TheLeviathan

There are genuine problems of elitism on the left. That should be a takeaway as well. But my ballots have gone from purple to pretty much all blue over the last ten years. The GOP's tact on education and science being chief (along with abandonment of fiscal conservatism) reasons for my drift. I can't in good conscience vote for most of the people they put on my ballot.

Then I commend your consistency, do you think you are in the majority on that? I'll put this out here now, if in four years there is a rise in young and minority voters and the Republicans are ousted like they were in 2008 and 2012 you will hear them whining about it too. Hell, the Slate article I posted was a left wing response to that very thing. Maybe there is something I like about a function that manages to so consistently shake the apple cart for both sides. I'd suggest that says there are elements to it to like.

Where were all those cries the last eight years? I don't recall them happening. It's just happenstance they are coming out now? I have shamed conservative voices here as well on gun issues and a variety of other issues. I've spent the thread blasting the Republican field for their hopeless stupidity. I don't play favorites and you know that. So yeah, I shame liberals. Both sides could stand to hear more shame. That's part of the problem.

Your scenario is still unclear. But if you are suggesting the butt whooping they took by Obama should have been a giant red flag to Republicans, I'd say absolutely. Hell, in this very thread I've suggested many times their grip on national elections is greatly jeopardized by there lack of doing so. I've also pointed out that Hillary's inability to turn out young voters and black voters relative to Obama was a major factor. So, yes, had those minorities turned out the EC would have protected that much like it did with Obama when it handed him landslide wins. If your scenario means something else then I still don't understand your point.

It's both I think. It has several practical effects I think shouldn't be undersold. The earlier Slate article details that well IMO. There are negative implications I have at no point disagreed with, but as I said to Brock, a switch to a purely popular vote has the same problems. I actually think they'd be worse over time, but that is speculative. I think the best bet is a hybrid system where winner doesn't take all. Though I would be cautious about the dangers that presents with a challenged election and a contentious transition of power.

Everyone doesn't. Middle ground has been found a plenty. You should drop the repeated strawmen and read them. Hell, in this discussions i have quoted such notable right wing sites such as Slate, Politico, and the New York Times. Have anything further left I can research since my opinion is too right wing sensitive for you?

Except the Republicans did take huge EC losses relative to the popular vote. Obama won by 7% (a large figure no doubt) but the EC was a 2:1 landslide. Romney lost by 4% and still got clocked by nearly the same margin. This narrative about the unfair EC said demonstrably nonsense. And I have already agreed with your second point repeatedly. How many more times need I do so? Yes, we could stand to tweak things. There it is, at least the eighth time. The EC has nothing to do with the GOP and minority voters. Your hypothetical just plainly doesn't make sense. Honestly, I have no idea what you were getting at. Painting me as some right wing nut is obnoxious. Sorry that I'm not just going to fold the EC because the thread is full of upset left wingers. If you want this to be some hollow echo chamber I will bow out at that point. I have no interest in that. I've made plenty of cogent arguments for the value of the EC and readily agreed dome tweaks would help. That's pretty much where I stand and I'm open to hybrid ideas.

Id be curious to see how that sort of system would play out nationally.

Sorry, that was unfair of me. Sometimes it's hard to separate what is happening nationally with discussions here. There are too many on the left reaching that easy conclusion IMO. Even here it feels like it's becoming a bit too echo-chambery for my liking.

All valid criticisms. The size and scope of our country makes these issues so tough to wrestle with. As we trend more and more towards an urban society it may benefit us to down play winner take all as well. At some point rural/urban will no longer be the deciding factor. We may go back to more regional divides. Or something else, but there will always be reasons to force candidates into broader appeals. The EC does that, but could use some tweaking.

Hey, I'm with you. I think there is a better hybrid to be had. It may take some recalculating, but I'd prefer to take out the winner take all effect as well. It may, as the downside, lead to some really nasty post election fighting in a close election, but I'd be open to someone smarter than me devising something like what you suggest.

The EC should force the opposite. As I've been saying all along, You are so dead set that your side has been wronged you have thrown reading comprehension out the window. I will endeavor to try again I guess: Paying attention to one over the other leads to failure. As it did in this election. As, I'd argue, it did to the Republicans in the recent past. That's how it is supposed to work and it did. Without the EC you could just focus on a few strategic areas and win. That's what I don't want. I want the office of President to earn more than that kind of support and I think it's dangerous if they don't. You disagreeing with that outcome should lead to an emphasis to change that imbalance by the Dems rather than blow up the EC. The EC is a convenient scapegoat, but it isn't the problem.

Frankly I think that's lazy analysis. This conversation is much better: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/upshot/how-did-trump-win-over-so-many-obama-voters.html?_r=0 Lots more out there like that if you want to look for something other than the conclusion you want to believe,

Yeah, please don't think I believe the GOP is looking out for, well, anyone really past the super rich. But rhetorically at least they are throwing bones compared to outright contempt from the left. The EC helped those people send the middle finger to both establishments, for whatever that's worth. I have serious doubts it will be worth much either, for the record. But I do believe desperate, marginalized people that constitute huge portions of the country shouldn't get drowned out. I'd like to think we can merge the positives of both.

They all talk funny. Same difference.

All of the problems you listed are equally, more so IMO, problems with a strict popular vote as well. You will shift the problems around, sure, but you haven't made things better. And if population trends continue, likely to make them far worse over time.

Look at this year as an example of the problem. For years now the Dems have been drifting strategically away from reaching out to sparse population areas and concentrated more and more on urban centers. And that's with the EC mitigating that advantage. The Republicans have been doing the same with their platform, but still throwing rhetorical bones out. The problem over time? Well, aren't we looking at it right now? Aren't we staring in the face a catastrophe of the ramifications when such a large group feels totally ignored? When their voices are ignored in favor of the majority? Sure, no EC and we are spared the result this time....but as I've been saying this entire thread....this issue isn't going away. A Trump loss might have only escalated the problem. It damn sure wouldn't have solved it. It would've never made the Dems look in the mirror on their own failures and we need that to happen too. And, perhaps worst of all, it would have generated even more anger and desperation.

I would suggest that the problem is within the electorate. The unpopular vote candidate winning is a symptom of deep divisions. As it has been in the past.

See, I think that is the key to the issue. You are making a moral judgment on the nature of the minority's vote this time and allowing that to influence your consideration of the EC in general. I think that's a mistake. All of my points have been made about the EC in general and I think they still stand. 11-0 shouldn't win out when you lose the rest of the series 6-1. If you want to tweak things, I'm on board, but we still need to settle this thing state to state and not by popular vote, that will create an unbalance that isn't good for the country in the long view. Not for the office of President.

Sorry, it was butthurt 4 years ago and 8 years ago too. I get why it stings, but flipping the process because you lost doesn't make any sense to me. And it doesn't matter which side is proposing it when they lose. Your first two points are nothing I've objected too. I've said repeatedly that the EC should be rebalanced. I'm even open to a better hybrid of the system. I just believe it needs to stay in place in some form or another. So yeah, dock a few points here and there. I'm fine with that in the way you described. As for your third point, I said at the very outset that the EC offers protection for many types of minorities depending on how the country is constituted. Right now the divide appears to be urban/rural (and likely will continue to be that way for the forseeable future) so insofar as that is the case right now, rural voters are the ones being protected from that majority. It need not be that way and it hasn't always been that way....but it is right now. I'm doing nothing more than stating my argument in the current context, not advocating for any particular protections for any group, only advocating for the general protection the EC offers for marginalized groups. And for reducing a number of electoral issues that a country like ours would have under a straight popular vote. It just so happens, right now, that many of those protections are under the framework of urban/rural.

If you go simply by popular vote no one but the California and NorthEast voter will matter. Under the current system, both at least matter, just one more than the other. Which, I get why that is a thorny issue, but we should look at making a better system to keep the positives of the EC rather than just throwing it out because we're butthurt about the election and think it favors our side to do so. Let's at least try to look big picture. I'd have hoped that would've been one of the hallmark lessons the last week. And your last paragraph is demonstrably false as evidenced by one week ago. If not for the EC, those people you just listed would be watching Hillary Clinton take the victory tour and not Donald Trump. If not for the EC their overwhelming belief that Trump should be President, not Clinton, would've been drowned in the popular vote by the large urban areas. And the plurality of state and regional voting (which was decidedly for Trump) would've been drowned out by the same urban, high population vote.

You just made my point for me. In local contests (like, Game 5 of the World series), by all means keep track of the individual plurality of votes (runs). In a larger contest, composed of smaller contests, you take away the importance of the smaller contests by just lumping them all together without any weight to the impact. You just made run 2 in the 11-0 blow out matter as much as the ninth inning walk-off to win 1-0 in Game 2. It's precisely because the President represents the entire nation that the voting outcome should reflect it as well. Not go to the first team that can blow the other out in an isolated contest or two. The Republicans, just 4 years ago, were whining about the EC because they felt the lopsided EC win for Obama didn't represent the popular vote. Most of the post-election whining is sour grapes rather than any real, principled opposition to the concept. And, again, I'm ok with some tweaks and changes. It's probably necessary, but throwing the baby out with the bath water? No....that's not a good idea IMO.

It isn't perfect, but you missed the point. Weighting all runs as equal over a series of different events, takes those runs out of context. Likewise, weighting all votes as equal over a series of different states takes those votes out of context. In a smaller, more homogenous country that isn't such a big deal. In a large, diverse country it's a VERY big deal to remove the context. It removes the impact of having broad appeal to large regions of the country in favor of isolated popularity. Just like weighting all 11 runs in a blowout isolates that success and gives it too much power over a larger sample of poor results by removing the context of how and when they happened. You keep saying removing the EC will help votes not count more or less and that is only strictly true. In terms of practical effect you risk making the difference in vote value only increase. I care much more about the practical effect, which is what the EC is attempting to equalize.

It's partially geography, largely because that's the relevant issue today. It's also about the populace, the safety of the democracy, the efficacy of the election, and cohesiveness of the voting public. The truth is, removing the EC would also create an unequal balance in voting. One, in my opinion, more stark and more widely dangerous than the flaws of the EC now. My objection to you is that you seem to be stamping your foot and saying "but my vote!" without looking at the larger picture for how the EC prevents the tyranny of the majority. I mean, you've flat out ignored numerous points and arguments I've made in favor of it and continued stamping your foot. I don't deny that your vote is on unequal footing if you are an urbanite in a blue state. I don't even disagree that we should make the popular vote matter more. (I've said that repeatedly, I'm in favor of a hybrid) What I disagree with is how quick we are (especially for the losing side every cycle) to complain about the negative aspects of the EC without acknowledging the very positive bulwarks it provides to keep the election process from becoming a giant s*!$ storm. And, most importantly, the effect it has on keeping politicians from focusing too specifically on any one group or region. I look at it like this. The Cubs and the Indians played themselves to a 27-27 tie in runs scored. If we handled the Presidential Election like that, we'd have to declare the World Series a tie. Instead, we count how they did game to game and decided it 4-3. We do that because if a team wins one game 11-0 but loses the next six 1-0, they shouldn't be declared the winner. Likewise, you shouldn't let one imbalance (in this case, New York or California) over run the majority of the other outcomes. It let's 11-0 win the day rather than the 6-1 edge in games played. In a country with such a wide range of beliefs (and such a large geographic range) I think we do a disservice to the outcome to let popular vote alone decide the outcome. A hybrid of some kind is much more appealing to me.

A rural LGBTQ person in Minnesota isn't ignored. Maybe in Alabama, but I've stated I'm open to looking at how we can blend the popular vote better with the EC. I'm opposed to removing the EC in full. That would be a gigantic blunder in the long run. I don't have a nuanced plan to fix it, I admit, but I also know the suggestion to remove it is very short-sighted. Marginalizing huge geographic portions of the country, and the populace that goes with them, is just an untenable outcome IMO. Removing the EC will do that.