Globally, Broad Support for Representative and Direct Democracy

[BmorePat87]

(10-17-2017, 02:34 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The problem being that we're not America, but The United STATES of America. You're taking the ability for each State to make a decision out of their hands. While the electoral college weighs each state according to their population, it doesn't make it so that they completely negate each other's opinion, which a straight popular vote would do.

I'm representing these ideas as changes in a new constitution, playing off a thread Matt made a few weeks ago. The idea being that concept is antiquated. 

Quote:The reason each state has their own separate popular votes is because each state has their own interests. Say a candidate is running on an idea of a huge Mississippi River project that would be a huge economical boon for the states on the Mississippi. The states affected vote to a reasonable, but still clearly majority 55-45 split for that candidate. Then California comes in and says "That isn't the party we vote for." and they go extremist party tactics and go 80-20 split (which is how San Francisco County votes). The sheer population difference just made California crush the other 6-8 or whatever states in a popular vote.

This is a bit of anachronism. The system was designed so that states could pick a way to assign electors or educated people to go to Congress and vote for the President. The idea of a popular vote for candidates isn't uniformly established for decades. Same with the allocation of electors within the state. 

The analogy also ignores the fact that with California's larger size and population comes greater diversity in demographics and needs. The issue is still rooted in your wanting to place importance in the idea of a state as a whole. Putting less importance on the idea of California as a state provides for more voices in California to be heard and their unique needs addressed, like the 1 in every 14 Trump voters who live in California.

Quote:There's a reason every state has their own government, their own national guard, their own constitution, their own senate, etc. We're a collection of united but separate territories. A straight populous vote would wreck that by promoting insular tribal (party) extremism. That would not be healthy for the country because then you're silencing large swaths of states' voices because they're not extreme enough to one side or the other. 

Again, this is a hypothetical change and I'm only suggesting these changes occur within the Senate and in the Presidential election. It won't affect the representation of regions in addressing their needs, it just takes away the uneven voice given to small population states smaller than large cities. 

Quote:The last thing we need is changing things to promote MORE extremism political opinions rather than less. Even fixing Gerrymandering wouldn't change the trend of creating more and stronger echo chambers in that case. Gerrymandering is a Congress problem not a Presidential Election problem, because in the end, the State totals up the votes.

If anything there will be less extremism. The 4.5 million Trump voters in California would have their voices heard in both the Presidential election and the senatorial elections. You'll likely see more moderate candidates. 

Quote:Keep in mind there's nothing preventing a state from splitting it's electoral votes if it wanted to. Each state decides if it wanted to in their constitutions. For instance, Trump got 1 vote from Maine out of their 4 electoral votes. Most states just chose an all-or-nothing stance. Nebraska is the other state that can split their votes.

I know. The issue isn't allocation, it's the fact that we use electoral votes. Why should a voter in Wyoming count the same as 3.5 voters in California?