And OF COURSE, he changed his mind after getting elected. What a shock.
The Electoral College has always been a contentious institution. It's become increasingly difficult to have a rational conversation about why the Electoral College must go. Before I explain why: Let me answer some of the most bullshit common arguments defenders of the E.C make.
#1. "You're trying to change the rules of something we have always had."
Yes, but not in the way you're accusing us of doing. And keep in mind, just because an institution has "always" existed, doesn't justify it's existence. By that logic, you'd be arguing to defend the institution of slavery before the 13th Amendment, because -before it was ratified- slavery had "always" existed in the U.S. It's an appeal to tradition fallacy. And keep in mind, the 12th Amendment allowed us to amend how the E.C worked, so amending the rules or even repealing them is not unprecedented.
#2. "You are wanting to abolish the E.C because you can't win with it."
And you can't win without it. In all seriousness, this talking point is a lie. Proponents of abolishing the E.C aren't basing it off of whether or not their party (or lack thereof) could win the Electoral College, and they understand that in a first past the post (FPTP) system, they could lose the popular vote. They are basing it off how insane it is to leave ourselves at the mercy of land to decide who will be the Commander-in-Chief. And in regards to the last Presidential election, there may be Hillary Clinton supporters who support abolishing the E.C, but plenty of voters who dislike Hillary Clinton support abolishing the E.C. Portraying us all as H.R.C supporters is a lie.
#3. "We are a republic; not a democracy.", and "This will lead to a direct democracy."
The people who say this have got to be the dumbest people I've had the misfortune of ever meeting the understanding of a first grader, when it comes to civics.
When you hear someone really stupid say "We're a republic; not a democracy", keep in mind by just saying "republic", the definition doesn't mean that the chief executive must be elected indirectly in order for a republic to exist.
We have a democracy because we elected our represenatives, they were not chosen by state Legislatures (Senators were until the 17th Amendment), and we are able to elect our Mayors, and Governors. The Electoral College does not mean that we are not a democracy, we are just an indirect democracy.
The term "represenative democracy" is also another way of saying "indirect democracy".
An indirect democracy is what we have (even though we are closer to an oligarchy), and we have a republican form of government, and a direct election to the President (RCV or FPTP) is not going to change that. Direct democracy is where WE are the legislators, yet most E.C defenders have little understanding of what they support -or oppose- and yet they tell us, to learn history.
#4: "The Electoral College upholds the Separation of Powers".
This one sounds decent, but is immaterial to the conversation.
The separation of powers relates solely to the branches of the Government, but it has no role in elections.
Now, some will say: "We are a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC; NOT a DEMOCRACY." And yeah, they really love using all caps to make the point. Execept nowhere is it said that a chief executive must be indirectly elected or we are somehow not a constitutional republic. And the most frustrating part is that critics of abolishing the E.C will simply ignore what has been said so far and just say "We are republic; not a democracy", and then they wonder why they get muted on Twitter.
#5. "People didn't know enough about the Presidential candidates when our Country began."
Have you ever heard of research? And there were plenty of campaign memorabilia that includes that platform back then; as they do today. Also; we have the ability to research who the candidates are, what their platforms are, etc. This is one of the most ridiculous points.
#6. "The E.C prevents the election of an unqualfied President."
This is such a non-sequitur; it's not even funny. If someone is old enough to be elected President, and meets other Constitutional requirements to be President, they can still be unqualified if they lack experience, if they prove themselves to be a threat to our Country, or world peace, among other things.
How the E.C "works".
When you go to cast your vote for POTUS/VPOTUS, you are not actually voting for those individuals, but you are voting for a slate. For example; a state that is comfortably or overwhelmingly voting for the Republican ticket of President Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pence, is voting for electors who will in turn vote for the Trump/Pence ticket. So if you vote for the Trump/Pence slate, then your vote indirectly pushes them slightly (or significantly) closer to 270 electoral votes, the magic number needed to win. If no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the House of Representatives will decide the winner of the Presidency, while the Senate will decide the winner of the Vice Presidency, called a "contingent election". States are granted one Represenatative, and if their population grows, they can get more Representatives, but they will only have two Senators. 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, with the District of Columbia's two "shadow" Senators, and one "shadow" Representative, they are a part of 538 electoral votes. The District of Columbia is not a state, and does not get to participate in a contingent election. The House of Represenatives gets only 50 votes in a contingent election, as each congressional delegation picks which candidate that they will vote for. For instance, the state of Utah has four representatives, and one of them will vote for President. The delegation is currently 3-1 Republican, and would back President Trump in a contingent election. 26/50 delegations are required to win the contingent election. If a House delegation is tied, their vote will not be counted, and the threshold to win is lowered. Theoretically, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would re-elect President Trump because Republicans narrowly control a majority of House delegations, despite holding only 198 out of the 435 seats (four are currently vacant).
The House of Represenatives allows for the top three electoral vote getters to be considered, but the Senate allows only the top two candidates for Vice President. A simple majority of Senators (51/100), is required to win. If the House is unable to choose a candidate, they must go to second round (or second ballot), Thomas Jefferson (D-R) won the Presidency on the 36th ballot). The party that controls the Senate will decide the winner of the Vice Presidency. If the Senate is equally divided (tied) a second ballot will take place (it's unclear if the incumbent Vice President can break a tie).
The contingent election must be done before 01/20/2021 (inauguration day), or the line of succession is invoked. If the contingent election for POTUS, the VPOTUS (assuming the VPOTUS is chosen in time), then the VPOTUS will become acting POTUS until the House can can make it's decision. If the Senate and House can't make a decision, the Speaker of the House of Representatives will be acting President. While it is rare to see an Electoral College deadlock, it can happen, and considering how polarized America is, imagine this scenario:
Let's say that Donald Trump receives 268 electoral votes, and Joe Biden receives 269 votes, and one vote goes to either a third party candidate, or it's from someone abstaining, or a faithless elector. If the Democratic-controlled House decided to back the third party candidate, and enough delegations vote for that candidate, despite that candidate losing the popular vote, imagine the backlash from both Biden and Trump supporters that their candidate lost to someone who one won due to recieving one electoral vote, and Congress ignored their votes. Speaking of faithless electors, they are people who pledged to vote for their party's nominee for President, but then break that pledge. In the last Presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump won 304/306 electoral votes, and Hillary Clinton recieved 227-232 electoral votes. Theoretically, faithless electors can definitely throw the election. But, for this to happen, all faithless electors would have to back that candidate, and the candidate would have to win some states that combined with faithless electors, would give them the requisite 270 electoral votes. Here's what that would look like:
This would never happen, as the backlash would be overwhelming, and this candidate would have to win 63 electoral votes via the popular vote, and that's where it becomes impossible.
My reason for abolishing the Electoral College.
#1: As earlier mentioned, most of the arguments for the Electoral College are non sequiturs at minimum, and outright lies at most.
#2: The E.C allows Presidential candidates to only visit swing states, making the claim that the E.C empowers small states to be more acknowledged a lie.
And considering the fact that politicans can use digital media to target ALL 50 states, to get their message out, it makes the idea that they can't target all states -and thus the E.C is justified- total nonsense. And if small states mattered so much, why do the 22 states (worth 147 electoral votes) have no visits from the last camapign? Why don't candidates of both parties ignore them? Why should swing states and small states have us at their mercy? Why should land even make our votes worth less?
#3: The founders were not correct on everything, and we have the right to make the decision about if we will stick with their ideas, or not. Just because the founders didn't "intend" for something to happen, doesn't automatically mean that we must never decide for ourselves if we shall do something. The founders were flawed and fallible people, and thus it is fine to break from them, sometimes.
#4: Big cites do not have the votes to decide a Presidential election, on their own or in total.
Stupid People share this unironcially. A large number of these states vote overwhelmingly for one candidate, the remaining states are almost evenly divided. And with Los Angeles County, they may have more people than each some of these states individually, but with all of the votes from these states in blue combined -against just Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County is swamped. And a number of these states have more people than Los Angeles County, namely:
So that meme was a total lie. And, simply, all this tells those living in the big scary states, is that they should move to smaller states to make them into purple states.
#5: "Tyranny of the majority" is not a valid concern, when tyranny of the minority has occurred simultaneously.
When U.S President and stupidest man at the time George W. Bush was elected, he ended up passing unconstitutional legislation such as the "P.A.T.R.I.O.T A.C.T" which violated our Fourth Amendment rights, and Bush was a President who was the fourth one to lose the popular vote. And keep in mind, that a political party can win the popular vote and lose the election for Congress, as that happened in 2018 for the U.S Senate, where Republicans picked up a net gain of two seats from Democrats. And keep in mind, with our Constitution (which -to be fair- is a stillborn document), certain Congressional thresholds are required for legislation to pass, which makes amending the Constitution very hard to do, which shows that the founders (correctly) rejected direct democracy, but not democracy entirely.
Idiots People really don't understand that there are those in the grey counties that vote for someone who doesn't carry those counties, while the rest of the counties have people who vote for someone who doesn't carry those counties. Some heavily populated counties may vote just enough for the other side to elect that person. And keep in mind, people -like myself- are well versed in civics, and oppose the electoral college, due to the fact that giving land voting power is nonsense, considering that land is not alive, and does not make decisions. Here's a fantastic video by Mr. Beat, regarding, the Electoral College, and the population, and how unrepresentativeness of the E.C.
How should the E.C be replaced?
Ranked choice voting. Ranked voting is not hard to understand.
A hypothetical ballot:
D- Joesph R. Biden Jr./Kamala D. Harris
R- Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence
L- Joanne M. Jorgensen/Jeremy "Spike" Cohen
G- Howard G. Hawkins/Angela N. Walker
In this case, let's say the vote nationally is 45.3% for Biden/Harris, 33.3% for Trump/Pence, 21.0% for Jorgensen/Cohen, and 0.4% for Hawkins/Walker. Since no candidate could achieve an outright majority (50% + 1), a second round would take place, with this ballot, you rank who you want first, second, third, fourth, etc. For me: my ballot would look like this:
D- Joesph R. Biden Jr./Kamala D. Harris (3).
R- Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (4).
L- Joanne M. Jorgensen/Jeremy "Spike" Cohen (1)
G- Howard G. Hawkins/Angela N. Walker (2)
In this example, the Democratic ticket, has won the popular vote by a landslide 12.0%, but it's 4.8% short of out winning outright. Since the ticket with the least support is the Greens, they are eliminated. Now, the votes of the Green's are transferred to the second choice, if they didn't mark a second choice, that ballot is "exhausted", and now you must get a majority of non-exhausted votes. Let's say the Green's have 0.1% of the vote as "exhausted", and give 0.3% of the vote to the Democrats, 0.1% to the GOP, and 0.1% the Libertarians. The vote stands like this:
D- Joesph R. Biden Jr./Kamala D. Harris: 45.4%
R- Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (4). 33.4%
L- Joanne M. Jorgensen/Jeremy "Spike" Cohen (1): 21.1%
Exhausted: 0.1%
At this point, the Libertarians are eliminated due to placing last, and let's say that a lot of exhausted votes would take place, but not enough that no one can win a majority (this is only if you include exhausted votes):
D- Joesph R. Biden Jr./Kamala D. Harris: 50.1%
R- Donald J. Trump/Michael R. Pence (4). 43.4%
Exhausted: 6.5%
This can also reduce the polarization of our politics, since candidates will want to get votes from other candidates (that's the whole point of running for office), but they will have to tone down the partisanship, or the rhetoric, to build a winning coalition to win a majority.
Is there a compromise?
Yes. Allow the electoral votes to be proportional, and use R.C.V to ensure no candidate can win a majority of electoral votes from a state, without crossing the 50% threshold in the popular vote. In our democratic-republic, there are a lot of problems with how we vote, how our politics work, among other things. This is step one to fixing it. Chao.
Follow my Twitter: @SkylerSatterfi1
Support the blog: http://paypal.me/smanspeaks
Preceded by: It's Time To Make Puerto Rico, D.C, Among Others, Into States.
Succeeded by: "Here's How To WIN A Debate Against The "All Lives Matter" 'Movement' (This also applies to "Blue Lives Matter")."
Comments
Post a Comment