A failing grade for the electoral college

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The electoral college is gearing up for the fall semester. An election that once promised a presidential rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump now features a fresh face in Vice President Kamala Harris. On Election Day, Americans will cast their votes — but it will be the college that determines the winner, weeks later. Sometimes its decision is to bypass the people’s choice and award the presidency to a candidate with fewer votes. That’s occurred twice in the last six presidential elections. And it’s not out of the question this year.

The college was originally advertised as a shield against a fickle public and the excesses of democracy. Its deliberations would be governed by honorable, judicious men, who would avoid secrecy and plotting. The institution would harbor a preference for low-population states to ensure those in the minority have a strong voice. And it would use weighted calculus to help reach fair decisions. But today, its design is antiquated. The math, too old. The college has certainly seen its share of intrigue and corruption. Along the way, it’s become increasingly unrepresentative even as our democracy has become more accessible.

For example, since Harris became the Democratic nominee, Trump has dropped nearly seven points in national polling. That shift represents millions of voters who’ve changed their minds about the election. But the people’s shift is of little interest in the college. There, states matter most. And its winner-takes-all system doesn’t care whether victory in a state is decided by one vote or 1 million. As a result, though Harris could win the popular vote by millions, Trump could still win more states. In a system designed more than 200 years ago, that combination means lopsided elections can become electoral nail-biters.

In short, the college has lost touch with the campus. In 2016, though Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 3 million votes, in the vote that counts she lost by 77 electors — an outcome effectively decided by 80,000 people in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by 8 million, yet failed to match Trump’s margin of victory in the college four years earlier. Of those 8 million, the deciders amounted to just 44,000 people in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. These numbers don’t add up. That’s why Americans favor scrapping the electoral college by a margin of 2 to 1. And it’s another reason the public has such low confidence in this not-quite-democracy.

https://wapo.st/3zduYPK

[Dock_Yard]

1. IT - MUST - GO !! It's a perversion of democracy.

[jimfields33]

4. It's probably gone in a few decades.

75 percent of the states have to agree. That’s after 2/3rds of both the senate and the house.

[kansasobama]

7. This means it is never happening

Thanks Constitution.

[kansasobama]

6. Perversion-It will end democracy

And bring dictatorship. Some slave owning old men, no women, from an old era decided the rules for 2024. It is stupid.

[Omnipresent]

2. All we need are just 500,000 democrats to move from California to Texas.

That would forever screw the GOP from ever winning the White House again.

[kansasobama]

5. It may reduce how many votes CA has but I agree.

Yes

[JT45242]

3. If they made the smallest state population equals one representative and not a fixed number in the House, would improve

If you set the smallest state population as one representative will even round up for anything over 0.45 of a whole number

AREA RESIDENT POPULATION (APRIL 1, 2020) Reps earned Rounded reps EC Votes

California 39,538,223 68.54148 69 71
Texas 29,145,505 50.52519 51 53
Florida 21,538,187 37.33752 37 39
New York 20,201,249 35.01987 35 37
Pennsylvania 13,002,700 22.54083 23 25
Illinois 12,812,508 22.21112 22 24
Ohio 11,799,448 20.45493 21 23
Georgia 10,711,908 18.56963 19 21
North Carolina 10,439,388 18.0972 18 20
Michigan 10,077,331 17.46956 18 20
New Jersey 9,288,994 16.10293 16 18
Virginia 8,631,393 14.96295 15 17
Washington 7,705,281 13.35749 13 15
Arizona 7,151,502 12.39749 12 14
Massachusetts 7,029,917 12.18671 12 14
Tennessee 6,910,840 11.98029 12 14
Indiana 6,785,528 11.76305 12 14
Maryland 6,177,224 10.70853 11 13
Missouri 6,154,913 10.66985 11 13
Wisconsin 5,893,718 10.21705 10 12
Colorado 5,773,714 10.00902 10 12
Minnesota 5,706,494 9.892492 10 12
South Carolina 5,118,425 8.873045 9 11
Alabama 5,024,279 8.709838 9 11
Louisiana 4,657,757 8.074454 8 10
Kentucky 4,505,836 7.811092 8 10
Oregon 4,237,256 7.345495 7 9
Oklahoma 3,959,353 6.863736 7 9
Connecticut 3,605,944 6.251084 6 8
Puerto Rico 3,285,874 5.696227 6 8
Utah 3,271,616 5.67151 6 8
Iowa 3,190,369 5.530664 6 8
Nevada 3,104,614 5.382003 5 7
Arkansas 3,011,524 5.220627 5 7
Mississippi 2,961,279 5.133525 5 7
Kansas 2,937,880 5.092962 5 7
New Mexico 2,117,522 3.67083 4 6
Nebraska 1,961,504 3.400365 3 5
Idaho 1,839,106 3.188182 3 5
West Virginia 1,793,716 3.109496 3 5
Hawaii 1,455,271 2.522785 3 5
New Hampshire 1,377,529 2.388015 2 4
Maine 1,362,359 2.361717 2 4
Rhode Island 1,097,379 1.902361 2 4
Montana 1,084,225 1.879558 2 4
Delaware 989,948 1.716124 2 4
South Dakota 886,667 1.537081 2 4
North Dakota 779,094 1.350598 1 3
Alaska 733,391 1.27137 1 3
District of Columbia 689,545 1.195361 1 3
Vermont 643,077 1.114806 1 3
Wyoming 576,851 1 1 3
TOTAL RESIDENT POPULATION, INCLUDING PUERTO RICO 334,735,155
Footnote:
1 Includes the resident population for the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as ascertained by the Twenty-Fourth
Decennial Census under Title 13, United States Code. TOTAL REPS 582 686

Now this includes PR and DC which should get representation. You would end up with 582 reprentatives and 104 senators to get 686 EC votes. So, 50% plus 1 would be 344 EC votes to win.

Would certainly help with the tyranny of the minority that we currenyly have (especially since the Dakotas should nebver have been 2 states. It was one territory with a low population. If it were one state under this formula, it would have 3 representative combined from approximately 1.6 million people and 5 EC votes total -- rather giving it extra Senators.

Although the Maine and Nebraska way of awarding by congressional district and state winner gets the two bonuse for the senators is not a bad option. Of course, gerrymanderung makes that problematic.

Percentage of representatives with the two Senator EC votes as winner take all would be interesting, solution as well. If we want to protect the voice of the small state some without giving them inordinate power.

[orthoclad]

8. "honorable judicious" white men of property

Fully half of the presidents of the 21st century have lost the popular vote. This is a trend - a very dangerous one.

The Right Wing, aided by tech-bro billios and Big Data* **, along with some judicious chaos (Brooks Brothers Riot in the 200 election), have become very skilled at gaming the EC.

*In 2016, Facebook illegally provided detailed user data to Cambridge Analytica, which used the data to micro-target political ads in key districts, giving Trump the EC win despite losing the pop vote by millions. FB and CA were fined, a slap on the wrist. And we have the nerve to lecture other countries about "democracy"?

** Speaking of ads, I saw a terrifying set of articles today about companies using mikes in phones and "smart" devices to listen to nearby conversations. They use AI to extract key words and send ads to those devices. This has applications WAY beyond selling makeup or plumbing services. Do we think political actors aren't using this tech?
It's not just Russia listening.
I followed a chain of links from this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/04/yes-it-sounds-like-a-conspiracy-theory-but-maybe-our-phones-really-are-listening-to-us
which led to this
https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-partner-phones-listening-microphone

In a pitch deck to prospective customers, one of Facebook's alleged marketing partners explained how it listens to users' smartphone microphones and advertises to them accordingly.

As 404 Media reports based on documents leaked to its reporters, the TV and radio news giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims that its so-called "Active Listening" software uses artificial intelligence to "capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations."

"Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers," the deck continues.
...
"We know what you're thinking. Is this even legal?" a since-deleted Cox blog post from November 2023 noted. "It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi-page term of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included."

[pansypoo53219]

9. its a slave state leftover that has fucked us enough.