How To Abolish The Electoral College

Q

(Q)

Encephaloid Martini
Valued Senior Member
About 80% of votes in America are not as valuable as those in swing states, which gives voters in those states huge leverage.

The 2020 election came down to about 40,000 votes spread over 3 swing states, in 2016 it came down to about 77,000 votes again over 3 swing states. The popular vote had a difference of millions of votes, in some cases for the candidate that didn't win the Presidency.

Races in the razor-thin margin swing states are becoming closer and closer even though the popular vote is nowhere near close. This winds up inviting recounts, audits and lawsuits where a candidate might be able to overturn some tens of thousands of votes for an Electoral College win but most likely not if the popular vote was in the millions.

Candidates have little reason to win over votes in a long standing Democrat or Republican state, so instead they spend all their time and money campaigning in those swing states to a smaller and more radical base, leading to uglier and more divisive campaigns.

What to do about it?

Get your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Currently 17 states and DC have joined (209 Electoral Votes) and once there are enough states to make 270 Electoral votes, they will give all their votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. All we need are a few more states to make up another 61 Electoral Votes and it's a done deal.

Make it happen, folks!
 
(Q) said:
About 80% of votes in America are not as valuable as those in swing states, which gives voters in those states huge leverage.

The 2020 election came down to about 40,000 votes spread over 3 swing states, in 2016 it came down to about 77,000 votes again over 3 swing states. The popular vote had a difference of millions of votes, in some cases for the candidate that didn't win the Presidency.

Races in the razor-thin margin swing states are becoming closer and closer even though the popular vote is nowhere near close. This winds up inviting recounts, audits and lawsuits where a candidate might be able to overturn some tens of thousands of votes for an Electoral College win but most likely not if the popular vote was in the millions.

Candidates have little reason to win over votes in a long standing Democrat or Republican state, so instead they spend all their time and money campaigning in those swing states to a smaller and more radical base, leading to uglier and more divisive campaigns.

What to do about it?

Get your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Currently 17 states and DC have joined (209 Electoral Votes) and once there are enough states to make 270 Electoral votes, they will give all their votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. All we need are a few more states to make up another 61 Electoral Votes and it's a done deal.

Make it happen, folks!
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Too late. You’ve voted for someone whose party will ensure they never lose another election.
 
parmalee said:
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. Our elections will come to resemble those "elections" they have in Russia.
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That's what I fear. The Republican party has spent a lot of time talking to people like Viktor Orban of Hungary, whom they seem to greatly admire. I expect to see (in fact we are already seeing) a cowing of the press. I will be amazed if Trump does not use the courts to sue political opponents and those he perceives to be opponents. He does not need to win cases in court. All he needs to do is threaten to expose these people to the cost and stress of lawsuits. It's what in the UK we call "lawfare", a tried and trusted method used by the rich, commonly by means of civil lawsuits, to suppress inconvenient challenge. If Trump has a compliant Attorney General and compliant Supreme Court, he can even threaten criminal charges which, however preposterous, still have to be defended, unless there are a lot of brave judges to throw them out as vexatious. You need balls to do that, if they are being brought by the Attorney General.

By such methods he and his party can suppress dissent to a significant degree. I also expect that he may overturn the 2 term rule and seek a third term, perhaps engineering a "state of emergency", as so many autocrats have done before to stay in office.

On this side of the water we will try to get a few cheap laughs from such people as RFK in charge of Health and Musk in charge of efficiency. Neither of those people will have a clue how to do what they will be attempting. And then there is this nuts idea of deporting several million immigrants. Deport them to where? No country will agree to have them dumped on their doorstep. If he tries it, it will quickly degenerate into a vast humanitarian catastrophe. And when these things go wrong there will be all the more pressure to warp the system so that another Republican is returned to office, come what may.

You will be very lucky indeed if your electoral system remains intact in 4 years' time.
 
exchemist said:
That's what I fear. The Republican party has spent a lot of time talking to people like Viktor Orban of Hungary, whom they seem to greatly admire. I expect to see (in fact we are already seeing) a cowing of the press. I will be amazed if Trump does not use the courts to sue political opponents and those he perceives to be opponents. He does not need to win cases in court. All he needs to do is threaten to expose these people to the cost and stress of lawsuits. It's what in the UK we call "lawfare", a tried and trusted method used by the rich, commonly by means of civil lawsuits, to suppress inconvenient challenge.
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Those are called SLAPP suits over here (strategic lawsuit against public participation) Trumps been using those for decades and they've often worked. But after his indictments and convictions, lots of businesses, municipalities and states attorneys generals are lining up to sue him. Trump will appoint a loyalist attorney general to be his personal lawyer, but that person will most likely be as incompetent as the other people he's lining up for cabinet positions. Chaos will ensue within the DOJ, they'll be overwhelmed with cases coming in and going out and will have a tough time finding competent lawyers to work the cases.
 
Some days
It seems that some self righteous illiberal "liberals" are chasing their own tails(tales).
 
(Q) said:
Those are called SLAPP suits over here (strategic lawsuit against public participation) Trumps been using those for decades and they've often worked. But after his indictments and convictions, lots of businesses, municipalities and states attorneys generals are lining up to sue him. Trump will appoint a loyalist attorney general to be his personal lawyer, but that person will most likely be as incompetent as the other people he's lining up for cabinet positions. Chaos will ensue within the DOJ, they'll be overwhelmed with cases coming in and going out and will have a tough time finding competent lawyers to work the cases.
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Well yes, we can expect it to be a goat rodeo, but not in a good way.
 
(Q) said:
Currently 17 states and DC have joined (209 Electoral Votes) and once there are enough states to make 270 Electoral votes, they will give all their votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote.
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This is trying to eliminate the EC while still operating under its structured bias that will disproportionately represent the GOP. Seems like a really difficult bootstrapping, given the current number of GOP-dominated state legislatures, 28 (29, if you include Nebraska's "nonpartisan" Unicameral, which is effectively Republican). Unless prominent Republicans start digging up corpses and sexuallly violating them on national tv, this imbalance seems not likely to shift. So the alternative is a Constitutional amendment to change Article II. That needs a 2/3rds vote in both houses of Congress, followed by the ratification of 3/4ths of the states. In the unlikely event that it passed Congress, it would face the unfortunate fact that states don't ratify by popular vote. They ratify by....their legislatures. Point being, it always comes down to statehouses. Sometimes in my gloomier moods I see this structure as why our country is always a few short steps from civil war.
 
exchemist said:
Too late. You’ve voted for someone whose party will ensure they never lose another election.
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Because citizens will keep voting them back in if they secure the border, and improve the quality of citizens life. If Democrats can regroup, get that element that made the lose so embarrassingly, then citizens may consider voting for them again.
It’s not rocket science ;)…
Well maybe for Elon! :D
 
Trek said:
Because citizens will keep voting them back in if they secure the border, and improve the quality of citizens life. If Democrats can regroup, get that element that made the lose so embarrassingly, then citizens may consider voting for them again.
It’s not rocket science ;)…
Well maybe for Elon! :D
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That assumes a fair electoral system remains. I doubt it will.
 
exchemist said:
That assumes a fair electoral system remains. I doubt it will.
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There is no reason for it not to remain if the government put the people who elected them, and those that didn’t elect them, first.
Ordinary people are simple to please. Just make the economy good, provide good healthcare, and education, and keep them safe from both within and without.
I find it amazing how a populace isn’t basically satisfied with that.
 
Trek said:
There is no reason for it not to remain if the government put the people who elected them, and those that didn’t elect them, first.
Ordinary people are simple to please. Just make the economy good, provide good healthcare, and education, and keep them safe from both within and without.
I find it amazing how a populace isn’t basically satisfied with that.
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On the contrary, there is every reason to think the Republican party will continue to manipulate the electoral process to its advantage and to cast doubt on the validity of the process when its results do not suit them.
 
exchemist said:
On the contrary, there is every reason to think the Republican party will continue to manipulate the electoral process to its advantage and to cast doubt on the validity of the process when its results do not suit them.
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I don’t agree with you.
I think it is the Democratic Party that manipulate, even cheat. The only reason, imo, they didn’t cheat this election is because 1. All eyes was on them this time right up to the end 2. The people made this election too big to rig.
I don’t think Donald Trump is a cheat. But those deluded Democrats (far left aspect) will cheat and not even know it because they are so elitist and spoilt. Even now most of them cannot even understand why they lost which speaks to their delusion
 
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