I would agree to this as long as there is countrywide Voter ID requirements in place.
Easy: Deport the Criminal Aliens and fix immigration.
I appreciate that your thought-process is well-intentioned. However, election fraud in one large state could easily throw a national election. An Electoral College makes it much harder to cheat…some believe that is why certain political groups argue for doing away with the Electoral College every four years.
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This is a basic explanation.
The electoral collage was designed to stop big cities from being able to control everything. It gives rural areas a say. Its helps stop big liberal cities from always winning.
A better way to fix it is to stop winner take all states. Let the vote go with the district voting.
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This is the exact opposite of our Constitution, which feared mob rule.
People are so easily swayed. Propaganda is more powerful than nukes.
Do you remember Covid? How about Trump is Hitler?
Both of those have zero evidence backing them, but have transformed people’s lives.
Also i don’t know where you live, but the parts of the country that aren’t Los Angeles, NyC, Chicago, Seattle, Oregon, Detroit or DC don’t want to hear how they should live their rural lives from soft, protected, out-of-touch-with-how-the-world-works socialists that don’t provide any real value to making the country function.
The electoral college keeps 3 cities from running the country.
It keeps a UCLA gender studies professor from telling a farmer how to do his job.
It keeps Chaz from happening in Mississippi.
It makes sure that gang members from Venezuela aren’t the biggest landlords in Kentucky.
We don’t have to worry about Walgreens having to close in all 50 states.
All the hotels in Ohio aren’t booked with illegal immigrants like they are in Mayor Adam’s “City”.
Tomorrow all of California, NYC, and Chicago could vote to change the National Anthem to a Taylor Swift song and the rest of the country wouldn’t be able to do much about it if we relied on popular voting.
Please reconsider your position. It is indefensible under scrutiny.
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And to go further, you could win the presidency with just winning 5 or 6 big population cities, ignoring the rest of the nation. If you only need to concentrate on those few areas, you very well might see all the money going to just them, ignoring the needs of the rest for the voters in the nation. New York and California do not care what we need in Louisiana or Missouri or Arkansas or Montana even. To get those votes in New York and CA, one would be sorely tempted to just meet every one of their needs- to heck with the rest of the nation! They are outnumbered in polulation even though they cover the most territory by far. Talk about taxation without representation! The Founding Fathers developed quite a brilliant plan to meet the needs of the ENTIRE nation, whether you live in West Virginia or Chicago. (This doesn’t even start the discussion on how minorities are well represented by the electoral college) If you haven’t read and studied the electoral college, you’ve missed much of the brilliance of it and how well it works instead of a true democracy in a big nation with many, many differences and needs.
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Ryan,
If you do a search for the Federalist Papers you can read what the Founding Fathers intended for every article of the Constitution. It is a discussion in their own words. They are a must read for every US citizen to educate themselves of the true meaning.
I would also suggest you watch the video explaining the genealogy of the constitution. It wasn’t just pulled out of the a$$ of some “Old Guys” from long ago. It is very eye opening!
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Indeed! And the most relevant one in this case is Federalist No. 68, written by Alexander Hamilton.
I think the Federalist makes clear the intent of the Electoral College had little to do with balancing population centers with rural areas - the power balance was already determined by the establishment of a bicameral system, with a Senate giving each state an equal voice, and a House giving the people an equal voice. The Electoral College was just an extension of this agreement (the Connecticut Compromise).
The actual intent was that the President would be selected carefully in a deliberative setting. They did not expect this to be such a public process, with individual citizens casting votes for specific presidential candidates. They wanted presidential electors to have a significant degree of agency, informed both by the people, and their own judgement, to make the choice:
(emphasis added below)
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
The point is we are using the Electoral College wrong. We are not supposed to be filling bubbles for specific candidates and compelling electors to vote a certain way, as a vehicle for our vote. That is a democratic system. In a republic, the actual decision lies with the intermediate body. Yes, that intermediate body is a representation of us, but they are also supposed to have the agency to use their own judgement.
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Absolutely not. The Electoral College equals the playing field but it can be blamed for an uninformed electorate that doesn’t participate. The EC is filling no bubble.
IF you really want to make a changed do two things: 1) increase the number of voters, for example, there are roughly 90 million people who identify as Evangelical Christians but only about 40 million of them vote. 2) Repeal both the XVII and XXII amendments. The first will end the direct election of the Senate and, therefore, return power to the people by ending the practice of Senators who serve for life. The second will remove electoral college votes from the District of Columbia which is not a state and was never intended to be.
This is an absolute absurd idea. I and millions like me DO NOT want mob rule. A person living in New York City or any other large city is absolutely CLUELESS as to what the rural communities need or want.
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The solution to solid blue or red states is to improve the electoral environment in those states. Work with other state residents to create representative districts that allow more diverse points of view to be represented.
It is truly sad when a handful of states are the only ones where the better argument can prevail irrespective of political affiliation.
If we eliminate the electoral college, the people living in rural areas would never get a vote again. There are more people in the east and west coast than the rest of the country. Candidates would only focus their efforts on those areas and the rest of us would never have a say again. I do believe the electoral college should be reformed. It’s disproportionate and unfair that some states can entirely flip the election. I would propose instead of a winner takes all in each state, each district in each state is one electoral vote. That ensures more representation for every U.S. citizen.
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Sorry, that is not what this is about. ITS STATES RIGHTS! That is what the framers made sure of. I fled CA 30 years ago and I have no intention of being ruled by Sacrament and Albany.
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I could not disagree more. The electoral college keeps the most populous states from running roughshod over the states with less population.
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No.
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HARD DISAGREE!!!
Read Federalist Paper #68 for insight on why the founding fathers knew a direct popular vote system would be bad.
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No thank you on this one…
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i disagree they would only have to go to new york texas florida and cal to get votes i say keep electrol college
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Very interesting and thorough reply, thank you for the time and thought.
As I’m reading this, I wonder, if the people elected their electors to the electoral college, and the elector had the responsibility to choose the president based on the people that elected him, would that not result in the same outcome as our current process? Does our current process simply cut out a “middle man”?
I realize there of course is argument against some of the public being well enough informed to make a good selection of president, but that logic would still apply to their vote for their electors too.
Of course, we’re discussing the fine details of the electoral college, which, again, in my opinion is a critical part of our election process protecting us from mob rule.
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