Resolution for 14th amendment, goodbye electoral college, hello clown college.

[cryptoadam]

 

[CloudNull]

Normally I would say no way they could get 3/4 of states to go in on this but after this election I am not sure. I really hope this never passes.

 

[JORMBO]

Good thing amending the Constitution with wacky ideas is really hard to do.

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

Even though it won't fully pass.

 

[Stefan.North]

Here's my message a few days ago with predicting this.

Things really are accelarating, and even though I thought this would happen, never could I believe to come this soon.

 

[mashoutposse]

Abolishing the electoral college increases the likelihood of the balkanization of the United States.

 

[Papa]

Even though it won't fully pass.

Why do you want this?

 

[infinitys_7th]

Sure, let's make a deal. I'll trade repealing the EC for repealing the 16th and 17th.

 

[ManaByte]

Why do you want this?

Because he wants the coastal states to choose the President because fuck the fly-overs.

 

[Loki]

Terrible, reactionary idea. Put forth by Dems, of course.

 

[SF Kosmo]

How's the electoral college system in Canada work? I need a reminder.

The US has passed its last constitutional amendment. The idea of even an overwhelmingly popular amendment passing in the current era of gridlock partisanship is laughable. The EC is best reformed within the existing constitutional framework, either by splitting electors proportional to the vote or by assigning them to the popular vote winner.

 

[eKongDiddy]

I support this and hope it happens. This can make populist candidates more of a viability. No more focusing on a few states. Get the vote of the people! Hopefully this can begin getting us out of this two-party system too. I know there are other parties, but none of them have the national stage like current Dems/GOP.

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

Why do you want this?

Nobody's vote should count for more or less than anyone elses.

 

[Ten_Fold]

Hmm I’m kinda split on this tbh.

 

[Zefah]

Good bye United States, if that happens.

 

[CloudNull]

Nobody's vote should count for more or less than anyone elses.

Getting rid of the electoral college will let cities decide who the president is. No reason to campaign in rural areas at all causing a massive divide. The electoral college is genius.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Nobody's vote should count for more or less than anyone elses.

You know, honestly the extra weight given small states in the EC is fucking trivial and not the problem. Let them have it. That's why I support splitting votes proportionally.

The real problem with the EC is that states themselves are winner-take-all, which puts all the emphasis on a handful of swing states, and marginalizes most of the country from an electoral standpoint. And it can lead to wild arbitrary swings in terms of which party it favors and get way out of line with the way the country is leaning, as we saw in the 2016.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Getting rid of the electoral college will let cities decide who the president is. No reason to campaign in rural areas at all causing a massive divide. The electoral college is genius.

You have confused the EC for the Senate. The EC only favors swing states, it doesn't favor rural or urban populations inherently.

This silly "Founding fathers designed the EC to protect the rural vote from the big bad cities" is literally a talking point made up in 2016 and emailed to conservative pundits to repeat ad nauseum, but that's 100% fictional. The EC was designed as a safeguard against the dumb plebs electing a huckster, and then over time evolved into a vestigal procedural formality.

Until 2000 eliminating it was popular on both sides of the aisle, but since it tilted two elections in the Republicans favor, they've all become convinced that it's there to help them, despite the fact that it favored Obama twice.

 

[molnizzle]

A vote is a vote is a vote. “Swing states” shouldn’t be a thing.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Getting rid of the electoral college will let cities decide who the president is.

Everyone’s vote would be equal.

It would let... the majority, decide.

Strange concept.

We still have the senate which gives States all equal power in the most important votes inside of congress as nothing can be passed without them.

 

[JordanN]

No Electoral College = California always wins.

Democrats will hold power forever. Anyone with eyes should see this.

 

[CloudNull]

You have confused the EC for the Senate. The EC only favors swing states, it doesn't favor rural or urban populations inherently.

This silly "Founding fathers designed the EC to protect the rural vote from the big bad cities" is literally a talking point made up in 2016 and emailed to conservative pundits to repeat ad nauseum, but that's 100% fictional. The EC was designed as a safeguard against the dumb plebs electing a huckster, and then over time evolved into a vestigal procedural formality.

Until 2000 eliminating it was popular on both sides of the aisle, but since it tilted two elections in the Republicans favor, they've all become convinced that it's there to help them, despite the fact that it favored Obama twice.

Swing states change over time and without the EC the swings states wouldn’t mean shit. Most would be fly over states that no one would worry about campaigning in. The system is not perfect but it prevents a few mega cities from deciding the direction of the whole country.

Currently cities have more sway than I think they should and I hope a modern solution is found but removing the EC is not it.

 

[Papa]

Nobody's vote should count for more or less than anyone elses.

Can you explain to me the difference between a direct democracy and a constitutional republic?

 

[CloudNull]

Everyone’s vote would be equal.

It would let... the majority, decide.

Strange concept.

We still have the senate which gives States all equal power in the most important votes inside of congress as nothing can be passed without them.

Most people are dumb and our forefathers knew this. They never wanted us to be a direct democracy because they were worried the masses would end up voting for things not good for them in the long run.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Most people are dumb and our forefathers knew this. They never wanted us to be a direct democracy because they were worried the masses would end up voting for things not good for them in the long run.

That does not make a lick of sense.

They don’t want the masses deciding so give people living in the least populated states the greatest say in the presidency?

Some of you need to learn history beyond what they taught us in 2nd grade.

The EC was a compromise after a month of arguing between democracy and a republic (congress picks the president.). It was never a great idea and it’s flaws are glaringly obvious.

 

[JordanN]

That does not make a lick of sense.

They don’t want the masses deciding so give people living in the least populated states the greatest say in the presidency?

It's smart.

Before airplanes, how did most people enter a country? By coast...
And if most people just move to the city, what happens to all those living in the midwest or rural areas? They're forgotten.

 

[Cato]

You know, honestly the extra weight given small states in the EC is fucking trivial and not the problem. Let them have it. That's why I support splitting votes proportionally.

The real problem with the EC is that states themselves are winner-take-all, which puts all the emphasis on a handful of swing states, and marginalizes most of the country from an electoral standpoint. And it can lead to wild arbitrary swings in terms of which party it favors and get way out of line with the way the country is leaning, as we saw in the 2016.

You need to keep different weights on votes, akin to how the EC does it today, or how pretty much every modern democracy does it, or else, why would we even bother to have elections in smaller or rural states?
If you lose that, then why should you even bother to have election polling in places like North Dakota? It is not like they would have any meaningful input, and then maybe people there will start to think about "why are we even in this federation if our votes or voices do not count anyway".
There is nothing good coming out from that path and this is why you have different weights on votes in virtually every single democracy today.

Rule by majority is just another word for rule by tyranny and dystopia.

But lets say they do end the EC and they do change the presidential election to basically be by popular vote. What then. Is that enough?
If you need to get rid of EC because reasons, does not the exact same reasons apply to the senate? Why should North Dakota have same number of senators like a populous state like California? Why are North Dakota votes for senate so much more powerful than NY votes?
Maybe senators should be allocated by republic-wide popular vote too?
That is the exact same discussion and WILL BE the next step.


What I think you do need is
1, a third, or fourth, party in house and senate such that no single party will ever have a majority there again and thus in order to rule one party will have to form a coalition with another party in order to get a majority. Is a lot harder to deamonize the opposition if you know after the election you might need to work with them and form a coalition with them, sharing power.

2, strip back the power of EC. Today in tribalism the powers for EC just continues to expand, and it is 100% OK as long as our guy does it.
Strip back the shit that Obama did, "ok congress you say I can NOT start a war, haha well just watch me" and there were no consequences.
Or doing silly shit that affects budgetary spending and taxation, which would require congress approval, not an EC.
Strip back the powers the president has and actually go after the president HARD when he tries to expand his powers. EVEN if it is your own fucking team that does it.

 

[Halo is Dead]

Nobody's vote should count for more or less than anyone elses.

Does it really though? Every vote counts to that state and the winner of the state gets the EC points. If the EC is removed you will see presidents only campaigning in the biggest cities or near them and good luck with the GOP securing those lmao.

 

[Grinchy]

The people who think there shouldn't be an electoral college would think there does need to be one if their preferred political party didn't have a deathgrip on New York and California. That's what makes these kinds of people pointless to pay attention to.

 

[Dacon]

Well we knew this shit was coming.

Prepare for efforts to pack the courts.

 

[mashoutposse]

Slightly weighting the votes in favor of less populous states incentivizes those states to stay in the Union.

Campaigning looks very different without EC. With ~70% of America living in areas classified as urban, it’s a straightforward turn ‘em out game; the smart strategy will be to cater your platform entirely to the 70% and efficiently spend all your time where all the votes are concentrated. Just go to all the high-density deep blue areas and turn ‘em out. Candidates who waste time and resources and platform space feigning interest in rural populations will be beaten every time by the candidate who simply does the smart and efficient thing.

EC moving power to swing states is a feature, not a bug. EC means that candidates spend less time doubling down on preaching to the choir with unbalanced messaging, and more time on working on a platform inclusive enough to capture “purple” states. It leads to more balanced candidates that need to speak and appeal to a more diverse audience. Candidates selling states that are already sold to drive up the margins will lead to agendas that leave a lot of regions out. If PA’s purple, Biden would do better to hang out in NY and CA for 6 months to take a 62-38 margin to 75-25 with heavy turnout than work on eking out votes from skeptical folks in a bunch of random PA counties.

 

[Loki]

I support this and hope it happens. This can make populist candidates more of a viability. No more focusing on a few states. Get the vote of the people! Hopefully this can begin getting us out of this two-party system too. I know there are other parties, but none of them have the national stage like current Dems/GOP.

Ummm...you do realize that the EC was formed precisely to avoid the "focusing on a few states" scenario you mentioned, right? Without the EC, candidates could focus strictly on the large cities (which usually are democratic anyway) and win an election, without ever addressing the needs/concerns of folks in other states.

 

[Lupingosei]

Well we knew this shit was coming.

Prepare for efforts to pack the courts.

They don't have the votes for neither

 

[Loki]

Slightly weighting the votes in favor of less populous states incentivizes those states to stay in the Union.

Campaigning looks very different without EC. With ~70% of America living in areas classified as urban, it’s a straightforward turn ‘em out game; the smart strategy will be to cater your platform entirely to the 70% and efficiently spend all your time where all the votes are concentrated. Just go to all the high-density deep blue areas and turn ‘em out. Candidates who waste time and resources and platform space feigning interest in rural populations will be beaten every time by the candidate who simply does the smart and efficient thing.

EC moving power to swing states is a feature, not a bug. EC means that candidates spend less time doubling down on preaching to the choir with unbalanced messaging, and more time on working on a platform inclusive enough to capture “purple” states. It leads to more balanced candidates that need to speak and appeal to a more diverse audience. Candidates selling states that are already sold to drive up the margins will lead to agendas that leave a lot of regions out. If PA’s purple, Biden would do better to hang out in NY and CA for 6 months to take a 62-38 margin to 75-25 with heavy turnout than work on eking out votes from skeptical folks in a bunch of random PA counties.

Excellent breakdown.

 

[Flame_alchemist]

You have confused the EC for the Senate. The EC only favors swing states, it doesn't favor rural or urban populations inherently.

This silly "Founding fathers designed the EC to protect the rural vote from the big bad cities" is literally a talking point made up in 2016 and emailed to conservative pundits to repeat ad nauseum, but that's 100% fictional. The EC was designed as a safeguard against the dumb plebs electing a huckster, and then over time evolved into a vestigal procedural formality.

Until 2000 eliminating it was popular on both sides of the aisle, but since it tilted two elections in the Republicans favor, they've all become convinced that it's there to help them, despite the fact that it favored Obama twice.

Hell Trump was in strong support of getting rid of it aswell.

 

[Dacon]

They don't have the votes for neither

How is that going to stop them from attempting it regardless?

 

[Lupingosei]

How is that going to stop them from attempting it regardless?

Nobody, if they think it is worth their time until 2022, go for it.

 

[Dacon]

Nobody, if they think it is worth their time until 2022, go for it.

I mean this thread is literally about one of those attempts.

Since we live in clown world, I'm not going to discredit the possibility of them succeeding.

 

[rorepmE]

The people who think there shouldn't be an electoral college would think there does need to be one if their preferred political party didn't have a deathgrip on New York and California. That's what makes these kinds of people pointless to pay attention to.

They probably think food magically appears at the supermarkets too.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a farmer about the possibility of destroying crops as a political statement to disrupt food supply. I don't think people realize how delicate our food supply chain really is and you wouldn't need all farmers. Just enough and the supply chain will be overwhelmed.

I wonder what kind of chaos would occur in these wonderful cities.

 

[Halo is Dead]

They probably think food magically appears at the supermarkets too.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a farmer about the possibility of destroying crops as a political statement to disrupt food supply. I don't think people realize how delicate our food supply chain really is and you wouldn't need all farmers. Just enough and the supply chain will be overwhelmed.

I wonder what kind of chaos would occur in these wonderful cities.

What political statement would be making though?

 

[Flame_alchemist]

They probably think food magically appears at the supermarkets too.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a farmer about the possibility of destroying crops as a political statement to disrupt food supply. I don't think people realize how delicate our food supply chain really is and you wouldn't need all farmers. Just enough and the supply chain will be overwhelmed.

I wonder what kind of chaos would occur in these wonderful cities.

You do realize California, Texas and Florida produce the most in agriculture all could be turning blue in the near future.

California ranks No. 1 in agricultural sales with $45.2B - Vegetable Growers News

In U.S. agriculture, California is clearly the MVP in sales. According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, California’s 70,521 farms ranked No. 1 in agricultural sales with $45.2 billion; this accounted for nearly 12 percent of the U.S. total and was over $16 billion more than the No. 2 state. In...

vegetablegrowersnews.com

 

[Raven117]

Too many states have to ratify.

 

[rorepmE]

You do realize California, Texas and Florida produce the most in agriculture all could be turning blue in the near future.

California ranks No. 1 in agricultural sales with $45.2B - Vegetable Growers News

In U.S. agriculture, California is clearly the MVP in sales. According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, California’s 70,521 farms ranked No. 1 in agricultural sales with $45.2 billion; this accounted for nearly 12 percent of the U.S. total and was over $16 billion more than the No. 2 state. In...

vegetablegrowersnews.com

You think those farms are run by the colored states and purple hair fatties or soyboys?

Who the fuck do you think are running those farms in California, Texas and Florida?

 

[Ballthyrm]

Rule by majority is just another word for rule by tyranny and dystopia

As opposed to minority rule which is what you have now...

If you think the alienation we are seeing right now doesn't come from a majority of Americans having their will ignored, I don't know what to say.

Right now you have the center right and left being crushed into submission by both extremes. That's your tyranny, that's already the dystopia you are talking about.

What the US needs IMHO is more than 2 party. 4 would be a start. And remove the president direct election and make them a coalition representative (like Germany for example)

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Thanks Trump

 

[Cato]

Slightly weighting the votes in favor of less populous states incentivizes those states to stay in the Union.

Campaigning looks very different without EC. With ~70% of America living in areas classified as urban, it’s a straightforward turn ‘em out game; the smart strategy will be to cater your platform entirely to the 70% and efficiently spend all your time where all the votes are concentrated. Just go to all the high-density deep blue areas and turn ‘em out. Candidates who waste time and resources and platform space feigning interest in rural populations will be beaten every time by the candidate who simply does the smart and efficient thing.

EC moving power to swing states is a feature, not a bug. EC means that candidates spend less time doubling down on preaching to the choir with unbalanced messaging, and more time on working on a platform inclusive enough to capture “purple” states. It leads to more balanced candidates that need to speak and appeal to a more diverse audience. Candidates selling states that are already sold to drive up the margins will lead to agendas that leave a lot of regions out. If PA’s purple, Biden would do better to hang out in NY and CA for 6 months to take a 62-38 margin to 75-25 with heavy turnout than work on eking out votes from skeptical folks in a bunch of random PA counties.

Very insightful.
But take it a step further. IF it is suddenly enough to ONLY cater to your own states to get enough votes.
What will happen with "unity" or "cohersion"? You think the country is divided right now? People have no idea ... i f you no longer even have to pretend to convince people on "the other side" to vote for you...

But if that is what people want. Well, sorry to be in your shoes.

 

[eKongDiddy]

Ummm...you do realize that the EC was formed precisely to avoid the "focusing on a few states" scenario you mentioned, right? Without the EC, candidates could focus strictly on the large cities (which usually are democratic anyway) and win an election, without ever addressing the needs/concerns of folks in other states.

Isn’t that already happening with the attention always being on the swing states, though? It may be frustration from my point of view, but neither candidate even campaigned in my state this past election. Maybe instead of getting rid of it all together they can make adjustments to the current system. Just sucks feeling like your vote doesn’t matter. I like the suggestion another poster made with giving proportional EC votes instead of winner take all.

What the US needs IMHO is more than 2 party. 4 would be a start. And remove the president direct election and make them a coalition representative (like Germany for example)

Agreed. Neither party fits me, so I stay Independent.

 

[Boss Mog]

Pretty easy to see why they want to eliminate the electoral college, how else would the blue be able to dominate the red. It was put in place specifically so small centers of power wouldn't decide everything for such a vast country.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

No Electoral College = California always wins.

Democrats will hold power forever. Anyone with eyes should see this.

Isn't that the whole point of getting rid of the EC, that each vote of every American has the same weight, rendering majorities within single states pointless?

There are consequences of course, if that ever happens. But the idea that every vote has the same weight - like in most Western countries btw - doesn't sound "undemocratic" to me.

 

[Ballthyrm]

Pretty easy to see why they want to eliminate the electoral college, how else would the blue be able to dominate the red. It was put in place specifically so small centers of power wouldn't decide everything for such a vast country.