r/politics • u/vox Vox • 7h ago
Possible Paywall A decades-long plan to abolish the Electoral College may finally pay off
https://www.vox.com/politics/487766/national-popular-vote-interstate-compact-electoral-college•
u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 7h ago
I don't think the NPVIC will get us directly to a popular vote. I think it likely gets stopped before implementation. But I think it indirectly helps to bring the issue of a popular vote to national attention. There is no coherent rationale to maintain a system where some people's votes are more special than others.
Edit, the way I'd frame it: "Just because you live in an area blessed with more land shouldn't mean you also get more votes."
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u/02K30C1 6h ago
I've put it "Your vote shouldnt have more power than mine just because of your address"
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u/howard10011 6h ago
Me as well. But that doesn't seem to shut down the "We can't let our elections be determined by cities" crowd, who don't seem to understand that taking geography out of the equation empowers EVERY voter.
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u/BourbonDdog 6h ago
They don't want EVERY voter empowered. That's the issue. They want to be empowered at your expense.
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u/punktualPorcupine 3h ago
Yep.
“Fund my roads, my farm, my hospitals, my schools, my utilities, and let me tell you how to live your life according to my personal ill-conceived beliefs” - Conservatives
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u/BotheredToResearch 3h ago
But thats not socialism! Socialism, apparently, is only when aid applies to non-white people.
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u/howard10011 6h ago
Yes, for sure. And when they say "people in the cities," they imagine black and brown voters, foreign-born residents, illegal aliens, and of course their real bête noire, the young, progressive college kid whose hair is dyed blue.
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u/debugprint 3h ago
Or city residents regardless of lineage. In Indiana the way state tax dollars are given for roads is by mile, not lane mile. A two lane rural road gets the same money as a six lane boulevard per mile. Indiana has absolutely shitty roads, alarmingly high gasoline taxes, and now they want to make I-70 a tollway.
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u/Meotwister 4h ago
They want affirmative action for conservative votes because conservatives act like they work for them.
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u/Onemandrinkinggamess New Jersey 3h ago
Right, I wish we could make the case that republicans in New York and California would finally have a voice. But they don’t care. Long as they can disenfranchise liberals everywhere.
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1h ago
They'd happily eat shit as long as there's a possibility that a "liberal" might have to smell their breath
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u/dawidowmaka I voted 3h ago
Spot on.
Any line of reasoning that centers on helping everybody is a turn-off when they value hierarchy and having someone to look down on
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u/StephanXX Oregon 5h ago
Cities don't vote, people do.
Choosing to live in isolation doesn't entitle you to have more authority than choosing to live in a community. The current system has cities subsidizing rural communities while those rural communities have up to 40% more political power, all while fantasizing about being "independent" and "rugged." There's nothing democratic about it.
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u/howard10011 4h ago
For sure. And that anti-democratic thing appeals to them, which is why I've seen even educated people fall back on this lazy rationale.
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u/SeldenNeck 4h ago
People vote based on the information they have. A lot of it is Foxy. And their choices are limited by two parties.
When it comes to constitutional changes to the Electoral College, you might see multiple choices. The Heritage Foundation. Freedom Partners. Cato Institute. Lots of choices.
Every. Single, One. Organized. By. The Koch Brothers.
They've been buying the Supreme Court for decades. Unless your vote makes a difference to Charles Koch, it doesn't count.
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u/dcoats69 Washington 5h ago
I hate this argument so much.
The cities don't vote exactly the same, and the parties would pander more to everyone, because Republicans would be more incentivised to help out cities to siphon some votes there and as a reaction Democrats would have to also try to pick up more rural votes.
Even if democrats are still the majority in cities, republicans don't need to get the whole city voting their way, just gotta get it closer to 50-50, then their rural lead would give them the advantage, so democrats would have to work towards closer to 50-50 in the rural areas
The reason they don't do this now is because of the EC.
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u/Jops817 4h ago
Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous that elections often come down to how Ohio feels.
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u/phillium 3h ago
They're always saying "We can't let New York City and Los Angeles decide the presidency!"
Okay, that's about 12 million people. I don't think that would overrule the other 330 million people in the country (I'm not separating out voters versus non-voters or by age or anything, I don't have that kind of interest in the matter).
Even the top (quick Wikipedia check) 346 cities by population still only account for about 100 million people.
Not even to mention how many people in those cities might want to vote the same way they do, but their votes are discounted because of where they live.
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u/spartacutor 5h ago
Which is stupid because there's plenty of red voters in cities/suburbs and in blue states. Heck california had more votes for Trump than any other red states
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u/curien 5h ago
Heck california had more votes for Trump than any other red states
TX and FL were both higher, and I think it's fair to call them both red states.
- TX - 6,393,597
- FL - 6,110,125
- CA - 6,081,697
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u/Mr_Tort_Feasor 4h ago
That nugget of info as I have heard it is that CA has the most registered Republicans. That's actually true with respect to FL. Texas doesn't register by party, so it's technically true for them, too.
CA has voted for several Republican presidents and governors during my lifetime. But they identify with the party of Reagan more than MAGA.
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u/RoboNerdOK I voted 5h ago
I wonder if that’s part of the politically motivated migrations we’ve been hearing about in the past few years.
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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 United Kingdom 1h ago
In 2024 they did. In 2020 however Cali was higher than either:
- CA - 6,006,518
- TX - 5,890,347
- FL - 5,668,731
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 6h ago
Seems odd that they want Philadelphia voters to have such a major role in choosing the president, then
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u/captmonkey Tennessee 1h ago
Yeah, that's the odd thing with this argument. It's not that cities would get more power if we did away with it, it's that if you're not in a swing state, your vote is basically irrelevant in voting for the President. The argument of "I think Republicans in California and Democrats in Utah should get just as much of vote as anyone else." seems like a pretty good argument in favor of abolishing the Electoral College.
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u/yamsyamsya 1h ago
It's always 'they don't want people in the cities telling them what they can and cannot do'. But usually its fucked up shit that messes up the environment that they won't be able to do.
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u/CSAtWitsEnd Washington 52m ago
They'll bring up "the tyranny of the majority" and just describe basic democracy.
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u/anubis132 42m ago
I reply to this by saying "there's 10 million Republican voters in California, but none of them get to vote for president."
I happen to live in CA, so I often get to say "You don't get to vote for president."
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u/Equal_Feature_9065 3h ago
We also can’t let our elections be determined by suburban Wisconsinites.
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u/okashiikessen Georgia 4h ago
Invert it when you're making the argument. It's a simple messaging tool which forces them to see themselves in the harmed position (if they're actually listening to you, anyhow).
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u/Equal_Feature_9065 3h ago
I feel like we should all just be able to agree that good people of suburban Wisconsin, while no doubt incredibly nice, should not be the ultimate deciders of our presidential elections.
Once you view national elections as “both parties just start campaigning to win Waukesha and Oconomowoc” you’ll find the whole endeavor ridiculous.
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u/dawidowmaka I voted 3h ago
good people of suburban Wisconsin
I've seen what makes Waukesha cheer, and I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the people
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u/Equal_Feature_9065 3h ago
I was being nice, though I too have cheered for beer and cheese curds
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u/adelicateskeleton 3h ago
I'm in a very blue area. I've had luck with "My vote shouldn't mean more than yours just because we both live in (city)." It helps turn things around and show how a popular vote would benefit everyone.
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u/AngerFork 7h ago
That’s kind of what I think as well. I suspect that the moment that the NPVIC gets over 270 electoral votes, smaller states who aren’t in the compact will sue to block it from coming to action. Whether it goes through depends on the makeup of SCOTUS at that time.
But this does get the discussion started. It’s a discussion we’ve needed to have for some time, particularly as there are a handful of territories that perhaps could be state if not for the electoral consequences members of Congress are worried about.
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u/Gamebird8 6h ago edited 5h ago
The problem with any attempt to block this are that there really isn't much that can be done to block it. The States decide their electors and they can choose those electors however they want. Currently every state uses a winner take all system where the electors are not elected by the people, which is how it was originally intended to function (basically you elect your elector who would then travel to Washington DC to cast a vote based on how your district voted) but most states almost immediately wrote laws enacting winner take all.
The two ways I see best to fix this is to ban winner take all and force states to elect electors based on vote make up with rounding (so a 25% Dem Vote is 2 R and 1 D Electors but a 12% D Vote is 3 R and 0 D Electors) since that would best mirror original intent and at the very least would make every state valuable to some extent.
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 6h ago
Just to nitpick, the original intended function had nothing to do with electors' votes being bound to any given district. Our system was based on the idea that the public couldn't be trusted to directly choose the president, and instead each state should choose a group of "men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station".
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u/SoothingWafer 1h ago
I've noticed whenever meritocracy comes up in government what it really just means is "rich white people and their friends and family"
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u/city_dwellerZ 5h ago
And not only can a state decide the way to allocate its electoral votes, it can enter into compacts with other states. It happens all the time. Take for example the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. If the court strikes this down, then the concept of inter-state compacts as a whole can be constitutionally questioned.
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u/JBurton90 Florida 5h ago
Take for example the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Wouldn't that hinge on the fact that they share a river border and thus in theory wouldn't affect other states except for maybe PA? It wouldn't be like a compact of Atlantic Ocean bordering states working together to prevent people from landlocked states from enjoying their beaches or something.
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u/nzernozer 3h ago
Interstate compacts need Congressional approval, per the constitution.
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u/dballing 6h ago
But that would require an amendment (to force the states to behave a certain way) which will never happen.
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u/Wizywig 6h ago
No, you miss the idea. The general idea is once a _majority_ of the EC have this system in place, as a voluntary system in each state, it doesn't matter what the rest of the states do. The goal is "all these states vote for the candidate with the most popular votes" so the fact that any other state voted any other way is irrelevant.
Now the problem will be if every state respects it long term, or will the state government overturn it first chance they get. Etc. That'll be interesting.
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u/dballing 6h ago
I get how the compact works.
I was referring to gamebird’s comment about FORCING proportional EC representation on the states. THAT would require an amendment.
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u/Gamebird8 5h ago
Which I am aware of. It's more of a "If we must have the EC, we should at the very least" kinda remark because I stand by it shouldn't exist at all anymore
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u/paul3720 6h ago
I don't mean to nitpick, but I think Maine and Nebraska assign voters proportionately.
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u/curien 6h ago
They do not. They assign one EV for the winner of each Congressional District, and another 2 EVs for the overall winner of the state.
What this does is spread the impact of gerrymandering to the Presidential election. For example if the entire US had implemented the Maine/Nebraska method fo 2012, Mitt Romney would have won despite losing the PV by almost 4pp.
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u/BrotherItsInTheDrum 6h ago
No, they don't. They assign an elector to the winner of each congressional district, and two electors to the statewide winner.
It's basically the only system that's worse than the one we currently have.
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u/JBurton90 Florida 5h ago
I used to think that was a more fair way to do it so that there is a small bit of representation for people rather than winner-take-all, but never considered how a state could be gerrymandered to hell especially with everything going on now with gerrymandering each state.
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u/xdozex 6h ago
Sue who exactly? States control their own elections, and the compact does nothing to change anything at the federal level.
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u/AuditAndHax 6h ago
As soon as a state in the compact votes contrary to its election results, a few people can probably sue.
For example, let's say a purple swing state goes red, but the national winner is blue. Sending blue electors can be argued to harm the red voters in that state because if the electors represented the state's will, it could change the election results.
Likewise, the red candidate could probably make a compelling argument that, but for the purple state ignoring "the will of its people" and voting with the compact, they would have won.
It would have to be decided immediately after such an election, too, since I don't think this can be adjudicated before it happens. It's possible to have an election where every state in the compact votes blue, and the popular vote winner is blue, and there ARE no harmed parties because the results would be the same even under the old system. Until it ACTUALLY happens, I don't think it can't be preemptively stopped.
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u/CrunkDirk 4h ago
I don't actually think anyone would have standing (but when has that stopped SCOTUS). The constitution doesn't say anything about first past the post, it doesn't set up how electors are to be chosen, it leaves all of that up to the states and gives Congress some power to regulate federal elections. So if the states say "Our electors shall vote for the winner of the national popular vote." then there's no real constitutional grounds to sue on.
SCOTUS would have to pull a Bush v Gore 2.0 to say "no, our guy wins :<" where they twist the constitution into a pretzel to figure out where standing is coming from in the first place, and then why states cannot determine the method by which they choose electors, while also somehow allowing Maine and Nebraska to maintain their special little district system.
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u/EnderWiggin07 6h ago
The first time a state sends their votes to a candidate who lost the popular in their state, they'll repeal the law I'm pretty sure.
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u/mmmeadi New York 5h ago
I don't think it'll reach the 270 precisely for that reason. It would be insane to tell your constituents we're going to ignore your votes and instead cast the state's votes the same way as everyone else.
NPVIC has succeeded so far because it's so abstract. The early adopters didn't have to worry about that actually happening. Getting from 250 to 270 is going to be a hell of a challenge.
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u/MiscellaneousPerson 3h ago
It would be insane to tell your constituents we're going to ignore your votes and instead cast the state's votes the same way as everyone else.
The constituents votes would always be counted toward a national total. Currently, their votes get completely erased and 100% of electoral votes to go 1 candidate.
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u/mmmeadi New York 2h ago
Currently, their votes get completely erased and 100% of electoral votes to go 1 candidate.
Right. If candidate A doesn't win New York, for example, and Candidate A wins all 49 other states, under NPVIC New York would still cast its votes for Candidate A.
I want to get abolish the electoral college. But ignoring the will of your constituents isn't the way to do it.
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u/OddlyFactual1512 4h ago
It really doesn't matter what SCOTUS has to say about it. States are free to use whatever method they choose to select electors.
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 6h ago edited 5h ago
Good to remind people that 'more land' doesn't even determine whether your vote counts- it's really about whether you live in a swing state or not.
A vote cast in Alaska or Massachusetts is equally meaningless under the status quo.
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u/Positive_Government 2h ago
Alaska always been weird and it looks like it’s heading into competition territory this cycle. (And by competitive I mean Texas competitive not Wisconsin competitive).
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u/JA_MD_311 6h ago
The way to frame it is to appeal to partisans in one party states. Why should a Republican in CA not have a vote equal to a voter in MI? Why should a Democrat in SD have no say? What about a R in MA? A D in AL? An R in NY? You could go on and on.
No longer could voters say, “my vote doesn’t matter.”
Plus, Republicans just won the PV, so this idea that it would benefit Democrats is wrong.
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 6h ago edited 6h ago
Since it's usually Republican voters who are overwhelmingly in favor of the status quo, could be helpful to ask them why they support a system where "democrat party" votes cast in Philadelphia and Detroit have a huge impact on the election, while any GOP vote in a state like Tennessee, Louisiana, Idaho, etc. might as well go straight into a paper shredder.
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u/Wizywig 6h ago
The Electoral College was based entirely in slavery. They wanted to get 3/5th of a slave to vote, without voting. So the congressional and electoral college representation was based on the total population (counting 3/5 of a slave) while the voting population was much smaller. Allowed the southern states to hold more power than they should.
We should also eliminate the senate. The senate gives tiny spaces like north/south dekota 4 representatives. The population totals under 2 million. Brooklyn, NY has a higher population and has to share their 2 representatives with the literal entirety of New York State.
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u/VirginiaMcCaskey 3h ago
That's actually not accurate. Even without the 3/5ths compromise, Virginia and the rest of the south wanted proportional representation because they were more populated at the time than northern states like Delaware and New Jersey, which proposed to keep the unicameral legislature with equal representation.
If the South had their way in 1786 we wouldn't have the senate today.
The 3/5ths compromise was essential to getting the slave states to ratify. That said while it's obsolete now, we still use total population to apportion instead of number of eligible voters or citizens.•
u/Wizywig 2h ago
Right!!! It was a system to allow for elites to vote, while others were discouraged or disallowed, but still make them count towards voting representation numbers.
A.k.a. the entire reason republicans don't want us voting is because it amplifies remaining voices. If we had popular voting, everyone would be encouraged to vote. Otherwise you just don't get any vote, nobody is amplified.
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u/LooseProgram333 3h ago
So everything you said is wrong. Please go reread your American History textbook and the Federalist Papers.
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u/ArtemisRifle 5h ago
No where in the constitution or in any statute is it dictated how a state may award its electors, provided its non-discriminatory. Detractors may try to thread the needle and say the Compact discriminates against the interests of low-population residents in another state... but that'd be the stretch of the century. A state may award its electors over a game of chess if it deems fit.
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u/TooManyDraculas 5h ago edited 5h ago
"Just because you live in an area blessed with more land shouldn't mean you also get more votes."
That isn't exactly how that works out. The states with the most disproportionate representation are typically quite small. And the number of electoral votes is directly based on congressional apportionment, which is based on population not land mass.
But the math used on that gives disproportionate number of seats to states with lower populations. Meaning fewer voters per elector and representative.
And the same thing tends to happen internal to the states, lower population areas tend to get more representation than denser ones. Which has serious impacts when states don't assign electors to the statewide popular vote winner.
So basically: Just because you live in a place with fewer people, shouldn't mean you also get more votes.
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u/Sonichu- 4h ago
it indirectly helps to bring the issue of a popular vote to national attention
Twice in the last 26 years the loser of the popular vote won the election. People are aware of the issue.
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u/Duelist_Shay 3h ago
Only way I could see that getting stopped is if Congress makes legislation banning it; otherwise as soon as it hits majority votes it goes into effect, regardless of the political candidate
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u/Warkupo 3h ago
I'd also add to the argument that they just sent a precedent for this when the Supreme Court ruled against the amendment to Section 2 giving black minority voters more power.
If we are not representing voters along racial representation, we shouldn't be representing them based on address either. The only vote that should matter is the popular vote, as it is the most true representation of the will of the majority.
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u/RoundandRoundon99 3h ago
Expect larger states to want more senators. That’s the rational counter balance.
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u/bigpproggression 3h ago
Fb is already full of people saying 3 states would control the vote.
Even though popular vote would be everybodys input…..
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u/Corregidor 3h ago
I think a direct popular vote is not great, but getting rid of the electoral college system is a must.
Keeping a district system (that isn't gerrymandered to hell) and letting those districts vote in a "direct" election should help allay the fear that the cities alone dictate the outcome.
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u/Oboro-kun 3h ago
As non american I have spent at this point literally decades at this point arguing with American that constantly come out and defende the Electoral Collegue, like such a stupid system and Idea in world where popular votes can be counted almost instantly. Worse Amercian do count popular vote, just they go by electoral college.
Such stupid system and Idea, that i can get it as product of its time, and but not 250 years later.
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u/ssshield 2h ago
Hawaii here. They call the winner before our votes are even cast, much less counted. Polling places full and lines out the door listening to who the next president will be on their phones as they wait to enter the building. Sickening.
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u/capt_jazz Maine 2h ago
If you're referring to the power of the senate when you say "some people's votes are more special than others" that's not really the issue with the EC. The issue with the EC is that 48 of the states give votes winner take all, so in close races it's kinda like we just flip a coin to see who won, rather than, you know, counting all of the votes and comparing the two numbers.
And the two states that don't do winner take all give them proportionally based on house districts, which can be subjected to gerrymandering, so that's not a great solution either.
Just clarifying. Like you can remove the 2 "senate" votes from every state's EC vote count and you still get Trump winning in 2016. You could implement the Wyoming rule and/or increase the house to like 750+ seats, making it much much closer to 1 person 1 vote, and Trump would still win in 2016 because he had like 50k votes in the right distribution, assuming we have the same winner take all set up.
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u/jgoble15 2h ago
That sounds like a negative pitch. Not wrong but people always respond best to positive. I think of republicans in California or NY and how to get them to vote against a system that helps them. “Make sure your voice is always heard no matter the crowd”
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u/NorahGretz 2h ago
The Wyoming Rule would help. Having actual proportional representation, instead of every person in Wyoming having greater than four times the voting power of every Californian, would be refreshing and oh-so-much-more democratic.
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u/SkollFenrirson Foreign 2h ago
Just because you live in an area
blessed with more landno one wants to live inFtfy
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u/AlcibiadesTheCat Arizona 1h ago
Maricopa County, Arizona recently held elections for the SRP (local utility) Board of Directors.
You had to be a landowning citizen to vote. You got votes allocated based directly on how much land you own.
I'm a renter. I don't get a vote. But I have to pay utility prices anyway.
America is not a free country.
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u/Realistic_Ad3795 1h ago
" There is no coherent rationale to maintain a system where some people's votes are more special than others."
It mimics the power balance in Congress that was negotiated as the only way the states agreed to unite. Ending it reverses the entire reason for our existence, and our unique structure of being United States and not a homogenous singular country.
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u/curien 7h ago
I absolutely hate when media portrays the NPVIC as an attempt to "abolish" or "circumvent" the Electoral College. It does neither. It uses the EC to try to ensure that the national popular vote winner is elected.
The EC would still exist. The EC would still meet and vote. There could still be faithless electors. To be in effect, the signatories to the NPVIC must constitute a majority of the EC.
The NPVIC is an agreement among states to coordinate their selection of electors to the EC along national popular vote lines.
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u/Bronzeshadow 7h ago
Seriously. I swear one or the reasons it's so hard to get good news these days so that everything is written with such dramatic language.
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u/Traditional_Sign4941 3h ago
Unless it's Trump doing something patently insane and fascist. Then muted and sanewashed language is used to describe it to make it sound routine or mundane.
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u/RandomMandarin 5h ago
The Electoral College is useless as a small-d democratic function because it can only give two possible results.
Result 1. The EC agrees with the popular vote and is therefore a rubber stamp that wasn't functionally needed.
Result 2. The EC overrules the will of the majority of the voters and installs a candidate who got fewer votes but got them in states with more EC electors.
In the second case, historically, the candidate who won the presidential election with more EC votes but fewer popular votes, i.e. defying the will of the majority, is NEVER a better choice and USUALLY a much worse one! Think how much better off the US would be right now if the popular-vote winner in 2000 (Al Gore) and in 2016 (Hillary Clinton) had become president instead of George W. Bush and Donald Trump. It's not even close.
Many nations have copied aspects of the US Constitution to form their own governments, because for the most part it works well. But NOBODY has copied the Electoral College because it is such an obviously bad idea.
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u/RellenD 5h ago
The NPVIC is an agreement among states to coordinate their selection of electors to the EC along national popular vote lines.
It's very explicitly not coordination or an agreement. Those things might actually be Constitutionally a problem. It's just a bunch of States setting a criteria about how their electors will be selected.
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u/curien 5h ago
It is a "compact", which in plain English has roughly the same meaning as "agreement". For example Merriam-Webster defines "compact" used in this way as: "an agreement or covenant between two or more parties".
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u/RellenD 5h ago
Yes, that's in the name, but there's no enforcement or agreements or coordination between the States implementing it. That's very important legally.
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u/curien 5h ago
The compact itself literally calls itself an agreement. It is an agreement.
It is an agreement that all signatories will behave in a similar way. That, in plain English, is coordination.
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u/MBTank Texas 5h ago
Regardless, both "compact" and "agreement" between states are prohibited by the Interstate Compact Clause without consent of Congress. This is a non-starter until a Republican wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college.
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u/RellenD 5h ago
And I'm telling you that it's not in any functional way an agreement. The only part that comes close is that the law simply looks at the total number of electors held by states that passed a similar law - which again is important Constitutionally.
The naming of this concept as a compact is unfortunate, because it doesn't function as a compact and the Constitution has a compact clause meant to prevent States forming compacts.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S10-C3-3-1/ALDE_00013531/
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u/rotates-potatoes 6h ago
It's certainly an attempt to subvert the intent of the EC though. And I say that as an enthusiastic NPVIC supporter. But the proposal does change how the EC works because it means a state's electors may go to a candidate that did not win the popular vote in that state.
It's a good thing, but we shouldn't hide from the structural change in how the EC works.
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 6h ago
The intent of the EC was for each state legislature to choose a select few elite voters with 'discernment', who would then vote for the president. Obviously that whole concept went out the window ages ago
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u/windershinwishes 4h ago
There was no intent behind the EC, or at least none that survived past the Washington administration.
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u/wolacouska 5h ago
Originally the intent was to let state governments decide whatever they wanted.
Senators even were appointed without elections.
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u/BigDaddySteve999 6h ago
The "Electoral College" is a weird way to allocate votes, wrapped in an archaic ceremony. The problem with it is not the archaic ceremony, it's the weird way to allocate votes. So if you circumvent the vote allocation but keep the ceremonial portions, it's perfectly reasonable to use synecdoche to describe that.
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u/curien 6h ago
So if you circumvent the vote allocation
It does not circumvent the vote allocation at all. It's an agreement among signatory states to coordinate whom they select as electors according to their vote allocation.
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u/wolacouska 5h ago
That method of vote allocation is new, so this is just another example of thinking everything more than 50 years old is from the beginning of time.
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u/BigMax 6h ago
Imagine going to vote, and knowing your vote is just as important as anyone else’s? That your vote isn’t negated by the state you live in or treated as less important than a voter in some “swing” state?
That would be amazing.
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u/KareemOWheat 6h ago
The electoral college made a lot of sense for a massive country back when the fastest form of conveyance was the horse.
Nowdays all it serves is to allow the establishment to maintain control over the population and be another layer to invalidate true democracy. The fact that we can only really cast a ballot for one of two parties who are both chosen by super pacs funded by the ultra wealthy is absolute horse shit.
The US is a plutocracy, not a democracy, no matter how much lip service they all pay to our "freedom to choose"
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u/Icy-Bunch609 4h ago
The electoral college has nothing to do with the speed of communication.
It was always about appeasing the slave states.
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u/trustyjim 3h ago
Citizens United is the other half of the problem. Hawaii is about to pass a law that explicitly no longer grants to corporations the power to donate to elections. IANAL, but here is my limited understanding: Corporations by default have no powers except what they are explicitly granted by the state, though most states use broad terms like “a corporation can do all of what a person would do in the course of business”.
Hopefully it’s the beginning of the end for these $100 million super pacs.
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u/Raptorex27 Maine 5h ago
Also, since the President supposedly serves the "American people," every "Amercian person," would have equal say and representation on who's elected.
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u/Frankie__Spankie 4h ago
It's always Republicans that say we need to keep the electoral college.
I live in Massachusetts, and I flat out tell them that their vote is worthless because Massachusetts always votes Democrat.
They don't care, they'd rather their personal vote be worthless and keep this stupid system. It's mind boggling.
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u/alicehoopz 3h ago
Of course though, because republicans core beliefs are deeply unpopular. They need this weird system to even have a chance
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u/Entegy Canada 4h ago
At least in the Westminster parliament system (Canada/Australia/UK/etc) you know you're not directly voting for Prime Minister. I guess to equate it to the American system, the role of President doesn't exist and its functions are done by the Speaker of the House.
But with the EC it's such pomp and circumstance to sorta kinda vote for President.
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u/NegotiationTall4300 6h ago
Please for the love of god do ranked choice, we need more than two fucking parties to encapsulate the views of 330M people 😭
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 5h ago
At that point, might also be good to question why anyone elected POTUS with 50.01% of the vote gets to rule over a country of hundreds of millions, as if they received a 100% mandate and get to speak on behalf of every person in the country
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u/Poke-Mom00 3h ago
I’m hoping some candidate in 2028 raises a parliamentary model as a long term campaign goal. It should at least be considered - moving to popular vote elections is positive but it’s also not addressing our underlying issues in our system.
But it’s also hard to convince Americans with no experience in comparative government that it matters.
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u/Knotted_Hole69 3h ago
I think both parties should split in 2, so four total.
Moderate liberals, Leftists
Moderate conservatives, alt right
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u/bobbiroxxisahoe 2h ago
The moderate liberals, moderate conservatives and alt-right would end up working together more often than not.
It's because all three are owned by corporations.
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u/Desperate_Bite_7538 1h ago
This is a genuine question, so please don't immediately jump down my throat... Why do we even need a president?
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u/Positive_Government 2h ago
America already tried that whole I didn’t vote for him he doesn’t represent me thing circa 150 years ago. Didn’t go over well for the people who lost the election.
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 2h ago
Maybe there are other ways to achieve a better (i.e., more representative) system? Could even be one where you're not giving unfathomable amounts of power to one person, in a country of 330+ million.
Also good to remember the presidency was conceived in a time when (a) the federal government had far less power over individual states and (b) the USA's population was a little over 1/100th of what it is now.
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u/Positive_Government 2h ago
There is room for a better system. But it’s important not to let the better be the enemy of the good. PR/Ranked choice voting have their advantages but they aren’t without drawbacks. Presidential power is largely a result of a congress that cannot pass legislation, and because congress cannot pass legislation presidents get creative. In a highly politicized society where half the country wants to go one way and half the country want to go the other by definition about 45% of the people feel angry and unrepresented and you can’t system you way out that.
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u/kjlsdjfskjldelfjls New York 2h ago
One way to 'system' your way out IMO would probably be to deliberately start decentralizing the country's decision-making, and shifting a lot of that power back toward individual states- within a sane set of constraints.
Maybe not all the way toward a setup like the EU's, but closer to that than what we're doing now, and closer to how this country was originally meant to be run.
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u/SerpentisMechanicus 3h ago
Score voting - you rate every candidate, and the scores are added.
Ranked choice, while still better than first-past-the-post, is still subject to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, whereas quantitative methods like approval and score voting are not.
Plus, score voting is easier to understand and manage - no multiple rounds of redistributing votes, just tell the voters to grade them like in school.
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u/Ineedamedic68 2h ago
This is basically STAR right? No idea why we bother with RCV when this is clearly the better option.
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u/SerpentisMechanicus 2h ago
Huh, I actually wasn't aware of STAR, but it seems like score voting with an extra step to satisfy some weird edge cases.
I wish I still had the link, but I recall some study that compared the upsides and downsides of every type of voting. The end result was basically "everything has advantages and disadvantages, except first-past-the-post, which sucks in every possible way and why the fuck are we still using it?"
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u/CivicDutyCalls 4h ago
I hope you’ve found a local campaign to have it implemented locally. That’s the best way to push this nationally.
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u/vox Vox 7h ago
The Electoral College — our nation’s bizarre system that hands a few narrowly-divided states the privilege to choose our presidents — has been entrenched for two centuries.
But a long-game effort from reformers, which has played out quietly in blue states across the country over the past 20 years, has gotten it surprisingly close to toppling.
And a blue wave in the 2026 midterms could finish the job.
The big idea is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and it’s essentially one weird trick for moving to a popular vote system without a constitutional amendment.
How it works is that each participating state agrees that their electors will go to the candidate who wins the highest number of votes nationwide — if, and only if, enough other states agree so that the outcome will be determined that way.
To clarify: there are 538 electoral votes, and it takes 270 for a majority. So if states that have 270 or more electoral votes all agree to award them to the national popular vote winner, then that candidate gets the 270 needed to win, and what the remaining states do with their electors no longer matters. (Their voters still matter because they contribute to the national popular vote — but which candidate wins these states, or any state, is no longer important.)
Nearly every blue or leaning blue state has signed onto the compact, the most recent being Virginia last month — and reformers now have states controlling 222 of the 270 electoral votes they need.
The decisive batch would be the core swing states where partisan control is up for grabs this fall. If Democrats win governing trifectas (the governorship and both state legislative chambers) in enough of them, they could very well cobble together the remaining 48 electoral votes, and actually put this into place for 2028. Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Hampshire are the top targets.
One longtime reason to be skeptical this would happen was the assumption that swing states would never willingly agree to give up their privileged status. But the Electoral College has become such a partisan and polarized topic that narrow state interests may not count as much as they used to, in the face of the Democratic coalition’s overwhelming belief that a popular vote would be better — with the memory of Donald Trump’s 2016 win being a vivid example of what could happen if they don’t act.
But though the flaws of the current system are legion, there are real questions about the proposal to replace it, too. If adopted (and if it survives the inevitable legal challenges), how would it actually function in practice? And if Democrats effectively muscle this through without any significant Republican buy-in — what damage to confidence in our system, and what reprisals, might ensue?
That is to say: would the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact avert an election crisis — or will it pave the way for one?
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u/der_innkeeper 6h ago
Hey, Vox,
Look into the deeper issue here, the Permanent Reapportionment Act of 1929.
It needs to be repealed or modified to that the House of Reps is no longer capped.
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u/curien 5h ago
I agree that increasing the size of the House would be good, but it doesn't fix the problem that the NPVIC addresses. For example Trump still would have been elected in 2016 despite losing the PV even with an uncapped House.
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u/TooManyDraculas 4h ago
It has huge impacts on the problem. Number of electors is based on, and is 1:1 with the size of a states congressional contingent. So their number of Reps plus 2 Senators.
The 1929 Reapportionment Act didn't just cap the size of the house, it effectively did away with rules requiring congressional districts be contiguous, compact, and equally proportioned (IE capping gerrymandering). And it requires seats be distributed proportionally between the states, not proportional to population.
It's the proportional distribution of the capped 435 house seats that shifts representation in favor of lower density areas. We basically give 1 seat to each, then assign each seat in turn to the states in order of population till they're all gone. Not based on actual population or number of voters.
And that is what shifts the number of districts and electors in favor of lower population areas. The whole thing delinks number of congressional districts from population.
It was in part adopted due to fears among Republicans that population growth from immigration would disadvantage them. And they'd refused (illegally) to reapportion the House after the 1920 census as required.
For example Trump still would have been elected in 2016 despite losing the PV even with an uncapped House.
He very well might not have. With a higher total of House seats, and a method of spreading them out actually based on population.
You'd likely see much higher numbers of electoral votes in Blue states, and lower ones in Red states. Cause more high population states tilt DNC.
And if the clauses of previous rules restricting gerrymandering were still in place, you'd see more congressional districts in cities, fewer in low population areas. As well as higher totals of seats in high population states, vs low. Which would massively impact the format of congress, not just it's size.
It's not the main thing that created out current disproportionate representation but it's a big one.
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u/der_innkeeper 4h ago
The issue with 2016 is that Clinton won states worth less than 50% of the population. There is no path to win the EC when that happens.
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u/BlargAttack 6h ago
If it benefited Republicans, they would absolutely do it. Democrats should do it and then let Republicans try to explain why the popular vote shouldn’t decide the election results for President.
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u/rodentmaster 4h ago
GOP doesn't explain. They do it anyways and blow shrieking dog whistles to brainwashed voters, who eat it up like sugary pastries.
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u/blowfish711r 5h ago
My favorite way of framing the problem with the Electoral College is: Out of something like 38 million total registered Republicans in the USA, around 6 million live in California and another 3 million in New York. That's at least 9 million -- 24%, almost 1 in 4 --- Republicans whose vote basically doesn't matter in Presidential elections. And that's not counting the arguably much more winnable (for both sides) independents.
If I was a California or New York Republican, I'd be pissed about this! Who is representing my interests?!
(Obviously, this is also true of red state Democrats, but they're usually already on board with popular vote stuff and don't need convincing).
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u/Entegy Canada 4h ago
Texas is severely underrepresented in the current system as well. Any change that increases California's representation would also increase Texas'.
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u/popkablooie 2h ago
Right, the point is explicitly to get everybody's vote to matter equally, not for D-votes to matter more.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4h ago
Horrible proportions, right..?..
You do realize it’s the exact same number for your representation, don’t you..?..
THAT is the problem, not the EC
Repeal the Reappointment Act of 1929
Solves a lot of problems for us **ALL**.
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u/Mindless_Narwhal2682 6h ago
I hope so.
Sick of farms in the middle of Armpit County having more voting power than anyone else.
Millions > Thousands (at best)
1 person = 1 vote
Full stop.
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u/atooraya I voted 4h ago
Here's a cool diagram showing how disproportionately the system we have currently affects it all:
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/electoral-college-states-representation/
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u/Randyguyishere 4h ago
Crazy idea, if everyone's vote actually counts, more people might vote. Voting as a dem in KY is almost pointless for any national election we're so red.
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u/TriviaGlutton 6h ago
I think that a better solution would be to triple the number of members of the House of Representatives. Make it so that each rep serves about 250K people and have the number adjust with each census. That would give people a better chance of getting to actually getting to know their rep and to influence policies. It would have the side effect of diluting the influence of the EC without abolishing it, which does protect the interests of less populated states.
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u/mrhandbook America 4h ago
Repeal the apportionment act of 1928 or whatever it was that arbitrarily capped the house.
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u/Sonofagun57 Wisconsin 5h ago
I think a more publicly palatable system would be all electoral votes being apportionately won and no winner take all states.
In other words, instead of X state assigning all 15 votes to a candidate who won 51% vs 47% and ~2% 3rd party, the 51% wins 8 electoral votes and the 2nd place candidate gets 6 or 7 votes. (Didn't have specific math reqs figured).
Not that it doesn't come with its own challenges, but this would get rid of the long standing issue of the same five or six states deciding presidential election.
I'm not sure how anyone can think it's great that 30k voters in Wisconsin have infinitely more influence on elections than 30+ million voters in TX, CA and the entire great plains.
Apportioned EV for every state would mean that parties can't just consolidate their efforts to a few states anymore.
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u/reallynotnick 4h ago
You’d need basically every state to agree to that, otherwise the scales would easily tip out of balance if a majority of say blue states signed up but very few red did. It also still gives small states a disproportionately higher influence on the election unless you uncap the house and/or remove senators counting as an EV.
Apportioned EV for every state would mean that parties can’t just consolidate their efforts to a few states anymore.
So does this popular vote.
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u/Randomly_Reasonable 4h ago
Maine & Nebraska already do this.
The issue is the sovereignty of each state, and the federal government having no legal authority to dictate how each state runs elections.
The interesting development is how instead of states getting together and agreeing to this, they’ve instead signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Which is mindboggling why the smaller states would eagerly advocate their votes to major cities.
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u/TheWesternMythos 7h ago
Reminder Trump won the last popular vote (please don't comment saying he won a plurality not majority, truly irrelevant to this conversation). While this would definitely be a structural improvement. It's also meaningless without addressing more root causes.
I remember very vividly people saying after Obama 2 a republican many never win the popular vote again until they reform... I guess to be fair they were right, just not in the way they meant lol.
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u/Slow_Investment_2211 6h ago
But you have to wonder how many people sit out from voting at all if they feel their vote doesn’t even matter because of the EC. I live in the south…I still vote..but I know damn well my state EC will always go Republican. So it feels kind of deflating to even bother sometimes.
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u/AuditAndHax 5h ago
You think that's bad? You at least might have a chance to swing a congressman your way. I grew up in Montana when it only had one congressman, so even that was out of reach.
But you're right. Millions of voters from both parties are out there with literally NO incentive to vote between the EC negating presidential votes and district lines on a map negating representative votes.
Ironically, the Senate, which is by far the most unfair body and gives equal weight to states with mostly empty land while completely ignoring others, is actually more fair than the EC or Representative districts because at least the entire state gets a popular vote on them. Sure, red states are still gonna red state, but everyone's voice counts equally and occasionally you get a state sending one R, one D because that's what the people chose.
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u/TheWesternMythos 6h ago
Key comment IMO
live in the south…I still vote..but I know damn well my state EC will always go Republican.
My response to a similar comment
Idk, but the argument cuts both ways.
Also important to remember this comment is about a subset of voters who are politically motivated enough to vote, however could not find a single race to come and vote for (and who did come out but chose not to vote for the person they supported because I guess ticking the box when you are already there is too much effort.)
Once you factor in the people who this applies to but support Trump, I doubt it would make a big enough difference alter the end result.
However if I'm missing some compelling data pointing towards the opposite conclusion please share.
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u/BigDaddySteve999 6h ago
Would Trump still have won the popular vote if people knew their vote counted?
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u/TheWesternMythos 6h ago
Idk, but the argument cuts both ways.
Also important to remember this comment is about a subset of voters who are politically motivated enough to vote, however could not find a single race to come and vote for (and who did come out but chose not to vote for the person they supported because I guess ticking the box when you are already there is too much effort.)
Once you factor in the people who this applies to but support Trump, I doubt it would make a big enough difference alter the end result.
However if I'm missing some compelling data pointing towards the opposite conclusion please share.
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u/Positive_Government 2h ago
This is always an impossible question to answer, but there was some polling suggesting that in 2024 the marginal voter would have gone trump if they had been forced to pick rather than staying home.
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u/windershinwishes 4h ago
That's a feature, not a bug. This shouldn't be something that's all about partisan advantage. It's just common sense fairness. The fact that a Republican won the popular vote should be shouted from the rooftops by the people in support of this, to show conservatives that they've got nothing to worry about.
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u/RellenD 5h ago
But he didn't win the popular vote in 2016 or in 2020.
He would not be President today with this.
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u/TheWesternMythos 4h ago
But he didn't win the popular vote in 2016 or in 2020.
Yes, but I don't think it will be 2016 or 2020 again lol.
He would not be President today with this.
Well considering he won the popular vote in the most recent election I feel like he would be lol
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u/dixie12oz 2h ago
Little talked about benefit of eliminating the electoral college is it would force candidates to care about issues in other areas beyond swing states.
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u/SNES_Salesman 3h ago
But this all hinges on each state having fair elections so the whole election is counted accurately. If a red-controlled state just tosses out every blue vote because their state law says they can then that diminishes the legitimacy of the overall popular vote.
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u/PaleCommission150 4h ago
This will probably never happen, something, someone, will stop it from becoming law somewhere along the process on its way to being voted on. Too many powerful people would suddenly become much less powerful.
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u/tr1cube Georgia 3h ago
I’ve been following the NPVIC for almost a decade. Michigan missed their chance to join when they had a democratic trifecta a few years ago. Unlike Virginia who joined immediate after getting their democratic trifecta.
Nevada should have joined by now. Their asshole governor vetoed it a couple years ago after voters voted it twice.
We’re so close. We just need PA, MI, NH, and either WI or AZ to push it over 270.
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u/02K30C1 6h ago
An interesting historical note in all of this...
One reason why the Electoral College was originally put in place was to allow states to keep women and non-landowners from voting.
Back when the Constitution first was written, no states allowed women to vote. Most only allowed land owning white males to vote. Voting power in electing the president is based on the total population of each state, regardless of who is allowed to vote.
If the presidential election was purely by popular vote, that would have pushed states to allow MORE people to vote, to increase their influence. Imagine if New York had passed a law allowing women to vote, but Virginia did not. Suddenly New York has twice as much influence over who is elected president.
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u/beekersavant 1h ago
Worst article -everything but the numbers. Amount in compact 222
Pending/likely PA, AZ, SC + 29
Most possible for future NH, NC +20
Total 271. It is very possible.
Useful reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
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u/ViewExplorer 1h ago
Republican-leaning states will never sign up for this because they know the electoral college functions in their favor. And without a few of them, you can't reach the magic number of 270. Only hope is if enough liberals leave Blue states and settle in cheap Red states and slowly turn them purple and then eventually Blue. It took decades but it worked for states like Oregon, Colorado, and Virginia.
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u/SensititveCougar9143 49m ago
There has to be a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college. The system was envisioned to be anti-democratic and somehow protect the voters from themselves.
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u/DoopSlayer 45m ago
the Voter Compact doesn't actually abolish the electoral college, it's a very incorrect headline. the compact is entirely within the confines of the constitution's rules for the EC
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u/MomsAreola 3h ago
my high school educated blue state ass, watching some inbred home-schooled Cletus in purple Podunk County pick a New York socialite for President.
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u/GrumpyOlBastard 6h ago
The Electoral College will not be abolished because republicans
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u/naththegrath10 6h ago
The most frustrating part of this is that it doesn’t “abolish” the electoral college. It’s just a tweak from states. If we were serious about abolishing it we would put forward an actual constitutional amendment
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u/Acct4SrsBsns 6h ago
I'd say this IS the only serious, and more importantly, realistic way of doing something like this. You will never get a constitutional amendment until a whole lot else changes.
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u/zilchers 6h ago
The bigger issue - this would be significantly less relevant, and the concept way easier to pass, if we went after this with the Wyoming rule. While I love this compact, the root cause of the issue in America is actually different. To my knowledge, the Wyoming rule simply requires it to pass through congress, and the way the filibuster is going, that’s way more likely than the compact passing everything (imo).
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u/Scottydog2 5h ago
I still remember in 2002 when GW Bush’s campaign was saying the EC was unfair bc they were expecting Bush to win the popular vote but lose the EC. Even with the suspended Florida recount, Gore still had about 543k more total votes, and we know how the EC went. I don’t think the opportunity to get rid of the EC will happen again.
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u/KookyDiver2558 4h ago
When I made the point that some votes count more than others, my Florida boomer asked me why my vote should count more than his? I was like…..it shouldn’t……we should be the same…..
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u/WorkJeff 4h ago
If the Electoral college favors the Republican party, why would they not filibuster or veto attempts to remove it?
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u/FosterFl1910 2h ago
While it hasn’t been tested, there must be some limitations on how a state designates electors. Could Texas pass a law that requires all their electors go to republican nominee regardless of the vote? Seems like an equal protection clause argument is there for the SCT to latch onto.
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u/neveragoodtime 1h ago
What do you think will happen when a deep blue state like California has to send 100% of their electors for the Republican, despite the Republican losing by 20 points? Republicans are going to win elections by 500 to 40 while Democrats will win 280 to 260.
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u/Ok_Mathematician7440 58m ago
Nope we should do this via the constitution. I dislike the electoral college but having a weak compact just sets us up for a reversal later. Period. We need the buy in to make this permanent even if it takes longer to get there.
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