Elections Should the US election be decided by electoral votes or popular votes?

Should the election be decided by electoral votes or popular votes?


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No law can be made, nor Supreme Court justice confirmed, without Senate approval. And all states have two Senate votes. Plus a minimum of 1 rep. That’s wildly out of proportion.
So I don’t see why they should have more say in who’s president when they are already way over represented in the other branches. And even if that’s your position, why should it be winner take all, rendering nearly half the votes of the population of those states irrelevant? How is that giving the minority a voice?

well its up to states to decide...

why would entire state of wyoming be treated like some random district in california?

as a state it only makes sense for them to have more of a say whos the president of united states than some random 3rd district in california.

maybe if those districts feel underrepresented they should petition to become states?
 
The small states still get their two Senators like every big state.

As it stands a Dem in Alabama or wingnut in California has no reason to vote.

and big states have up to 50 times more representatives than smaller states in the house...

and whats the point of the 2nd part of the post? if somebody doesn't wanna exercise their right to vote its on them. its absurd to blame potential outcome for it.

popular vote will just make some ppl even more disenfranchised as politicians will simply ignore them and focus on big urban areas.
 
and big states have up to 50 times more representatives than smaller states in the house...

and whats the point of the 2nd part of the post? if somebody doesn't wanna exercise their right to vote its on them. its absurd to blame potential outcome for it.

popular vote will just make some ppl even more disenfranchised as politicians will simply ignore them and focus on big urban areas.

The point is that under the EC a Dems vote in Alabama and a wingnut's vote in California are both worthless. Under a popular vote they would both have value.

Why are you scared of everyone having a voice? Why are you scared of every vote counting? Is it because you know the majority of the country disagrees with your views?
 
Concerning the President, it's not the people who vote, but state delegations. It's a balance of power in the intent of the Constitution. Direct election is a power to be tempered like the others.
 
of being president of untied (all) states, not just overpopulated urban zones.

When it's 1 citizen = 1 vote there are no small states with over representation or big states with more electoral votes (that still have under representation), there's only American Citizens voting for the American President.
 
He doesn't think everyone should have an equal say. That's the point.

I'm wondering if that's the point and he's a malicious asshole or he's really just dumb, which is teachable, I suppose.

Edit: After reading his most recent replies, he's a malicious asshole who is dumb.
 
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The point is that under the EC a Dems vote in Alabama and a wingnut's vote in California are both worthless. Under a popular vote they would both have value.

Why are you scared of everyone having a voice? Why are you scared of every vote counting? Is it because you know the majority of the country disagrees with your views?

well using that logic all votes are worthless... its just one vote.

now thanks for the partisan talking points, but ec is actually good system to keep in check lefty politicians disregarding laws and constitution.

lefties want to lower the voting age, don't want to enforce immigration laws, give citizenship to illegals, want to give felons right to vote...

why should states that actually respect the constitution be penalized for it?
 
When it's 1 citizen = 1 vote there are no small states with over representation or big states with more electoral votes (that still have under representation), there's only American Citizens voting for the American President.

well no point in having tyranny of the majority when one side doesn't play by the rules....

ec actually gives a voice to ppl in smaller states, popular vote will just make them voiceless.
 
well no point in having tyranny of the majority when one side doesn't play by the rules....

ec actually gives a voice to ppl in smaller states, popular vote will just make them voiceless.

How are they voiceless when they have the same voice as everyone else? Everyone voting is a citizen of the UNITED STATES, The President is the President of the UNITED SATES, not the divided states with unequal voting power like you want.

1 citizen = 1 vote is the most equal and best.
 
How are they voiceless when they have the same voice as everyone else? Everyone voting is a citizen of the UNITED STATES, The President is the President of the UNITED SATES, not the divided states like you want.

1 citizen = 1 vote is the most equal and best.

you seem confused here.

it is called united states of america, not people's republic of america.

each state should have a say in whos the president, not just be relegated to the status of some district.

using your logic entire state of wyoming should have less of a say whos the president than some random district in california?!?

how does that even make sense? whats the point of being a state in united states when some district have more of a voice than you?
 
What does that even mean? Why would votes be worthless if every vote was counted in a popular vote? You're incoherent.

so you concede all the other points and agree ec > popular vote? good!

now this was the weakest point in your post and its not worth discussing.

theres millions of reasons why ppl dont go and vote: too lazy, doesn't trust the system, doesnt like the candidates, have better things to do...

you just cherrypicked one and act like you proved some sort of point.

now whats good about a free country is you dont have to stay in a place you don't like. you can just pick up your stuff and leave.

imagine how arrogant you gotta be to except everybody else to change to accommodate you?
 
you seem confused here.

it is called united states of america, not people's republic of america.

each state should have a say in whos the president, not just be relegated to the status of some district.

using your logic entire state of wyoming should have less of a say whos the president than some random district in california?!?

how does that even make sense? whats the point of being a state in united states when some district have more of a voice than you?

When it comes to the President each Citizen should get 1 vote. A citizen is a citizen when it comes to the President. I don't know how that's difficult for you to understand, but then again you just learned what Congress is yesterday and you probably still don't know what function they have in gov't, don't know what federal means, don't know what a Republic is, don't understand how smaller states have higher representation in an EC system, so maybe it'll take you a year or two to understand what I'm saying.
 
so you concede all the other points and agree ec > popular vote? good!

now this was the weakest point in your post and its not worth discussing.

theres millions of reasons why ppl dont go and vote: too lazy, doesn't trust the system, doesnt like the candidates, have better things to do...

you just cherrypicked one and act like you proved some sort of point.

now whats good about a free country is you dont have to stay in a place you don't like. you can just pick up your stuff and leave.

imagine how arrogant you gotta be to except everybody else to change to accommodate you?

You're still incoherent. You haven't explained why everyone's vote would be worthless if there was a popular vote. You made the claim, now back it up.
 
Yes giving all states a say in an election is definitely rigging the system.
All states would have a say by using the popular vote and all states have representatives. I suspect if the GOP won the popular vote as much as the DP in the last few decades your opinion would be different. More people's votes would count because their votes would matter more in states.

You have any idea of the history of the EC? I'll pull some pertinent parts:

https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

"At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.

Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.

If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.

Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.

The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election."


Interesting that all these years later we have people - typically of a certain persuasion it seems - who still want to keep this system because of what seems to be self-interest. I've seen in this thread and other people calling for tests, other barriers for participating in democracy, so on and so forth.

The more things change the more they stay the same eh? Almost seems like there's a pattern here.
 
All states would have a say by using the popular vote and all states have representatives. I suspect if the GOP won the popular vote as much as the DP in the last few decades your opinion would be different. More people's votes would count because their votes would matter more in states.

You have any idea of the history of the EC? I'll pull some pertinent parts:

https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/

"At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.

Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.

If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.

Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.

The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election."


Interesting that all these years later we have people - typically of a certain persuasion it seems - who still want to keep this system because of what seems to be self-interest. I've seen in this thread and other people calling for tests, other barriers for participating in democracy, so on and so forth.

The more things change the more they stay the same eh? Almost seems like there's a pattern here.
Nah, I wanted Scheer to beat Trudeau and he won the popular vote but not the electoral and I'm fine with that.
 
Nah, I wanted Scheer to beat Trudeau and he won the popular vote but not the electoral and I'm fine with that.
Ah, didn't peep your location though it doesn't change my points generally, especially pertaining to the US which is what this thread is about
 
Ah, didn't peep your location though it doesn't change my points generally, especially pertaining to the US which is what this thread is about
I get what you're saying and you do make good points I just prefer the electoral.

The funny thing to me is some people I know who wanted Hillary to win thought because she won the popular vote deserved to win but most of those people wanted Trudeau to win but not a peep when he lost the popular vote.
 
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