Time for a convention?

You keep providing well-known information.
How about answering my question: You still haven't said what you perceive to be a need for the EC.

I have provided reasons why the Electoral College exists. Both political parties play by the same rules.

The Electoral College may be outdated, but the election of two unqualified Republican presidents is not a reason to dismantle it.

I am well aware of why the Electoral College exists.  I don't need history lessons.
I was only asking for your reasoning, in that you said it is needed.

It's not just the two elections. Slightly more than ten percent of Presidents have been elected while losing the popular vote. That is idiotic.

Are you just supporting it because that's the way it has always been? Hypothetically: If the President had always been elected by majority vote and it was suggested that we implement the Electoral College instead, would you be in favor of that?

Let me answer your question with another: Do you really think the party that is in power -- that has benefited with their last two presidential election wins -- would vote to change the Constitution?

Of course not.

Now, why do you think the Electoral College is needed?

In exceedingly close elections, it allows a winner to emerge within hours instead of within days.

It also discourages vote fraud.

NoCoPilot wrote:

In exceedingly close elections, it allows a winner to emerge within hours instead of within days.

That is a completely unimportant factor. Meaningless.
And how long did it take in 2000? And the recount wasn't even completed.

Okay I give up. I've got no good answer that you would accept, for not advocating a complete overhaul of a 229-year old system which nobody has the slightest desire to change.

The only question I asked was why you said the EC was needed. The only good answer would be your reason for saying that. I'm not asking you to convince me of the validity of the system.

Quote :

...229-year old system...

Just because it's old doesn't mean it's right today. Or even that it was right 229 years ago.

Quote :

...which nobody has the slightest desire to change.

You're off by many millions.

What is the point of that quote?

Are you familiar with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?

States pass a law that require all of their electoral votes must go to the winner of the popular vote. The law goes into force when enough states have passed the law that they control at least 270 electoral votes. Then the Electoral College will become meaningless.

Right now the law has been passed by DC and ten states, include California and Washington. The legislatures in at least a half dozen more states have passed the law, but drew vetoes from Republican governors.

So it looks as though your statement that nobody wants to change it is provably wrong.

Quote :

The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.

Except for yours.

_Howard wrote:

Are you familiar with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?

No I wasn't, but what is the point of that? If the Electors vote for the majority vote-getter, they might as well just give the election to the majority vote-getter.

Former Delaware Governor Du Pont, a Republican wrote:

that the compact would be an "urban power grab" and benefit Democrats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#/media/File:State_population_per_electoral_vote.png

Note the Blue and Red colors here are not political indicators -- in fact, if you look at where the states fall, the distribution is pretty random politically. The only reliable trend, left to right, is decreasing population density.

NoCoPilot wrote:

No I wasn't, but what is the point of that?  If the Electors vote for the majority vote-getter, they might as well just give the election to the majority vote-getter.

And that is exactly the point of the law.

Former Delaware Governor Du Pont, a Republican wrote:

that the compact would be an "urban power grab" and benefit Democrats.

Obviously, all Du Pont cares about is the Republican Party. Fuck him and the elephant he rode in on.

I really don't understand the objections to the majority deciding the election. If you're worried about the small states, consider that less than one-third of the population has one-half of the Senators. That should be a big enough handicap for them.

NoCoPilot wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#/media/File:State_population_per_electoral_vote.png

Note the Blue and Red colors here are not political indicators -- in fact, if you look at where the states fall, the distribution is pretty random politically.  The only reliable trend, left to right, is decreasing population density.

Yes, I'm quite familiar with that data. Do you think that the voting power should be so divergent?

_Howard wrote:

Do you think that the voting power should be so divergent?

I don't know what I think.  I can see both sides of this issue.

The Electoral College tips the scale.  In a straight popular vote election, big states would dominate the election and small states would be ignored.  However, with the EC, the balance is somewhere else off the middle, where if ENOUGH small states vote one way, their candidate wins the election.

The balance point isn't very far off 50/50.  In Bush v. Gore it was 47.9% to to 48.4%, in Trump v. Clinton it was 47.2% to 47.9%.  But the effect is a multiplier of small states' power, if the election is very close.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing. It keeps the election from being about a half dozen states only.

I don't understand why small states should have more per capita voting power.
What do you mean "big states would dominate the election and small states would be ignored"? States - big or small - wouldn't play a role in the election; just people. Which seems to be the way most people want it to be.

_Howard wrote:

What do you mean "big states would dominate the election and small states would be ignored"?

Look at this cartogram.  If popular vote were the only determinant, why would any candidate campaign in, or care about, the Dakotas, Montana, Delaware, Vermont, etc.?  You wouldn't.  You'd spend all your time in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

Which just happens to coincide, naturally, with population.

If you add up the %s of US population in each state of the above chart, you only have to campaign in eight states (add Ohio and Georgia to the above list) to get 51.09% of the national population.

That means 42 states would be shut out, more-or-less (nobody's going to get 100% of the vote in a state, but federal spending and promises of federal spending could go a long way toward pushing that total up).

NoCoPilot wrote:

If popular vote were the only determinant, why would any candidate campaign in, or care about, the Dakotas, Montana, Delaware, Vermont, etc.?  You wouldn't.  You'd spend all your time in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

I doubt that it would be that simplistic, but if it were - SO WHAT?
The candidates for governor of California spend most of their time in San Francisco and LA. And we don't care! It makes perfectly good sense. It doesn't bother me in the least.

If some people in some states get their feelings hurt, that's just too bad.

I still don't understand the concern about small-population deserving a boost in their voting power. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

And Please don't post any more historical shit - I know all that. Would you like to see my diploma for my  BA in Political Science? I understand where the EC came from and why. What I don't understand is why people today support it (except for the politicians who benefit from it).

I don't get your meaning. Or maybe you mean that things will be done exactly as they are now.

The federal government has a lot of sway, in terms of spending, letting contracts, building infrastructure, providing grants.

Without the EC the majority (at least 51.6%) of all such spending would go to California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Ohio.