How big of a vote gap would it take for you to drop the Electoral College?

[BmorePat87]

(04-09-2019, 07:42 PM)Dill Wrote: My reference to large and small states was not about defending the House contingency plan; it was to note how that plan was a response to a very specific pressure.

Whether those "needs" still exist is, I guess, what this thread-debate is about.

This discussion has been going pretty well, I think. At this point we can go back over what has already been written and get a better idea of where we really do and do not disagree, and the grounds of our disagreement.

The central issue now, as I see it, is whether the electoral college is in any way structurally embedded in our political system such that it cannot be eradicated without 1) changing the nature of system--specifically its constitution as "two governments," and 2) altering the current balance of power between large and small states.

I am of the mind that getting rid of the EC will do both.  This is not generally a "leftist" position; I hold it because, like many people who grew up in big (geographically) states with small populations, I worry about how little power such states have vis a vis the federal government. I don't think of states as part of the U.S. government. And I am concerned that state power has been eroded on a number of fronts--most recently regarding Montana, by the Citizen's United decision which overturned Montana's Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, which forbid corporate funding of political campaigns.  Montana had that act because its people took control of their state AWAY from corporations. The motivations for the act, and the legal precedents, came from other then-small states like Oregon and Nebraska, whose citizens could not be stuck into the proverbial corporate pocket. https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/archive/FSFP%20release%20on%20MT%20ruling%20123011.pdf

My concern is that the system of states is a counter weight to the federal gov. especially when they can act together with common interests.  State land is state land, and not government land. And the EC gives them a bit more weight than the otherwise would have, when facing down big-staters who think it only makes sense that Montana's coal and forests belong to "the nation."

So I am wondering what others think of this. I guess SSF is on my side here--though he comes from the biggest, most liberal state in the universe. Why doesn't he see direct popular vote as a big advantage? Then there is Bpat, who comes from little MD, but is ok siding with the big-state bullies .   And Bels, staunch defender of big government .  And all the rest. Can we examine this without referring to Trump--just looking at principles or "what is right" for everyone?  Who else has something to say? 

I think the first counterargument to my position might be that, could the Federal gov. not trump state laws, we would still have segregation. This is a substantive, not a procedural objection, though.  One could as easily argue we had segregation in the first place because a supreme court decision backed it.

I think ultimately the idea of big states versus small states is not truly a significant force. I'd have to win every vote in the 10 biggest states to be elected. As we both showed, that concept only was considered with regards to the contingency plan, which no one here is considering.

It's a matter of shifting the election away of only valuing swing states and not allowing a minority of voters to overrule a majority.

I'd also argue that reform doesn't require the abolition of the EC, but even if it did, the system is so far bastardized from the original intent that it would not be this awful move away from the intentions of the founding fathers as many suggest. It would not destroy federalism either.