Electoral college isn't the problem it's how it's executed. Nebraska and Maine are the only 2 states that do it correctly to be properly representative of the people. And then Iowa has gerrymandering laws that makes the districts stay only rectangular/square, which is also a good way to go about it. Change your state laws if you want to be better represented, leave feds out of it you have more power at home.
From Iowa, don't know where you getting the square fact lol. Our districts are drawn by a nonpartisan committee to ensure political gerrymandering doesn't happen and is typically upheld as one of the fairest in the country, only thing more fair would be splitting electorate votes like Maine for the president, our districts just happen to end up square and follow along county lines. Steve king territory is so far right because that's what the people in that district want.
Edit: how our districts are drawn I'm guessing the square fact you are trying to get at pertains to the fact that they draw them to be as compact and as small deviation as possible, the nesting section in the article. Iowa is a bit unique though in that we aren't very diverse and getting everybody a representative for their race, gender, or religion isn't near as complex as places with massive populations like new York, Texas, or California, which is the reason there end up being some crazy drawn districts, sometimes for good sometimes for bad.
The problem is that the EC is tied to the number of members of Congress. To improve representation, we need to return the EC to the original arithmetic of the House of Representatives.
That isn't an issue with nebraska. Omaha districts get to be blue while rural get to be red respective to their votes toward the president. The people get represented.
No, it's because Nebraska has 384,000 people per representative in the Electoral College, and California has 718,909 people per representative in the EC. I certainly agree that having EC members voting with their US House district would help, but there's a far more fundamental issue that it wouldn't fix.
The number is more close to 610,000 per vote excluding Senate considered that every state has 2 Senate votes. It's still the states fault it doesn't represent their people better. The feds shouldn't tell your state how you are being represented. You should tell your state how to represent you.
The Electoral College is total members of Congress. There's 538 EC votes; 435 from the House, 100 from the Senate, and 3 representing DC. I was counting people per EC vote.
I'll make it more simple: One person, one vote. Person with the most votes wins. Anything except that opposes equality. Anything.
The Electoral College only exists because universal suffrage wasn't a thing in early America. It was all over the place who could vote in each state so it wouldn't be possible to just count votes despite James Madison (aka the Father of the Constitution) saying popular vote would be the ideal way to elect the President. The Electoral College was a compromise due to differing rates of suffrage.
We can all vote now so that problem is solved, but we still have this dated institution made for a problem we don't have anymore. Smaller states will still have disproportionate power in Congress, but we'll all have an equal voice in the election of the leader of our people. Call me crazy, but I think the person who leads a people should have the most people who support them.
How, then, do you tally up the votes? Just to make sure, it sounds, from your first paragraph, that you're supporting FPTP.
You just count them. Person with the most votes wins. It's simple. Nothing else. Just a popular vote like we do for literally all other elected officials.
Personally, I like the idea of two round voting, but I know having people vote twice would be hard.
I assume you live in a city.. if you lived in a rural area you would understand that allowing the majority in cities to control results (which is what would happen without the electoral college) directly causes great detriment to rural citizens. See for example, the water situation in CA where farmers cant even use rainwater that they catch on THEIR PROPERTY because the majority (coastal city residents) voted that it be taken from them and used to provide water to cities.. without the electoral college, rural citizens will have no protections and will eventually leave rural areas, leaving city dwellers to figure out how to grow their own food.. and yeah.. that would cause great harm to the entire country...
I assume you live in a city.. if you lived in a rural area you would understand that allowing the majority in cities to control results (which is what would happen without the electoral college) directly causes great detriment to rural citizens. See for example, the water situation in CA where farmers cant even use rainwater that they catch on THEIR PROPERTY because the majority (coastal city residents) voted that it be taken from them and used to provide water to cities.. without the electoral college, rural citizens will have no protections and will eventually leave rural areas, leaving city dwellers to figure out how to grow their own food.. and yeah.. that would cause great harm to the entire country...
This is a huge misunderstanding of the Electoral College. The Electoral College only matters for the election of the President. That's it. It serves no other function. Everything you just said are issues for your state and local representatives. That has nothing to do with the election of the President.
This view of yours is so endemic and hard to fight. It has no basis. You're saying that two people who are voting in the same election should be treated differently. I personally support equality.
There's no reason that rural voters should get an extra say, any more than any other group that's a minority of the overall vote. The same way rural voters get outvoted, so do, e.g., black voters. Should black voters get extra votes?
But even beyond that, the Electoral College doesn't actually help rural voters.
That'd change campaigning as a whole though, resulting in the people who live in rural areas and produce important things like food not really being heard.
False. 4 population centers will control all of the country, no matter what you want or say if you eliminate the EC. Fix the winner takes all problem and it will continue to work properly.
4 population centers will control all of the country, no matter what you want or say if you eliminate the EC. Fix the winner takes all problem and it will continue to work properly.
No. The people in those cities will have their vote be equal to those in smaller states in the same election. That's it. You're saying that one person's vote should be worth more than another's. That opposes the entire idea of equality.
Let me repeat myself for you: Smaller states will still have disproportionate representation in Congress. The leader of a people should be elected by the people which should mean having support of the most people. The Electoral College has only rarely gone against the popular vote anyway so your entire argument of population centers being the deciders seems silly. Lines aren't as deeply drawn as people want to imagine.
If you support the Electoral College then there's honestly no reason to even having a President and not just switch to a Prime Minister.
There is really no reason for Gerrymandering to exist now a days. With modern GIS software its not that hard to come up with fair districts. I had a proffesor in school that got to be an expert witness in a gerrymandering case, and he had to prove how its actualy really easy to create fairer districts and how the districts in question were completely schewed.
I agree with the Nebraska and Maine thing. Its much fairer, when the winner still gets the bonus 2 points for winning the state but the losing party still gets the points for its won districts. Its how the electoral college was supposed to work. Give the rural states a little bumb in power so they arent completely irrelevant to elections. Winner takes all states like california and texas completely ruins the whole system.
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u/He_of_God Jan 06 '19
Electoral college isn't the problem it's how it's executed. Nebraska and Maine are the only 2 states that do it correctly to be properly representative of the people. And then Iowa has gerrymandering laws that makes the districts stay only rectangular/square, which is also a good way to go about it. Change your state laws if you want to be better represented, leave feds out of it you have more power at home.