Maybe, but Nixon was a lot smarter and more effective leader than Reagan. And actually accomplished a lot…China dialogue, civil rights, environmental laws, ended the war…Hopefully Trump can get some good solid conservative work done before the jackals in the press shred him…
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Nixon is about 10x smarter than Trump though. Plus Nixon actually believed in something, unlike Trump.
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Trump could become another Reagan if he could surround himself with competent people…He is good at management. …lets hope for the best
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Nope.
The last thing I want is to have my vote cancelled by that of someone who is clueless about the issues and only showed up because it was mandatory.
And to the original question - no , we should not eliminate the electoral college. If people think a few busted windows in Seattle is bad it is NOTHING compared to what would happen if CA and NY, two states with aligned interests, decided for the other 48 states. I’m to old for a societal meltdown.
We are NOT a democracy - we are a constitutional republic. HUGE difference. And from a fairness perspective there is nothing more legitimate about getting huge majorities in two states than there is about achieving small majorities in dozens of states.
There is another way. .quadratic voting…This allows you to vote on issues that matter most to you…Here is a discussion on it.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/01/my-thoughts-on-quadratic-voting-and-politics-as-education.html
Uh, we can’t even get this with our cable tv packages…
What??? If this election didn’t prove we should finally wipe out a policy that was appropriate for a young new country perhaps I don’t know what will. Your vote should have the fully weight of a vote. It should not be nullified or rendered useless. We have the technology and the capability to do it and it simply makes sense. No more gaming of the battle states. Everyone’s vote counts!!! Hallelujah!!!
I thought it was in Canada.
Maybe there could be a bubble “I didn’t do my research and am not qualified to vote on this election.” 
It is compulsory in Russia…doesn’t mean sh-t
It doesn’t prove anything. Every election, game, sport, test, etc. has rules you follow. You play and win based on those rules. Nothing is proved by complaining about how population-based scoring would’ve resulted in a different president when they played by the electoral college rules. It’d be like saying to a football team after the game is over “Well, the score isn’t really 37, it’s 4 because we’re scoring you on soccer rules, so the other team wins.”
ALL THAT SAID, if the federal government placed more power in the hands of the local governments to govern themselves, fewer people would be upset. If Texas wants open-carry without a permit, trucks, and the death penalty and NY wants background checks, no death penalty and free food for everyone, fine. Then people could or should move to wherever they feel most comfortable.
ALL THAT SAID, if the federal government placed more power in the hands of the local governments to govern themselves, fewer people would be upset. If Texas wants open-carry without a permit, trucks, and the death penalty and NY wants background checks, no death penalty and free food for everyone, fine. Then people could or should move to wherever they feel most comfortable.
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You got it! If we (the Dems to be honest) would stop trying to federalize everything we wouldn’t have half the divisions we do now.
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Well said well said. I am so impressed with the quality of the members in this forum.
For whoever not sure what acre is talking about, more detail can be founded here…
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The question is why didn’t USA change to an one person, one vote democracy; and why USA still think it is necessary to adopt the Electoral College system given current literacy, ubiquitous communication channel and technological advancement.
Stating that USA is a constitutional republic and why it has adopted Electoral College system from a historical perspective didn’t answer the questions. Is a circular answer.
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That video is poorly reasoned. How does the electoral college prevent the tyranny of a majority? If I win 270 or 400+ electoral votes and become President, I have the same influence. The Senate, for example, clearly has rules that protect the minority party unless they are really far behind (ie, <40 members). It’s extremely arguable that the EC prevents election fraud; you need to steal less votes in absolute numbers as long as they’re in the right place to influence the outcome.
The one reason in that video that’s valid is that it forces coalition-building; the EC ensures that the small states can’t be ignored.
If the states get small enough they still can be ignored.
This is the projection of how 2020 census may redistribute the EV’s:
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/updated-2020-reapportionment-projections/
Based on EDS’s projections, California (+1), Colorado (+1), Florida (+1), North Carolina (+1), and Texas (+3) are in line to gain at least one seat. In some cases, EDS found that Arizona, Oregon, and/or Virginia may also pick up an additional seat.
On the other side of the ledger, Alabama (-1), Illinois (-1), Michigan (-1), Minnesota (-1), Ohio (-1), Pennsylvania (-1), Rhode Island (-1), and West Virginia (-1) are positioned to lose a seat, and in at least one projection New York also lost one.
So the Midwestern states + PA that are all the rage this cycle will very likely get their clout cut down 4 years later. TX may get 3 more EV, FL and CA each 1 more. CA is solidly blue, FL is purple, and the vote difference in TX is smaller this year than in Iowa, a much smaller state. Demography is slow moving fate. There is no stopping.
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Electoral college votes usually line up with popular votes. So EC mostly work. I would caution against meddling with something 200 years old just because of the handful of times it doesn’t work. For what it’s worth, Brexit is a straight up/down popular vote, and the Remain camp still lost, and upset.
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Good observation.
Concerning to preventing election fraud, your point about less absolute votes are correct, but “as long as they’re in the right place” is also very important. Remember, fraud is hated by all american people including both red and blue. So it is far more likely for the criminals to steal a huge lot of votes in one place than to steal a few votes from a few different places. In that sense, EC is a little bit safer than popular votes.
Concerning to preventing the tyranny of a majority, let me use 2015 population numbers to construct an extreme example just for illustration:
If a candidate is able to get 100% of votes from the most populated 4 states, he/she will still able to pull through popular votes even he/she only get as little as ~25% of votes of all the remaining 47 states (+DC). I think that is what the founding fathers try to prevent.
Obviously, you can easily construct another extreme example where using EC, a candidate could win just enough states 50.0001% and lost the rest 0%. A candidate with as much as 78% popular votes will still possible to lose.
So it is either “tyranny of majority of people” or “tyranny of majority of states”. That is when we need to talk about history.
We are a constitutional republic. US is not directly made up by people. US is made up by states which is made up by people. State is the single most important entity here, not federal nor person. Whether you like it or not, it is the current state of the constitution.
@hanera Yes, there is no reason to adopt EC except that it is in the current constitution by obvious historical reasons. You are welcome to admen the constitution changing it to use simple majority vote. However, doing so, you still need the “tyranny of majority of states” to give power first. It is possible but very unlikely.
For me, Federal government should be as small as possible.
@manch I can assure you that Trump or Trump’s voters are not all mindless nor reasoning poorly. It is just our ideologies is different. Don’t worry, it is going to be ok. By the way, the victory of Trump on Tuesday is not what worth celebrating, the short squeeze of NVDA pushing it to jump 30% on Friday alone is. 
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In the US we suffer from the tyranny of the small states…Because some, 7 states, only have one congressional representative , they have 3 times as many votes as their proportional right…hardly democratic. …So those 7 states have 21 votes instead of 7 proportionally…Several more, 5, have double their fair proportional share…And another 5 have 5/3 more clout…So 17 states have an average of more than double the vote power of Californians. … And most others have 25-50% more vote clout…so much for one man one vote
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I think EC and popular vote split are freak and rare events. If it ever becomes a regular occurrence there will be tremendous pressure to amend the constitution. Saying how the founding fathers intended will not cut it. The founding fathers also didn’t intend we vote for the senate. Hamilton explicitly said EC should be prepared to buck the popular will and refuse to vote for someone unfit to the presidency.
One overriding theme of the constitution is that it’s intentionally short and ambiguous so later generation can adapt it to their times.