's on the table, however, the electoral college is both outdated for today's purposes and, more bombastically, has responsibility in giving America its biggest security threats of the twenty-first century.

Electoral college needs to weaken or completely go. We weren't far from Donald being reelected despite a nine million vote deficit, and this was after he lost the previous election popular vote by three million votes. Times have changed. We need to meet the moment instead of being lost in it.

159k votes in just Ohio is a margin consistent with winning by 3 million nationally. Actually I think it might be a bigger margin as a percentage.

As for 2020, Biden got 306 electoral votes. It didn't end up being close in the EC.

red_sox_777 posted...

159k votes in just Ohio is a margin consistent with winning by 3 million nationally. Actually I think it might be a bigger margin as a percentage.

As for 2020, Biden got 306 electoral votes. It didn't end up being close in the EC.

The EC vote count was 306, but despite a 7 million vote win and the most individual votes ever cast for a candidate in American history, Biden's electoral win still only came down to 40k votes across AZ/GA/MI (or less, since theoretically, Biden could've lost any two of those states and still won the electoral vote by 10-20k votes in that final state).

HaRRicH posted...

I would happily compromise with all states giving proportional electoral votes instead of this all-or-nothing mess

This is the problem

California doesn't need more votes, but a 90% blowout in California should be worth more than a 51% one.

Which is why I've been singing the praises of the Maine/Nebraska method. EC method has value in the ideal. The implementation just needs a lot of work. Burning it down and just going popular vote isn't the best solution

Lopen posted...

Just raw population vote is probably worse-- you just don't really understand why the system was designed that way to begin with

...to protect the political power of slave states because James Madison explicitly said that while a popular vote would have been ideal it would have opened up the issue of the Northern States having "a much more diffusive" right of suffrage compared to the Southern States and substituting an Electoral College would let them mostly avoid that issue. Except not really because they had to count black people as 3/5ths of a person because the slave states still wanted to seize political power within the system.

Also they thought it would prevent the "mischief of faction" when in reality the natural conclusion to the system was that it would lead directly to a two-party system because anything else is suboptimal for actually winning it.

And that they thought it would protect from electing someone unqualified but with a talent for "low intrigue and the little arts of popularity" attaining high office

so no i think i understand why it was designed that way but with the exception of magnifying the political power of what were the slave states it not only failed to achieve its purposes it actually did the exact opposite

Knowing history and understanding history aren't always the same.

Maine/Nebraska method is better than winner-take-all, but gerrymandering becomes an even bigger problem than it is now.

Splitting electoral votes proportionally is also better than the current system, but it completely destroys the "giving small states a voice" aspect of the EC. Small states can't be won by margins big enough to swing more than a vote or two. Why campaign in them at all when you could gain a lot more by running up the score in the big ones?

Lopen posted...

Knowing history and understanding history aren't always the same.

convenient

Xeybozn posted...

Maine/Nebraska method is better than winner-take-all, but gerrymandering becomes an even bigger problem than it is now.

Splitting electoral votes proportionally is also better than the current system, but it completely destroys the "giving small states a voice" aspect of the EC. Small states can't be won by margins big enough to swing more than a vote or two. Why campaign in them at all when you could gain a lot more by running up the score in the big ones?

Well, with Congress putting a cap on the size of the House of Representatives at 435 in the 1900s it further distorts political power and magnifies it in smaller states at the expense of larger ones by making the vote of someone in a small state "count" several times more than one in a larger one as a share of EVs.

Gerrymandering is of course the risk. Which is why I don't think it's perfect as is. I do think dividing up the land area in some way is the right way of it because yeah as you said splitting 3 votes is irksome but as for how to split the districts there would need to be some standard unbiased method and right now they don't have one.

Thorn posted...

convenient

I'm just saying if you feel the need to drop posts laced with quotations and proper names it reads more like a historian eager to regurgitate factoids he's memorized than insight.

Explain why it does or doesn't do things with specific problems in the process that aren't "politician mc guy said this was a problem in 1927" and I'll be more likely to give you that validation you crave.

Lopen posted...

Knowing history and understanding history aren't always the same.

extremely gutsy to fire off a post like this at someone who clearly has the advantage on you in both areas

Xeybozn posted...

Maine/Nebraska method is better than winner-take-all, but gerrymandering becomes an even bigger problem than it is now.

Splitting electoral votes proportionally is also better than the current system, but it completely destroys the "giving small states a voice" aspect of the EC. Small states can't be won by margins big enough to swing more than a vote or two. Why campaign in them at all when you could gain a lot more by running up the score in the big ones?

It preserves it, because a 50.5/49.5 result in a 3-EV state will result in a 2-1 split (+1 for the winner) of the electoral votes. A 50.5/49.5 result in California results in a 27-27 split (no difference), even though the popular vote margin in absolute numbers will be approximately 52x as much.

Kenri posted...

extremely gutsy to fire off a post like this at someone who clearly has the advantage on you in both areas

You've wowed someone with your rote memorization. This is a guy who can't think past "big number win" though so...

red_sox_777 posted...

It preserves it, because a 50.5/49.5 result in a 3-EV state will result in a 2-1 split (+1 for the winner) of the electoral votes. A 50.5/49.5 result in California results in a 27-27 split (no difference), even though the popular vote margin in absolute numbers will be approximately 52x as much.

The problem is if a low EV state is a comfortable win it'll get the +1 and it's impossible to get a +2. So you again risk the trap of "why campaign there"

With the district model a politician would be more likely to need to go to states if any districts are close to convert those into votes, and they should be if the districts are chosen well.

Another option is one the founders would have been very familiar with - the British system before 1832. That is, FPTP with hundreds of districts with no redrawing of borders for hundreds of years even if the population changes. This avoids the gerrymandering problem.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/0/2/AACm-yAAElga.jpg

on all levels except physical this is me

Kenri posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/0/2/AACm-yAAElga.jpg

on all levels except physical this is me

Yessss

Kenri posted...

my brother in christ, if the minority is ruling they don't need to "eventually challenge the majority" they are already in control

You're taking the phrase too literally. "Minority rule" is just a play on "majority rule" which means that minorities are able to block actions by the majority and self-govern. They aren't in control, but they can block and challenge and do their own thing locally. That's super valuable and it's the only reason you're not in some gulag right now (for some reason or another).

The #1 question to all electoral detractors is: If the EC was consistently keeping Democrats in charge and blocking Trump from ever having a chance at winning, would you be standing up and decrying it as an unfair policy that needs to go? Is it really such a matter of fairness and principle?

If you say yes, you're an absolute psycho who can't be reasoned with, literally calling for Trump's election. If you say no, you're part of the problem by making it all about your team winning. You recognize that the current situation is temporarily disadvantageous, but eventually if you turn the tablse it could be used to permanently subjugate your opponents, so you subliminally want to keep it around. You love the idea of this naked oligarchy dressed up in the thinnest veneer of democracy, which billions across the world accept as the de-facto template of justice of the free world. All you need is to tame this weapon and all the power is yours.

Finally decided to put foolmoron on ignore. Simply not a person worth having a conversation with. I would try to explain why this shit is the dumbest and most bad faith shit I've ever read, but there is no point - not worth my time.

The low self worth crew is taking pride in loudly proclaiming the power they've exerted over you how does it feel to be on my level foolmo.

Did you really just enter the topic for the first time in 200+ posts to say that??

foolm0r0n posted...

You're taking the phrase too literally. "Minority rule" is just a play on "majority rule" which means that minorities are able to block actions by the majority and self-govern. They aren't in control, but they can block and challenge and do their own thing locally. That's super valuable and it's the only reason you're not in some gulag right now (for some reason or another).

if that's what it means then the US doesn't have it anyway (or rather, only very specific minorities have it, to the detriment of both the majority and also many other, smaller minorities)

also plenty of people are in de facto gulags in the US so I'm not sure why you'd even bother bringing that up

foolm0r0n posted...

The #1 question to all electoral detractors is: If the EC was consistently keeping Democrats in charge and blocking Trump from ever having a chance at winning, would you be standing up and decrying it as an unfair policy that needs to go? Is it really such a matter of fairness and principle?

what if the moon was made of cheese

Kenri posted...

what if the moon was made of cheese

I don't know, but there's a bunch of Hillary apologists ITT that you could ask about ridiculous hypotheticals that will never happen

Isn't the entire point of this topic to present hypothetical things that can't happen because they didn't?

v_charon posted...

Isn't the entire point of this topic to present hypothetical things that can't happen because they didn't?

No, theres a difference between plausible and implausible hypotheticals. The hypotheticals proposed in the poll mostly fall within the former category.

I'd flip Reagan's election in an effort to undo the current timeline where his policy is basically adopted by every sitting president since.

PrinceReva posted...

I'd flip Reagan's election in an effort to undo the current timeline where his policy is basically adopted by every sitting president since.

i picked a good post to click into this topic at

redrocket posted...

No, theres a difference between plausible and implausible hypotheticals. The hypotheticals proposed in the poll mostly fall within the former category.

To be fair the conversation has been dominated by the 2016 election, and a lot of Bernie mentions have been proposed. That doesn't fall in the former category at all because he wasn't even an option in that election.

v_charon posted...

To be fair the conversation has been dominated by the 2016 election, and a lot of Bernie mentions have been proposed. That doesn't fall in the former category at all because he wasn't even an option in that election.

People are mentioning Bernie because it arguably requires the same amount of election results to flip to happen (instead of a main election you're flipping a primary and the support is continuing through to win the main election)

To me it still falls in the realm of "plausible hypothetical"

foolm0r0n posted...

The #1 question to all electoral detractors is: If the EC was consistently keeping Democrats in charge and blocking Trump from ever having a chance at winning, would you be standing up and decrying it as an unfair policy that needs to go? Is it really such a matter of fairness and principle?

Yes, along with the Senate and the House being capped at 435.

foolm0r0n posted...

If you say yes, you're an absolute psycho who can't be reasoned with, literally calling for Trump's election.

My brother in Christ, Trump lost both elections by millions of votes.

I know at least ONE of the voters who chose either of the Obama elections.

Let's just say I know them of old...

Not_an_Owl posted...

My brother in Christ, Trump lost both elections by millions of votes.

And you're saying you will support the next fascist who wins by 1 popular vote, so that's good to know

Clearly the solution is to make it so they can win by 1 vote or lose by 100,000,000 votes and still be president either way

foolm0r0n posted...

And you're saying you will support the next fascist who wins by 1 popular vote, so that's good to know

It's extremely unlikely the right will ever win the popular vote any time in the near future. I'm sure you already know that though.

v_charon posted...

It's extremely unlikely the right will ever win the popular vote any time in the near future. I'm sure you already know that though.

Extremely unlikely. You really think this huh?

If even Hillary wins it, I do think that. It would take some short of shift away from the far right to see it, which would be shifting away from fascism.

I mean it'd be great because despite the narrative it's actually uncommon for popular vote losers to win the EC which means you must think we're going to have a long run of Democrat presidents coming.

1/3 for the century doesn't really qualify as "uncommon " imo

I just can't imagine being that confident-- the electoral college system can only swing a few percent at most. You're basically saying no republican will ever win the EC with comfortably over 300

Lopen posted...

I just can't imagine being that confident-- the electoral college system can only swing a few percent at most. You're basically saying no republican will ever win the EC with comfortably over 300

It's the same confidence that people asserted about how Link was a 99% favorite to win each contest.

Like historically there have been many elections on both ends where it's like 400+. Do you think those days are over? Because if a Republican pulls 400 EC votes I'd be very surprised if they lost the popular vote.

Hillary being a terrible campaign strategist made people think the system is way more broken than it is. Any strong sweep victory (not common in our lifetime but Bush Sr wasn't that long ago) will easily win the popular vote Democrat or Republican

Lopen posted...

Like historically there have been many elections on both ends where it's like 400+. Do you think those days are over? Because if a Republican pulls 400 EC votes I'd be very surprised if they lost the popular vote.

Hillary being a terrible campaign strategist made people think the system is way more broken than it is. Any strong sweep victory (not common in our lifetime but Bush Sr wasn't that long ago) will easily win the popular vote Democrat or Republican

In a theoretical world where the electoral college was an accurate represenatation of anything sure.

The actual issue is that the size of the House was capped and the electoral college became less representative of any sort of reality which has lead us to have this "super rare" scenario twice in clpse proximity and very very nearly a third time had Kerry carried Ohio

I'm just curious how large a margin you think it can actually flip. The margins have never lined up but if a Republican wins most states that correlates with a closer match in states they lose too.

All the fuss about Hillary winning by 3 mill and still losing you do realize historically most Republican (and Democrat) wins were by higher vote percentage margins by a lot?

The electoral college harkens back to a time when the culture found in Boston was dramaticslly different than the one in Florida and produced dramatically different politicians. Thats not really the case anymore. But if you wanna have the indirect election thats fine but lets make it proportional the way it was intended to be.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/435-representatives/

538 made a fun little widget so you could play with it but even if you made the house such that every representative represented the population of Wyoming (which is still well under the number of representatives the constitution calls for) that would move the electoral college to 640 votes and even that would have flipped both elections.

This is important because margin of victory is irrelevent. The outcome is still absolute. Its not like W was less of a president because he didnt win the popular vote. His power was not proportional to the size of his win.

Trump made some decisions which have completely reshaped the way the US interacts with the world and kickstarted a cold war with china which will shape the world for a generation.

W Bush lost the popular vote and went on to dramatically re shape the federal government. Dont you think the person the people voted for shouldve been the one to make those decisions?

Or does it not matter that the only reason for these results is poorly rendered statistics?

Eddv posted...

The electoral college harkens back to a time when the culture found in Boston was dramaticslly different than the one in Florida and produced dramatically different politicians. Thats not really the case anymore. But if you wanna have the indirect election thats fine but lets make it proportional the way it was intended to be.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/435-representatives/

538 made a fun little widget so you could play with it but even if you made the house such that every representative represented the population of Wyoming (which is still well under the number of representatives the constitution calls for) that would move the electoral college to 640 votes and even that would have flipped both elections.

This is important because margin of victory is irrelevent. The outcome is still absolute. Its not like W was less of a president because he didnt win the popular vote. His power was not proportional to the size of his win.

Trump made some decisions which have completely reshaped the way the US interacts with the world and kickstarted a cold war with china which will shape the world for a generation.

W Bush lost the popular vote and went on to dramatically re shape the federal government. Dont you think the person the people voted for shouldve been the one to make those decisions?

Or does it not matter that the only reason for these results is poorly rendered statistics?

"I'm concerned about the 52% majority ruling tyrannically over the 48% minority, and my idea of how to fix this is to give 100% of the executive power to the 48% minority"

it's just the goddamn smoothest brain shit I've ever heard and I'm done taking the idea even remotely seriously

Paratroopa1 posted...

"I'm concerned about the 52% majority ruling tyrannically over the 48% minority, and my idea of how to fix this is to give 100% of the executive power to the 48% minority"

it's just the goddamn smoothest brain shit I've ever heard and I'm done taking the idea even remotely seriously

it's also a funny concern to claim when the Senate also exists in the manner that it does