Electoral college

[LaCroix]

Just stumbled over this thing...

Article with embedded youtube slideshow

which was explaining how undemocratic and inefficient the electoral college system actually is.

Question, would there be any political will to actually change that system? Could this be done, and if how? I guess it would need a constitutional amendment, right?

[Esquire]

That it would require a Constitutional amendment means it won't happen, at least in the current political climate - the way the amendment process works would open up the whole Constitution for review, and both (real/major) parties' bases have things they like in the current document a lot more than they dislike the Electoral College. Meanwhile, the party bigwigs have no particular interest in making the process (any different/more democratic, choose depending on cynicism level), because it's been working just fine for them up to now.

Funny - it turns out having your democratic Constitution drafted by a bunch of slave-owning aristocrats with no faith in human nature or the common man may not have been the best idea if you want an actual democracy.

[Gaidin]

I have my doubts the founding fathers' intent was ever to even imply democracy at least as far as presidential election goes. That's mostly a modern publicity punchline that for some strange reason works isn't it?

[DaveJB]

In order for there to be a big enough desire to change the electoral college there would have to be a major, and I mean major failure of it in operation, like what happened in 1800 when Jefferson and Burr tied in the electoral college (or, on a state level, the "John Ewards" screw-up in Minnesota back in 2004). Since the Bush vs. Gore election didn't ultimately bring about enough desire to change the system, it's probably going to take an election's outcome being changed by rogue electors to do that.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Why is it undemocratic? There are many countries with representative democracy where the President is outright elected by the Parliament with no input from the population at all.

[LaCroix]

Why is it undemocratic? There are many countries with representative democracy where the President is outright elected by the Parliament with no input from the population at all.

Yes, but these Parliaments are at least usually elected using a 1 person = 1 vote proportional system.

Also, most countries, the president is mostly a representative figurehead like the leader of a chamber, tasked to be the last one checking a law for constitutionality, with the true power in the hand of a "chancellor" (or whatever you call him) and his team. Are you directly electing the Speaker of the House? No.

[Isolder74]

You want to know why the Electoral College exists at all? The Answer is VERY SIMPLE. It has nothing to do with Democracy in fact if that is what you want the Constitution sure isn't the place to go looking for it. The United States is a Republic and always has been.

The reason that the Electoral College exists is one word, VIRGINIA! When the constitution was being framed the state of Virginia had more population then the rest of the states combined. It was immediately recognized that unless something was done to even out things that the President would ALWAYS be someone from Virginia. Even if every other state combined and voted for someone else Virginia would still win the simple majority. As long as large heavily populated states exist, California, Texas, etc then it will still be needed.

No you don't directly elect the president when you go to vote in November but you are deciding who get your state's electoral votes. No it isn't perfect but it does ensure some measure of equality.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Even in 1790, Virginia was only 1/8 the US population. And even if it was >50%, the number of representatives it would have would just make that problem worse. You'd only need to win 51% of Virginia and nothing else would matter at all.

All the electoral college really does is distort the power of an individual vote where, for example, in this election, a vote from Nevada or Ohio is worth hundreds of times more than a vote from South Carolina due to how much of a sure thing each state is. And this is ignoring that a person from Wyoming's vote is worth more of an elector than someone from California.

[Terralthra]

This would solve the "undemocratic" problem without any Constitutional Amendment required.

[Spoonist]

The vid is missing something, its still talking as if two-parties is a given.
You wouldn't need 22% of the votes to win if you are a third party candidate, you'd only have to get more than the two current parties and you'd be set to go. Which would be about 11% of the vote by promising to do anything for those smallish states...

@lacroix
you do know that the EU votes work in a similarly disproportionate way right?

[Simon_Jester]

I wouldn't say the electoral college is undemocratic. "Democratic" isn't the same thing as "well-designed." And the only real problem with the electoral college per se is that it offers somewhere between a 3:1 and 2:1 advantage in electoral power to the very smallest-population states. If you look at which states really do have that little House representation, they're pretty close to evenly split between 'blue' and 'red' states. That is NOT what's screwing up our politics.

The real problem lies in having credit for winning an electoral province assigned by simple majority, first-past-post voting. That's not inherent to the nature of the electoral college. There's nothing in the rules that says a state can't apportion its electoral votes according to who voted which way, so that if 40% of the state votes for the Yellows, the Yellows get 4 of 10 electoral votes.

Maine and Nebraska almost do it that way. No major state does. And in most states that won't happen because the dominant party has no interest in seeing X% of their electoral votes go to the opposition... which has nothing to do with the electoral system as such.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

you do know that the EU votes work in a similarly disproportionate way right?

Yea and nah. Brussels don't hold half the power Washington holds over its constituent states. When the EU is united to the point of having a single leader and a single military, it will be quite the problem as well.

Basically, having both a confederation of semi-autonomous states with varying populations and a system where no states have greater elective power than others is a doomed undertaking. You either let populous states dominate the elections or give smaller states disproportionate power over larger ones. Of course, uniting the states to the point of having 95% common interests helps you with option B.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The vid is missing something, its still talking as if two-parties is a given.
You wouldn't need 22% of the votes to win if you are a third party candidate, you'd only have to get more than the two current parties and you'd be set to go. Which would be about 11% of the vote by promising to do anything for those smallish states...

The originator of the YouTube video also has videos explaining why the American electoral system guarantees that only two major parties will exist at any given time, owing to the fact that all important elections around here are winner-take-all.