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

[e&e]

if it meant no more mail ballots, ever, and all future elections across the country on a blockchain, I could see some support for it. But the Dems will never give up their ability to cheat. Seriously. All you need to do in this system is stuff the ballots in NY / Texas / California. Anyone who thinks that already isnt happening...lol

I don’t think we are supposed to be discussing unproven election fraud topics...

 

[Ballthyrm]

Racial minorities are distributed differently across different states, and even within states. Of course they're included in the minorities who are given a stronger voice by the EC, because top-down laws tend to affect minorities more acutely. Tens of millions of people are not "a very select minority, people who live in the countryside".

Statehood is a thing I think is worth protecting, so on its face that's not a bad thing. This ongoing appeal to "will of the people" isn't going anywhere.

City vs countryside, landowners vs workers, kings vs provincial lords. This is not a new back-and-forth struggle in politics. History seems to indicate that it is best to protect the interests of the minority even when it seems inconvenient to do so.

I was using the term minority in the broad sense of the term, a subset of a whole.
I agree with most of the points you are making, I was just pointing out that there is some self selection going on.

As you are free to move anywhere in the US, the people who stay in the countryside share some common traits, be it social/education levels or income.
It is bound to represent a lower range of interests than the population numbers would suggest.

 

[Kev Kev]

I don’t think we are supposed to be discussing unproven election fraud topics...

 

[JLB]

Eehrrnm... nope. In Chile we’ve never had a single party, BUT different coalitions. Right now there are 3 coalitions, which is good because it helps moderate the discourse.

“Wanna have a chance at government? Either moderate your discourse or stay the f*ck out of the coalitions. “

In the end, I think coalitions to create government would greatly help the US to regain national unity, but that would inevitably require for the EC to disappear.

Not sure why I said Chile, I wanted to say Spain to follow what I previously commented.
~
I dont think that coalitions help to create unity, at least it doesnt seem to be working on Argentina or Spain. But enable two things: Real political negotiation and more representative options for the electorate.

In example, if rather than 2, US would have 6 political parties, let say:

* Left (Bernie, Squad, etc)
* Center left (Biden, Harris)
* Libertarian (Rand Paul)
* Center right (Bush, Rubio)
* Nationalist / Right (Trump, Cruz)

Americans could vote something that is more representative of what they actually stand for.
When you have only 2 options, you end up discarding and voting for the "less bad" option.
The cool thing is that having multiple parties enables more positions to actually be heard -and eventually translate that into real legislation-. Basically, you can vote for a candidate that you know it will lose the election, but if it gets your vote will be able to negotiate with the winning party to pass some policies.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

We should transition into a direct democracy where every single law is voted on by all of the people all of the time. The will of the people shall not be ignored.

I hereby propose a popular vote to decide whether we should steal everything the appropriately named 'shoplifter' owns.

 

[shoplifter]

I hereby propose a popular vote to decide whether we should steal everything the appropriately named 'shoplifter' owns.

Majority rules, right? It'd never be a horrible idea to run an entire country with a popularity contest.

 

[SF Kosmo]

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?

Zero of these small states swing or decide elections. And if you don't live in a swing state, your vote doesn't reallymake a difference. So I would think having a small influence would be a marked improvement from the current reality of essentially none.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

Majority rules, right? It'd never be a horrible idea to run an entire country with a popularity contest.

I assume my sarcasm detector was malfunctioning then?

 

[FreedomOfSpeech]

I'm sure this sounds like a clear and simple idea for the clueless, but I suppose this has a bunch of unforeseen consequences.

I understand EC, I see why it would be gotten rid of. But I don't particularly see why it should stay.

 

[SF Kosmo]

It's amazing to me that even now people can't see any benefit to having elections with a clear and decisive result with less parliamentary red tape. We just watched someone attempt to throw wrenches into every gear of this machine. Wouldn't it have been better if the guy who lost by seven million votes took that as a clear defeat?

 

[shoplifter]

I assume my sarcasm detector was malfunctioning then?

what does the majority think

 

[Derekloffin]

It's amazing to me that even now people can't see any benefit to having elections with a clear and decisive result with less parliamentary red tape. We just watched someone attempt to throw wrenches into every gear of this machine. Wouldn't it have been better if the guy who lost by seven million votes took that as a clear defeat?

I don't really think removing the EC would fix that. EC at least makes the voting mechanics a state issue, but if you make voting nation wide, then every standard of voting, eligibility and such suddenly becomes a matter of concern to every other state. If the real impetus is to make 1 vote equal everywhere, they would all have to likewise enforce an equal set of rules, and clearly now they don't, and it would be a mess of litigation possibilities pointing out all the infractions various jurisdictions make, real or perceived.

 

[shoplifter]

^^^ The second we go to a national popular vote cases like the one Texas brought against PA will have standing because of exactly this.

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.

Which western countries have the square mileage of the US (especially in terms of geographic diversity) and also directly elect their head of state? The US is nearly the same size as *all of Europe*.

 

[Derekloffin]

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.

Many western countries actually don't vote on their national leader at all. All parliamentary types for instance (UK, Canada, etc) vote by party, and don't vote for their leader. The party can vote its leader in, but citizens do not vote for the leader at all, and it is rather common for said leader to have only a minority of support as these often tend to have many active parties.

 

[DrAspirino]

Which western countries have the square mileage of the US (especially in terms of geographic diversity) and also directly elect their head of state? The US is nearly the same size as *all of Europe*.

Brazil.

And yes, they DO elect their president directly.

Brazil elects on the national level a head of state—the president—and a legislature. The president is elected to a four-year term by absolute majority vote through a two-round system. The National Congress (Congresso Nacional) has two chambers. The Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados) has 513 members, elected to a four-year term by proportional representation. The Federal Senate (Senado Federal) has 81 members, elected to an eight-year term, with elections every four years for alternatively one-third and two-thirds of the seats. Brazil has a multi-party system, with such numerous parties that often no one party has a chance of gaining power alone, and so they must work with each other to form coalition governments.

Elections in Brazil - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Ragnarok]

Brazil.

And yes, they DO elect their president directly.

Elections in Brazil - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not Western though

 

[shoplifter]

Brazil, a shining example

 

[Panajev2001a]

Bad idea, small states would disappear and everyone would be ruled by California and other mega states... bad idea.

 

[Halo is Dead]

It's amazing to me that even now people can't see any benefit to having elections with a clear and decisive result with less parliamentary red tape. We just watched someone attempt to throw wrenches into every gear of this machine. Wouldn't it have been better if the guy who lost by seven million votes took that as a clear defeat?

That changes nothing. He still would have said the same damn thing. We already report on the popular vote.

 

[Panajev2001a]

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.

Thank you, more people need to realise it is a federation of free and independent states not a European style single country.

 

[DrAspirino]

Not Western though

Why? Last time I checked Brazil was in South America, which is as western as you can get, their culture is western af, and they’ve even had strong cultural ties to the US through jazz.

Granted, they’re not the best country (not by a long shot), but they’ve shown (along with Argentina) that it IS possible the 1 person = 1 vote formula in big countries.

 

[dlauv]

They should just make every state like Nebraska or Maine. I think it's just called the proportionate plan.

It's more egalitarian and wouldn't bulldoze conservatives like direct democracy would.

 

[Loki]

Did someone above just call Brazil a western nation?

 

[DrAspirino]

Did someone above just call Brazil a western nation?

Define western nation, because to me, every nation on this hemisphere is "western".

Or would you call it an "eastern" nation? or "middle-eastern"?

Heck, even Samuel P. Huntington defined latin-america as a subset of the western civilization, so please, enlighten me.

 

[Loki]

Define western nation, because to me, every nation on this hemisphere is "western".

Or would you call it an "eastern" nation? or "middle-eastern"?

Being a western nation is about political structures, institutions, and intellectual traditions (enlightenment values etc., rule of law etc.) which inform political and civil life. It has zero to do with geography. You could theoretically have a western nation in the middle of Africa. But Brazil definitely isn’t a western nation.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

afaik the East / West divide is a holdover from Cold War, built upon the idea of "western values" like greek philosophy and christianity, versus "eastern values" which were sweeping communism to the east of europe. Berlin (with east/west side) was the image of this dichotomy.

Third world refers to the countries that East and West were fighting over and propping up and using in proxy games, though now third world seems to just mean "poor"

 

[DrAspirino]

Being a western nation is about political structures, institutions, and intellectual traditions (enlightenment values etc., rule of law etc.) which inform political and civil life. It has zero to do with geography. You could theoretically have a western nation in the middle of Africa. But Brazil definitely isn’t a western nation.

Okay...using that same definition, Brazil, as all of the Latin American countries, has its political structures and institutions inherited directly from Europe (Portugal in Brazil's case, Spain in the rest of LatAm). In fact, some countries even have an electoral system pretty much like the french one (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay).

Heck, we even speak romance languages directly derived from latin, our legal system is based on the roman legal system (like most western Europe), etc, and we (as a whole) are almost always aligned to what the western civilization does (except for few attempts to aling with the soviets during the cold war, which were quickly crushed by the US).

We're just poor, that's all.

So...to use the "west does not use the 1 person = 1 vote formula" argument is just silly, since almost all of Latin America, plus countries like France, Portugal, and others use them perfectly fine.

 

[HarryKS]

This looks like a piece of fried chicken.

 

[Magenta Mage]

Which western countries have the square mileage of the US (especially in terms of geographic diversity) and also directly elect their head of state? The US is nearly the same size as *all of Europe*.

Why does this matter? What bearing does the landmass of a nation have on its democratic processes?

 

[Derekloffin]

Why does this matter? What bearing does the landmass of a nation have on its democratic processes?

Quite a lot actually.
The more compact your country, the more impact local geography and the conditions there in has on your decision making. For instance, a township in a heavily developed area is probably going to be far more concerned about the affects of that development than one that is in a far less developed area. There is also the matter of culture. The bigger the area you have, the less uniform a culture is and differences in such can lead to different decision making. There is also the issue of 'what you can't see'. For instance, one area can be heavily invested in one industry, while another area into another, and each will be very focused on their own particular industries. In a small country there is going to be more interaction so both are likely to see the issues of the other, but if they're a continent apart, there is next to no interaction. Then finally there is just the protection such distance tends to give. You're considerably less likely to vote for laws and rules that screw over someone else if you have to live with them than if you are if they are again a continent away.

 

[shoplifter]

Quite a lot actually.
The more compact your country, the more impact local geography and the conditions there in has on your decision making. For instance, a township in a heavily developed area is probably going to be far more concerned about the affects of that development than one that is in a far less developed area. There is also the matter of culture. The bigger the area you have, the less uniform a culture is and differences in such can lead to different decision making. There is also the issue of 'what you can't see'. For instance, one area can be heavily invested in one industry, while another area into another, and each will be very focused on their own particular industries. In a small country there is going to be more interaction so both are likely to see the issues of the other, but if they're a continent apart, there is next to no interaction. Then finally there is just the protection such distance tends to give. You're considerably less likely to vote for laws and rules that screw over someone else if you have to live with them than if you are if they are again a continent away.

This is why delegating so much power to the states themselves is vitally important. The US is as culturally diverse as all of Europe.

 

[DrAspirino]

This is why delegating so much power to the states themselves is vitally important. The US is as culturally diverse as all of Europe.

You clearly haven’t been to Europe, have you?

“US is culturally diverse” you say? Hmm...

So... you have states that their official languages are Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Occitan, French, Italian, German, English, Welsh, Norsk, Sverige, danish, flemish, dutch, etc? And different government systems like monarchies, republics, etc? And different foods and traditions?

Please, the entire US is as diverse as just Spain and it’s infinitely larger. “Cultural diversity” is no excuse when you have countries like Germany in the same union as Portugal (which are radically different).

 

[BluRayHiDef]

Terrible idea because it would disregard the sovereignty of each state as an individual, autonomous entity. Each state is to make its decision in regard to who will be president independently of the other states.

 

[shoplifter]

Please, the entire US is as diverse as just Spain and it’s infinitely larger. “Cultural diversity” is no excuse when you have countries like Germany in the same union as Portugal (which are radically different).

Now remind me how the various top EU officials are elected. A popular vote election across all of Europe?

 

[DrAspirino]

Now remind me how the various top EU officials are elected. A popular vote election across all of Europe?

By representative election, which are appropriate for the diversity of Europe. The US isn’t diverse enough (or not as diverse as entire Europe) to retort to those methods.

For example, does Kansas and Wisconsin speak different languages? Do they have radically different customs like France and Germany? Do they have different history of invasions, different culture, different armies, etc?

I don’t think so, not enough to call themselves different cultures.

 

[Axelotl]

Now remind me how the various top EU officials are elected. A popular vote election across all of Europe?

not relevant. The EU is not a Federal state.

As a German who lives in a federal state, I can tell you that my culture (NRW) any the Bavarian Culture in the south are totally not the same. Maybe comparable to texas vs. east coast. And here every vote is weighted the same. Popular vote is the way.

 

[Petey-o]

I think the electoral college has its use, without it smaller states would basically have no voice. I do think that winner-takes-all is a terrible way of distributing the votes, though. It just means that a small amount of votes can make a huge difference in swing states while states that heavily favor one side have a ton of votes from the other side that are basically pointless.

Also FPTP sucks but that's another story.