Curious

[Adora]

Okay, your country is fucked (and so are the rest of us... I am so moving to Mongolia). Let's all agree on that and move on.

But I'm just curious- how does the "Electoral College Votes" thing work exactly?

[wade-w]

It's based on representation in Congress (total number of Senators and members of the House). Each state gets two Senators, and the number of members of the House of Representatives is based on population. Some less populated states like Alaska, therefore, have as few as 3 members of Congress (2 Senators plus 1 Representative), while populous states like California have as many as 55.

Each state has the same number of Electoral College votes as they have members of Congress. In most states, all of the electors are supposed to vote for whichever candidates wins the popular vote in their state. Some states such as Maine divide the electors up by the proportion of votes each candidate gets. So when you vote in a presidential election, you are actually voting for electors to the college, not the candidate himself. Oh, and in some states there is a law against "faithless" electors, but in others there is not, so an elector from a state with no such law can vote for a candidate who did not carry their particular state. Such "faithless" votes have happened, but none have ever actually affected the outcome of an election.

About 5 weeks after the general election, the College meets and casts their votes. To be elected President, a candidate must receive a majority of the Electoral Votes cast. If no candidate has such a majority, then the election is thrown to the House, where each state gets 1 vote. Again, to be elected, a candidate must receive a simple majority, or, at present, 26 votes. The House has to keep voting until one candidate has such a majority. IIRC, this happened in the case of Thomas Jefferson's first term, though it required something like 25 or 26 tries for him to win.

The Electoral College was a compromise, actually. Many of the framers of our Constitution did not trust the common citizen to be able to intelligently vote for an office as important as the Presidency, and advocated having the President be elected by the Congress. Others were more sanguine about the topic, and there were also those who felt that having the President chosen in such a manner would make that office unduly reliant on the Congress. In the original document, how the electors were to be chosen was left up to the individual states. For that matter, so was the selection of Senators. Originally, the House was envisioned as the directly elected representatives of the people in the federal government, while the Senate and the Presidency were supposed to be more removed from them.

Edited for numerous typos and for clarity. Sorry, I was in a huge hurry when I made the original post.

[Cool Hand]

Also, the intent behind having the electoral college is that the President enjoys a breadth of support across the entire nation. A consensus of the drafters of the Constitution recognized that more populous states would have a much greater impact on the election without the electoral college, and that a few huge states could elect a President by popular vote. If that were to happen, the choice of President would not necessarily represent the nation's wishes as a whole. It would represent the wishes of a few very heavily populated states, or possibly of one or two regions, to the exclusion of the others. It would leave open the very real possibility that most of the states had little or no say in the selection of the head of state.

The framers of the Constitution were acutely aware of the dangers of factionalism, chiefly oppression of minority factions by a majority. Preventing the election of a President by popular vote was intended to be a check against regional factionalism. The electoral college was the result.

Cool Hand

[lisarea]

DANG IT, YOU GUYS!

I WANTED TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION!

You BUTTS!

What those guys said. I couldn't even find a single nit to pick.

I could give you some links to way boringassed crap about the formulas they use to determine how the electorates are apportioned if you want to make me feel useful or anything.

[wade-w]

I was late for an appointment when I posted in this thread, so I left out some details. Cool Hand already addressed one of them (thanks, btw). Since each state has the same number of Senators regardless of it's population, this levels the playing field to some extent. That is, I think, a very important consideration. The other stuff is pretty much trivia, but you did say exactly, Adora.

Another point is procedural. The Electoral College meets in Congress, with both houses assembled. The session is presided over by the currently sitting Vice President in his capacity as President of the Senate. Any member of Congress may challenge an Electoral Vote. For such a challenge to pass, however, requires a majority vote in both the Senate and the House.

Last (and with our current two party system this is purely theoretical), if the election winds up in the House and more than 2 candidates received Electoral Votes, the House will only vote on the top 3 vote getters. So if, for example, 4 different candidates all received Electoral Votes but none had a majority of votes, the candidate with the least number of Votes would be ineligible for consideration in the subsequent proceedings in the House.

It's interesting to note (to me anyway) that if the election winds up in the House, it does not necessarily follow that a party with a majority there will automatically be able to elect their candidate. This is because the voting is not a simple roll call. It is by state, with each state getting only 1 vote. So it is entirely possible that if the distribution of the minority party is just right, they could wind up electing their candidate instead.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by wade-w

I was late for an appointment when I posted in this thread, so I left out some details. Cool Hand already addressed one of them (thanks, btw). Since each state has the same number of Senators regardless of it's population, this levels the playing field to some extent. That is, I think, a very important consideration. The other stuff is pretty much trivia, but you did say exactly, Adora.

Another point is procedural. The Electoral College meets in Congress, with both houses assembled. The session is presided over by the currently sitting Vice President in his capacity as President of the Senate. Any member of Congress may challenge an Electoral Vote. For such a challenge to pass, however, requires a majority vote in both the Senate and the House.

Last (and with our current two party system this is purely theoretical), if the election winds up in the House and more than 2 candidates received Electoral Votes, the House will only vote on the top 3 vote getters. So if, for example, 4 different candidates all received Electoral Votes but none had a majority of votes, the candidate with the least number of Votes would be ineligible for consideration in the subsequent proceedings in the House.

It's interesting to note (to me anyway) that if the election winds up in the House, it does not necessarily follow that a party with a majority there will automatically be able to elect their candidate. This is because the voting is not a simple roll call. It is by state, with each state getting only 1 vote. So it is entirely possible that if the distribution of the minority party is just right, they could wind up electing their candidate instead.

wade, thank you, that is so fucking cool. I didnt know any of that, the ramifications of the only one vote per state is very interesting given the vast differences in reprensention, I mean from like 55 to 1.

If a canidate one california, texis, and New York, he would have I think arond 120 electoral votes but only 3 of the run off votes. Weird.

[viscousmemories]

Some states such as Maine divide the electors up by the proportion of votes each candidate gets.

This makes a lot more sense to me than Florida giving all 55 electoral votes to the candidate who gets 1 popular vote more than the other. Why don't all the States do this? And moreover, doesn't having these variations fuck up the system a bit?

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

This makes a lot more sense to me than Florida giving all 55 electoral votes to the candidate who gets 1 popular vote more than the other. Why don't all the States do this? And moreover, doesn't having these variations fuck up the system a bit?

Florida has 27. California is the one with 55.

The reason most states don't divide their electors is that, practically speaking, when all the other states are going winner-take-all, it ends up having the result that the votes cancel each other out, so in states where the race is pretty tight, it is as though you've got a single EV.

If every state were to adopt some kind of uniform system for proportionally allocating the EVs, it could work, but that's not likely to happen.

IIRC, Maine and Nebraska allocate their EVs by district, rather than by statewide percentage, though. And they cast their two default votes to the majority candidate.

Anyway, the EC is such a fucked up system, it's hardly worth dicking around with, IMO. We need to just trash it.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Anyway, the EC is such a fucked up system, it's hardly worth dicking around with, IMO. We need to just trash it.

I feel this way too, but damned if I can come up with a better solution. Do you have any ideas? Is anyone trying to implement them? If so I'll throw my support to some kind of reasonable reform

I don't want a straight popular vote, because that would mean Californa and New York and some Midwestern states would choose every time.

I just don't know what the answer is.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I don't want a straight popular vote, because that would mean Californa and New York and some Midwestern states would choose every time.

I'd go with a popular vote.

I see your objection, but I guess it's just a matter of how you choose to think about it. I don't see a compelling reason to weight votes according to state residency. The states themselves aren't getting greater representation, really. People are just being represented equally. And as long as more people live in New York and California, New York and California's interests should play a greater role in national politics.

I mean, I know they do already, but the votes for the midwest are just so egregiously weighted it's hard to justify, IMO. You know, even on top of the population/representation thing, you've got to account for the fact that EVs are apportioned according to raw population. This means that, in states where family sizes are larger, the adults' votes count even more than is indicated by the bloc per elector numbers.

Yeah, I'm talking about Utah.

(If anyone cares, I could dick around with my boringassed EC spreadsheet to figure the rough vote weight accounting for population/eligible voters. The only reason I haven't already is that I know that shit is making people hate me pretty hard already.)

Anyway, we could toss the EC and go to a popular vote while still maintaining state influence in congress. The EC and congress are apportioned the same way, but that doesn't mean that you can't change one and not the other.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I'd go with a popular vote.

I see your objection, but I guess it's just a matter of how you choose to think about it. I don't see a compelling reason to weight votes according to state residency. The states themselves aren't getting greater representation, really. People are just being represented equally. And as long as more people live in New York and California, New York and California's interests should play a greater role in national politics.

Yes, I guess I just don't see how the "city folk" could even understand the issues facing, I dunno, farmers or factory workers or some shit. This whole thing makes my head hurt.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I'd go with a popular vote.

I see your objection, but I guess it's just a matter of how you choose to think about it. I don't see a compelling reason to weight votes according to state residency. The states themselves aren't getting greater representation, really. People are just being represented equally. And as long as more people live in New York and California, New York and California's interests should play a greater role in national politics.

I was recently visiting Alberta (that's a province in western Canada; I hope not to patronize, but am unceasingly surprised when dealing with my American friends...) The place is politically quite disaffected, predominately because of media and politicians who have profited by selling Albertans the ever-tempting myth that their problems are due to, and their successes in spite of, persecution by the federal government.

Anyhow, I was there for five days. It very quickly become tiresome, being told that because I live in Ontario, which has over a third of the ridings represented in the federal parliament, I personally have some disproportionate say in how the country is run. There's a strange line of reasoning that personalizes the issue.

Right: The more populous areas have a greater say in how the country is run.

Wrong: Individual people in the more populous areas have a greater say in how the country is run.

Eventually, at a party, my patience went 'boink' and I confessed that, yes, Ontario is just a gigantic Tim Horton's (coffee shop) where we all sit around talking about how to vote Liberal and screw Alberta. To their credit, nearly half the people present seemed to realize I was joking.

To finally get on-topic, though: I say direct proportional representation, plus constitutional/procedural measures to protect the interests of less populous states.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Yes, I guess I just don't see how the "city folk" could even understand the issues facing, I dunno, farmers or factory workers or some shit. This whole thing makes my head hurt.

I don't think it's really that bad anymore. We're nomadic enough as a society for this to be less of an issue than it probably was at the time the EC was decided on.

And besides, fuck farmers.

Seriously. Kind of. They already have undue representation in congress. Shit like the estate tax and corn subsidies. (CORN? CORN?!?! Seriously! WTF? Why are so many of our tax dollars going to fund the "move along, nothing to digest here" vegetable?)

How is it that "America's family farmers" became the touchstone it did? Why should those who are born into one specific family business be endowed with such disproportionate importance on the political landscape?

I'm not saying they deserve NO representation, but I don't understand why those of us born to white-collar parents, single urban mothers, or garbage men deserve less than do those who were born to into family farming.

And again, dismantling the EC doesn't necessarily imply dismantling the representation system in congress as well. I won't lie. I would be for eliminating some of the skew in congress as well, but that doesn't have to follow.

[LadyShea]

Well, I admit I am a white collar city folk myself, and know fuckall about farmers or factory workers....I was just throwing stuff out there. I know I don't like Los Angeles or New York, some of the things important to the majority of people I meet from there are just foreign to me. Oh well, this is nuanced and shit, and therefore beyond my abilities anyway

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Well, I admit I am a white collar city folk myself, and know fuckall about farmers or factory workers....I was just throwing stuff out there. I know I don't like Los Angeles or New York, some of the things important to the majority of people I meet from there are just foreign to me. Oh well, this is nuanced and shit, and therefore beyond my abilities anyway

Oh, yeah, me too. I don't really know much about the farming lifestyle. I grew up in New Jersey, where my dad was a systems engineer.

But farmers don't know fuckall about people like us, either. And there are more of us.

I just question the basic premise that we should care what farmers think any more than we care what janitors or schoolteachers or secretaries think.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Oh, yeah, me too. I don't really know much about the farming lifestyle. I grew up in New Jersey, where my dad was a systems engineer.

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, then Monument, CO. There were a few people with farms for their own use in CO, and some 4H and Rodeo types, but no commercial farmers.

But farmers don't know fuckall about people like us, either. And there are more of us.

True

I just question the basic premise that we should care what farmers think any more than we care what janitors or schoolteachers or secretaries think.

I think, originally (may not be the case now), the farmers not only fed us all, but provided a major export for the country as a whole. They were seen as the backbone of our economy and society. I have no idea if they are still that important today, or if the preferences are holdovers from a different time.

[The Lone Ranger]

Farmers and ranchers have a great deal of clout -- but not the ones most people think of when they think of farmers.

Family farms are a rapidly-dying breed. These are the people politicians talk about when they want to make us feel all misty-eyed about the plight of the "honest sons (and daughters) of the soil." Working a family farm is amazingly hard work, and you're lucky if you manage to break even from year to year. One bad season can easily ruin you. True, you get lots of time off during the Winter, unless you're a rancher or dairy farmer, but for the rest of the year, you're working all day every day. Farmers like to remind people that "without us, you don't eat."

Anyway, politicians just love to pose for photo ops on a "family farm" (if they can find one that's still in operation). It sells well. Rural people love it, because they feel their concerns are being addressed, and urban people feel good because they like to eat, and they figure that supporting family farms furthers that goal.

But the reality is that family farms are being gobbled up left, right, and center by huge agribusiness companies, and by and large politicians only encourage this trend -- even as they pretend to be the "friend of the farmer." Real farmers have almost no money, and consequently they have no political clout. Agribusiness has tremendous amounts of money, and so has tremendous political clout.

I think, originally (may not be the case now), the farmers not only fed us all, but provided a major export for the country as a whole. They were seen as the backbone of our economy and society. I have no idea if they are still that important today, or if the preferences are holdovers from a different time.

Bingo. Agriculture used to be far and away the biggest source of income in this country. So, it made sense for politicians (and others) to want to make farmers happy. Family farms are almost extinct now, but agribusiness is still hugely profitable. So, politicians pander to the agricultural industry, while pretending they're really trying to help farmers. (I daresay most Americans are a lot more sympathetic to family farmers than to huge corporations.)

Cheers,

Michael


[Edited for a typo.]

[Corwin]

Well I, for one... DID grow up in the sticks....

Farm people ain't all that complicated. It's not that we 'don't understand' them... it's that frequently their concerns just simply aren't valid. ('We need you to pass these land use laws! You city folk just don't understand our needs!' 'Well... actually yes, we do understand your needs. We also understand that you don't NEED to fuck up our drinking water supply with your erosion sediment and fertilizer runoff....')

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Corwin

Farm people ain't all that complicated. It's not that we 'don't understand' them... it's that frequently their concerns just simply aren't valid. ('We need you to pass these land use laws! You city folk just don't understand our needs!' 'Well... actually yes, we do understand your needs. We also understand that you don't NEED to fuck up our drinking water supply with your erosion sediment and fertilizer runoff....')

There is some truth to that, sadly. Farmers are no more noble or less self-centered than others.

One of the most common refrains you'll hear in Farming Country is: "We'd be a whole lot better off if those dadgum byoorocrats in Warshington would just leave us alone!" followed closely by: "I sure wish my crop subsidy check would hurry up and get here!"


The "All Government is Bad" attitude is especially hypocritical here in the Western U.S., considering how much the Federal Government pays for irrigation and roads in these sparsely-populated, rabidly anti-taxation, and semi-arid regions.

Cheers,

Michael

[viscousmemories]

Fuck Farmers!!

That sentiment cracks me up 'cause I've never heard it expressed, but I immediately thought, "Yeah really. Why the hell do I care so much about farmers?" The idea that family farmers make good poster children and big agribusiness has powerful lobbies makes absolutely perfect sense to me. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

At this point in time and based on this thread, I support the notion of a popular vote. Who cares whether you live in Utah, Virginia or Arizona? Why shouldn't every American have as much (or as little, as the case may be) say in the political system as every other American?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

That sentiment cracks me up 'cause I've never heard it expressed, but I immediately thought, "Yeah really. Why the hell do I care so much about farmers?" The idea that family farmers make good poster children and big agribusiness has powerful lobbies makes absolutely perfect sense to me. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

Yes, me too. Thanks to Michael it's all clear to me now.

At this point in time and based on this thread, I support the notion of a popular vote. Who cares whether you live in Utah, Virginia or Arizona? Why shouldn't every American have as much (or as little, as the case may be) say in the political system as every other American?

Oh, I 100% agree that the popular vote is great in that each vote counts, sorta pulls the ole "One person, one vote" heartstring. BUT, if the candidates only have to worry about 2 or 4 states, they won't look to the needs of anyone else. They won't try to understand what makes anyone else tick. They wouldn't even campaign in those other states and their platforms wouldn't reflect ANYTHING not affecting the popultion centers. Basically much of the country would be left in the dark saying "nobody cares about me, why should I vote at all"

If, as others have stated, those concerns could be effectively addressed by Congress, then I wouldn't have as much concern.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by lisarea

And besides, fuck farmers.

I've been saying that for years.

I just wish I lived in an area where I could scream "FUCK THE FARMERS!" out loud without having to.....

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Goliath

I've been saying that for years.

I just wish I lived in an area where I could scream "FUCK THE FARMERS!" out loud without having to.....

Well I'd say 'I'd rather fuck their daughters...' but I've known too many to fall for the Daisy Duke/sexy hillbilly woman stereotype.

The reality is... not nearly so appealing.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

BUT, if the candidates only have to worry about 2 or 4 states, they won't look to the needs of anyone else. They won't try to understand what makes anyone else tick. They wouldn't even campaign in those other states and their platforms wouldn't reflect ANYTHING not affecting the popultion centers. Basically much of the country would be left in the dark saying "nobody cares about me, why should I vote at all"

That's a valid concern, but it already exists. With the EC comes the concept of swing states. Live in one? No? Your vote doesn't matter.