The electorial college needs to go

The electoral college makes zero sense to me. As proponents of it explain it, it is to ensure places like California, Texas, New York, Ohio, etc don't decide the election. It's to make flyover states relevant. It's so that middle America has a say. Ok. Great. That makes sense. But the number of electoral votes are based on population. Trump lost the popular vote but won the election because he won in the right states. So in that regard, it causes the very problem its supporters say it is designed to prevent. More voters = more electorate votes.

Seems to me it would make much more sense if each state had the same number of votes. THEN you'd have to win more individual states in order to win the election. As it is now, you still only have win California, NY, Texas, Ohio, etc. So...I don't get it

 

The electoral college is a mystical entity to the vast majority of Americans. What they don't understand, they prefer to eliminate. It's generally too time consuming and headache producing to study enough to understand the reasoning behind it. So instead they want to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Really care to get a professional take on what it's about?

Then start with this simple descriptive video:
Do You Understand the Electoral College?

 

And after delving into the workings and structure of this venerable institution, rational, informed observers must conclude: it serves no useful purpose in the twenty-first century except (1) to perpetuate two-party rule and (2) to inflate the power of underpopulated rural states. We should scrap it, or at least the "winner take all" rule that creates the most mischief and facilitates minority rule.

 

Your opinion is that less populated states should be put at a relative disadvantage. Mine is that they should get their say.

If you've had plenty of experience with both people of a large city and people of rural areas, you'd conclude that rural people are a lot more pragmatic and self-reliant. Also much more likely to know and help out their neighbors. But that's really beside the point, which being is that all states should have their say.

 

What's with the two-minute rule to edit a post?

I've never seen that before.

 

Don't know what was going on with HF, but they seemed to be having some technical issues. I actually posted a reply to your post, but it disappeared. It was polite, civil, factual non-obscene, no personal attacks. I'll try to re-create it and see what happens.

The reason I live out here in the sticks where "a friend is a friend" (even if they do vote for Trump) is that I agree with you about the virtues of rural and small town living. I like being able to take walks late at night without being afraid of being bopped on the head, and to have strangers say hello to you on the street or even wave as they drive by in their cars, without being afraid they've picked my pocket or are making a pass. I won't say more, for fear the city folks will move here and it will go downhill. Life goes on here much as it did in the fifties. But the downside is "folks are dumb where I come from, they ain't got any larnin". Country folk are smart about local things, but aren't particularly savvy about national or international politics. To say they should get influence way disproportionate to their numbers is to argue for minority rule. The way the system is structured, they get more than their say: one whole house of Congress (the Senate), in which all states are equal, regardless of population, and two houses that are elected on the basis of districts that are gerrymandered by the states beyond belief, and the electoral college, which is governed by rules made by the states.

Anyhow, the real problem isn't so much rural folks as it is the political parties who run all of the states and use their influence to block third parties from getting on the ballots. And of course the "winner take all" followed by most states, although it doesn't have to be. The result is that plenty of good, upstanding rural citizens like myself are essentially disenfranchised. I might as well stay home on election day and redo my sock drawer, cuz whatever I do, the Republican candidate will win--as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. Oklahoma is a solidly Red state. This is something the Founders didn't anticipate. They didn't like parties, and didn't expect them to dominate the system. They thought people who were selected to the electoral college would be a notch above the ordinary man in terms of education. Instead, they're party hacks, pledged to rubber stamp the candidate of the winning party in their state. Because of our small population, but also our reliable voting pattern, Oklahoma is "rewarded" by being treated as a fly-over state by the presidential candidates, who concentrate on the battleground states and the states with early primaries.

I think the system could be fixed without a constitutional amendment if the states would get rid of "winner take all." "winner take all" wasn't used by a majority of the states until 1824, How the Electoral College Became Winner-Take-All - FairVote but today all but two use it. Getting rid of it, though, would run up against the reality that the two parties control state governments. It would take a great popular outcry, which so far is lacking. the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, whose state members pledge to cast their electoral votes for the candidate who wins the national popular vote, is supported by 15 states. How the Electoral College Became Winner-Take-All - FairVote But it will tale states with a combined 270 electoral votes to pass it, and so far the number is at 195.https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ular-vote-decide-election-nevada-may-be-next/

 

First what you are suggesting is not Democracy. Second that really feeds into a class divide.
Odd thing is small towns HATE places like NYC and NYC does not feel that way about them. They visit and say they don't like the small town life but they don't hate people who are not overly racist or pro gun (so comes off as crazy and violent). Just admitting you live in a city over 20,000 is enough to get hate from some small towners.

You don't think people help each other in New York City? They do. If you ask a New Yorker it's something they are very proud of. Apartment complexes know their neighbors and help with things like toy drives, moving days etc. Same things I'm sure you would list in your town.

I'm not sure what you think makes small towns so special. People are people.

 

Well then, what other basis would you suggest? Just because you don't like the quality or character of the people who are elected to those offices, doesn't mean the popular vote shouldn't be used. Like I said before, the popular vote is the basis for nearly every other office in this country. The way Trump and his supporters tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election makes a strong case for switching to the popular vote. That way, Trump and his cronies wouldn't be able to select a set of fake electors because the outcome would be determined by the popular vote. And you know that if Trump had won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote, he and his cronies would have been screaming to eliminate the Electoral College.

 

Hear hear!