Ways to stop the Republicans

Quote: Evenbob

And even if it somehow got thru congress,
37 states would never ratify it. There are
more red states than blue, which ones would
ever give up what has become a boon to
them. They would all vote hell no, we aren't
stupid.

There was a movement to "back door" the thing, states would throw their EC votes to the popular vote winner but the laws had a trigger that they would not take effect until 270 electors were chosen that way. IOW, we all jump off the bridge together!

I never thought of it the way Rove put it. That is a good point.

Quote: Evenbob

Carl Rove said something today I didn't think of. Get rid of the EC and you'll have a dozen candidates on the ballot, all from different parties. You could easily have a winner get 25% of the vote, which means 75% didn't vote for him.

We have that already. It's called Israel. Every government is a coalition.

But the electoral college should be differentiated from the winner-take-all (WTA) basis for allocation used by 48 states (Nebraska and Maine being only exceptions).

Historically states quickly realized that the "winner take all method" maximized the advantage they could give to their preferred candidate. In 1800, only two states used WTA. By Madison's election to the presidency in 1808, six states used WTA, and by 1836 it was implemented by every state but South Carolina, which continued to appoint electors until after the Civil War.

President Madison wanted a constitutional amendment to retain the electoral college, but to remove the state's right to choose the allocation method. Remember that MD circulated a proposal in 2007 to give their electoral college votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote.

But even if you abolish the Electoral College, you don't necessarily have to abolish the requirement for the top 3 to be decided by a House of Representatives vote where a majority is still required. If the initial vote does not produce a majority, you have a second round where you vote on the top 2. That would still deal with the situation that Carl Rove describes. However, it could essentially replace it with one where the House decides most elections.

Quote: Pacomartin

We have that already. It's called Israel. Every government is a coalition.

But the electoral college should be differentiated from the winner-take-all (WTA) basis for allocation used by 48 states (Nebraska and Maine being only exceptions).

Historically states quickly realized that the "winner take all method" maximized the advantage they could give to their preferred candidate. In 1800, only two states used WTA. By Madison's election to the presidency in 1808, six states used WTA, and by 1836 it was implemented by every state but South Carolina, which continued to appoint electors until after the Civil War.

President Madison wanted a constitutional amendment to retain the electoral college, but to remove the state's right to choose the allocation method. Remember that MD circulated a proposal in 2007 to give their electoral college votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote.

But even if you abolish the Electoral College, you don't necessarily have to abolish the requirement for the top 3 to be decided by a House of Representatives vote where a majority is still required. If the initial vote does not produce a majority, you have a second round where you vote on the top 2. That would still deal with the situation that Carl Rove describes. However, it could essentially replace it with one where the House decides most elections.

Maryland passed that proposal, along with 11 other states:

District of Columbia - 3 electoral votes
Hawaii - 4 electoral votes
Illinois - 20 electoral votes
Maryland - 10 electoral votes
Massachusetts - 11 electoral votes
New Jersey - 14 electoral votes
Washington -12 electoral votes
Vermont - 3 electoral votes
California - 55 electoral votes
Rhode Island - 4 electoral votes
New York - 29 electoral votes (I think they are all blue states, right?)

In some ways, the primaries are the run offs (unless we want to pretend the Green's and Libertarians have a chance), and allow a filtering of the two sides. The sides are in some ways coalitions as well... how much thought varies in the Reps and Dems right know, I don't know, but there's definitely sides to both parties, compromises and different positions taken. I always understood there to be more inter-party discussion and cross party voting than there is most european, multi-party parliaments.

Quote: Pacomartin

We have that already. It's called Israel. Every government is a coalition.

That's a parliamentary democracy, and coalitions tend to be common in such systems. The more fractious the country, the more coalitions are needed as no party even gets close to a majority. Also the more unstable, as smaller parties tend to hijack the coalition and are constantly threatening to leave it.

What I dislike is that the party chooses the executive.

Quote:

But even if you abolish the Electoral College, you don't necessarily have to abolish the requirement for the top 3 to be decided by a House of Representatives vote where a majority is still required.

That would be worse. If party A has a majority in the House, it can elect their candidate even if party B scored 60% of the electoral vote.

The two-party system is too entrenched to be easily dislodged, EC or no EC.

This video makes me physically sick. This
is a typical double digit IQ Hillary supporter
going crazy on her little son for voting
for Trump in a mock school election. She
later said it was a 'joke'. I've had little kids
in my life, that poor kid was distraught,
he was in pain. This mother should be
horse whipped.

Quote: TheCesspit

(I think they are all blue states, right?)

Right now with the Electoral College using Winner Take All method of allocation, the Democratic candidate is much more likely to have the nationwide popular vote and still lose the EC vote. The Republican candidate won only the 2004 popular vote by a margin of 2.46% but the Democratic candidate had the most number of popular votes in 1992,1996,2000,2008,2012, and 2016 elections.