Well, you've been wrong for ages. Switching to mob rule and making more than half the country completely irrelevant when it comes to presidential elections is a VERY bad idea.....but your ideology would get a short term political boost, so let's go for it!
Oh, half the country is not irrelevant now? What about all the people in CA,NY that are GOP or Democrats in Tx and the deep south? It would bring more voter participation at the very least, and third party would actually mean something instead of just window dressing for the GOP and Democrat party.
No, half the country is not irrelevant because this system allowed 30 states to overrule 20 more populous states. The way you'd set things up, 5 or 6 large cities would determine the president for the entire country and the voices of everyone else would be irrelevant. Again, the issues that are important to those in Kansas, Wyoming or Nebraska aren't any less valid than those in California, but in a system of mob rule, ONLY the issues that are important to the 5 or 6 largest cities are important. It's the reason we have the system the way we do.....even if it didn't work out the way you wanted it to this time due to your opinion being different than the opinion of 30 of the 50 states.
In fact, switch the situation, have 30 of the 50 states reject Trump, but him be elected anyway because he pandered heavily to 5 or 6 large population centers.....would you be happy with that result? Of course not.
Why is someone who lives in Idaho more important than someone living in New York or Boston or Houston? We all have a political voice, why should yours or mine be counted more?
The goal is to have that person in Idaho matter at all. If you switch to mob rule, they won't. The only people will matter is those in the large population centers. The issues they care about will be the ONLY issues represented because the rest of the country will be completely irrelevant in presidential elections......and then people will be mad that they keep losing house and senate elections due to that pesky majority of the country standing in the way of the 5 or 6 cities that choose presidential elections and they'll want to switch to mob rule in congress too. ti's a concept you'll either get or you won't. The issues that people in Idaho find important often aren't the issues that people in New York or LA find important.....and we have a system set up to where they'll get to matter just a little bit even if the large cities are against the things they care about. The issues important to 30 of the 50 states can weigh heavier than the issues important to 20, even if those 20 states have more people in them.
So small states should have more representation in the Senate, the house as well as in presidential election on a per person basis? Having over representation in Senate and House is just not enough for them?
Small states don't have "more representation" in the Senate, they have equal representation. They also don't have "more representation" in the house either, they actually have less representation than more populous states.....it just isn't no representation same goes for the Electoral College. The system you are calling for would essentially be no representation for small states. The per person argument is irrelevant. You might as well be arguing that since the top 5% of the population has more wealth than the bottom 95% that their opinion should be the dominant opinion an all things. Just because 5% of the country has more people in it than the 95% of the rest of the country doesn't mean that they should be able to overrule the 95%
Your wrong, on a per person basis, they have far more representation in the senate and they have more representation in the house as well. Looks like I was off on the House, it is a mixed bag for house seats. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census10/FedRep.phtml
A per person basis is as irrelevant as a per dollar in their savings basis. Again, 5% of the country can have more population than 95% of the rest of the country and it wouldn't mean that the 5% should overrule the 95%. That's what the system is set up to prevent.....and it does a really good job of it. Of course those in the 5% will be incredibly upset about that, but it doesn't mean the system needs to change to benefit the 5%
To be more helpful, I'll give you real numbers instead of hypotheticals. As of a few years ago, 3.5% of the country was home to 62.7% of the population. Your system of "one person one vote" or "mob rule" would mean that less than 3.5% of the country could determine the outcome of every single presidential election and the rest of the 96.5% of the country would be irrelevant. That's what the system is set up specifically to prevent.
Wyoming has 586,107 residents and 3 electoral college votes. California has 39,144,818 residents and 55 electoral college votes. Mathematics. U.S. citizens shouldn't be penalized for choosing to live in California. Nor should they be penalized for living in Wyoming. They should make the ratio equal so that California gets 121 electoral college votes or something like that. Fair. And if that means politicians visit CA more than WY- well, that already happens now- they visit OH and PA, etc. WAY more than WY. When it is mathematically possible that a candidate could receive 79% of the popular vote and STI Have you been to Wyoming? I've driven through there twice now. I understand that you feel insects, large masses of land, and Devil's Tower have rights and should have their voices represented, but maybe you're giving Wyoming too much favoritism here. The concerns of people in Wyoming are addressed. It's called a governor and state legislature.
To be fair, though, you do have a point. Even some votes require a 2/3 majority rather than a simple majority, so that's sort of what the Electoral College is about.Still, just b/c a system has been in place for a long time doesn't mean it shouldn't or can't be changed. Phone booths had been around for quite some time, right?
What we should all do is get together- those of us in Houston- both the extreme leftists and the rightists as well as the moderates- whip out a couple of big fat blunts, get stoned, and discuss politics. We'll all be so happy that we'll agree with each other and we'll never have any arguments again in the D&D.
Again, I spelled out to you guys exactly why we have always had an electoral college system and I get that you don't like it due to you not getting the outcome you wanted but having 3% of the country being able to overrule 97% of the country isn't exactly a smart system even if you sometimes don't like that 30 states with low populations got in the way of 20 states with high populations. It's how it goes. Mob rule is not a better system.
I agree with the sentiment about not insulting voters, generally. But, it won't necessarily make you lose the election. Trump has insulted many people, and he still won. He won those states with thin, thin margins. He won MI by 10k votes. People like to talk about the election like it's some Midwest blue collar mandate, but really he just flipped a small population of geographically strategic voters.
The reason it's a big deal is because those were very blue states. To put Michigan in context, in 2012 Obama won the state by about 10% over Romney and the state hadn't gone to a Republican since 1988 when even California went red. Michigan wasn't a swing state....but it swung anyway. That's significant. Even more significant, it wasn't the only one. Pennsylvania is another state that isn't a swing state, it's a solid blue state......but it went red anyway. When multiple states that haven't gone red in 28 years support a Republican for president, it's a huge deal.
How would it end the 2 party system? We have a 2 party system because our voters fall trap to the political polarized opinion of 'its all or nothing' mentality. Very very few issues are black and white, but the majority of people immediately fall trap to an either/or option and in turn vilify the opposing opinion. Additionally, you are never going to have a minority party as POTUS. Clinton was the epitome of the Democratic party. She had no personal opinion or conviction and fell right in line with the party line....whatever it took to get a vote. Trump and Sanders is about a good of an outsider as one is going to get and they both sucked up to the respective parties line. A candidate is not going to get elected unless he sucks up to one of the majority groups. We do need more outside parties in congress. But news flash, they are elected by their said states with the populous vote, not the EC. Lastly, the EC issue can be solved if we just split the EC votes in every state instead of using the 'all or none' that most states use. This gives both the States and people a better representation than a populous vote or the system we have now.
