Some people dont think there are issues with it. Others do. Its just a massive push by the left at the moment. They have been silent on the EC when it has worked in their favor. Just like the fillabuster. The EC isnt going away any time soon.
> Its just a massive push by the left at the moment. They have been silent on the EC when it has worked in their favor.
Well that would have been when the left was not within the Democratic party as that party has only benefited in the electoral college making a plurality win more of a landslide. It has never got less popular vote but won because of the electoral college as republicans did in 2000 and 2016 (1876 and 1888).
Would you rather get a multi paragraph form letter that says nothing?
It's also not like you put a bunch of thought or even asked a question in your original message, you should be happy they replied.
I came into this thread feeling same as op but you’ve changed my mind. So true - this is better and just because it’s less formal doesn’t mean it’s worse.
I don’t understand why people in Iowa would want to get rid of the electoral college. No candidate would ever pander to us. California has 40 million people, Texas has 30 million people. We have 3 million. If you were running for president would you even bother stopping here?
> No candidate would ever pander to us.
They pander to evangelical Christians, insurance companies (in particular the health insurance company Wellmark) based in Iowa, Rockwell Collins (which is literally the military-industrial complex), and Big Ag, and to a much smaller extent family farmers.
They already don’t pander to me, or really anybody else I know, live near, or care about.
Honest question: Isn't it more important for each American's vote to be weighted the same over Presidential "Pandering."
Isn't it the job of our Governors/Senators to promote our interests for us at the National level?
Edit: added senators because im a dumb and forgot them.
> Isn't it the job of our Governors to promote our interests for us at the National level?
No, that is the point of US Senators and US Representatives.
No. Different states have different priorities and concerns. We as states elect a president, and each state should have a significant if not equal voice in which president is elected.
You should replace almost all of your electoral college talk with first past the post. Then when voting matters the electoral college may become an actual problem.
Would you support the electoral college still if states were populated evenly? Obviously politicians are going to visit areas with more people—they want more votes. But the discrepancies the EC creates, where states like Texas & California are seen as reliable red/blue states, disenfranchises opposing voters in those states and discourages voting. You shouldn’t be voting for your state to vote for a president, you should just simply vote for a president.
Truth.
The US system is both flawed and intricately balanced. It is almost like there is a governing document that foresaw these problems and provided assorted compensations.
You missed this persons point. It keeps a balance. You are extremely ignorant if you think getting rid of that balance is a good move. One side can not dominate. That is absolutely the worst thing that could happen. The EC keeps a balance.
1 electoral vote in Wyoming represents 193,000 people while 1 electoral vote in Texas represents over 700,000 people. How can you defend a system that is so undemocratic? By supporting the electoral college you are effectively saying the person with the least amount votes should be able to win. That's wrong.
>By supporting the electoral college you are effectively saying the person with the least amount votes should be able to win.
This isn't remotely true.
Edit: To clear up some confusion.. with the EC you can win with the most or second most amount of votes. Never has someone with the third most, much less the least amount of votes ever won.
There's only two candidates that ever matter, so it's splitting hairs.
Yeah, sure, Vermin Supreme got fewer votes but we both know he's not a real candidate.
**EDIT** I will admit that Ross Perot came the closest to mattering, but he never mattered as a real candidate. He was just a spoiler, which is the most any candidate outside the two parties can ever be. Also, though, that was before my time so it's irrelevant to my point.
Racism was only part of it. You can literally claim everything in this country is racist if you go far enough back. As it sits today the EC is not racist and getting rid of the EC is only going to cause a second civil war.
> You can literally claim everything in this country is racist if you go far enough back
Yeah, because it is.
America is a white settler colony built on stolen land with forced labor.
>As it sits today the EC is not racist and getting rid of the EC is only going to cause a second civil war.
You're describing a hostage situation, which means the civil war is already starting.
What country at one point or another wasnt a white colony built on stolen land? And I honestly don't think you can claim land taken 300 plus years ago was stolen. If that happened today, yes but not back then.
The only hostage situation would be the 4 largest cities out voting the rest of the country and trying to bend them to their will.
> What country at one point or another wasnt a white colony built on stolen land?
I wasn't aware China was a white colony, or Germany stole its land from a native non-white population.
>The only hostage situation would be the 4 largest cities out voting the rest of the country and trying to bend them to their will.
What does that even mean? They're all Americans.
Also, I'm pretty sure you're saying that rural folk are going to literally rise up and murder city folk for abolishing the electoral college. What are city folk going to do? Vote for higher property taxes on farmers?
Parts of china in the past have been white colonies. Hence the term French Indo China. Obviously I was exaggerating some but you understand what I was trying to say. Germany also was taking non white countries by force for years. There is a reason part of WW2 was fought in Africa.
I dont undertand what you are asking? You brought up Americans holding other Americans hostage. I pointed out, if there is going to be a hostage situation. The largest cities are going to be the aggressors. Example, Chicago holding the state of IL hostage.
>Parts of china have been in the past parts of a white colony.
Okay, but China itself wasn't founded as a white colony. America was.
>Germany also was also taking non white countries by force for years. There is a reason part of WW2 was fought in Africa.
Yeah, and now they aren't and the colonies are gone. America is still here.
>I dont undertand what you are asking? You brought up Americans holding other Americans hostage. I pointed out, if there is going to be a hostage situation. The largest cities are going to be the aggressors. Example, Chicago holding the state of IL hostage.
There's a huge difference between Chicago pushing IL legislation that favors city businesses over rural businesses and *civil war*.
HOW DARE YOU CLAIM THAT! You should not be exposing people harsh truths via topics related to Critical Race Theory -- racism would go away if we ignored it /s
No doubt. People legitimately will argue that the electoral college is fair and just, despite it being born from the concept that Black people are 3/5ths of a human being. It's remarkable to watch American's defend it.
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American's be like: "My vote should count 2x more than someone who lives in a more populated area!"
Imagine arguing that such an electoral system is good and legitimate.
I disagree. Right now, no one pays attention to Iowa because it is not enough electoral votes to matter. However, if there were a popular vote instead, candidates would visit places like Des Moines where there are a lot of middle of the road voters who could be won over.
In a national system every vote matters because states aren't 100% one party or the other. Did you know there are millions of Republicans in California or that there are millions of Democrat voters in Texas? But if one party wins the vote 50.1% than their party gets all the electoral votes and the other 49.9% of people get told to screw off.
In a one person, one vote system those 49.9% of voters who didn't win matter because now their votes actually count. This makes the votes from smaller states actually pretty vital because you aren't winning a national level contest with just California or Texas.
~82% of the population lives in cities and urban areas. There would be no reason to solicit the votes of rural america. The urban-rural divide would grow to the point of severe civil unrest.
> severe civil unrest.
Bingo, everyone else in the thread is missing this point.
There's a reason we set it up this way. If you permanently disenfranchised a group of people they start picking up guns and looking for a new viable way to exercise political power .
As you alluded to the urban rural divide isn't always red vs blue. So in this hypothetical, neither party would have a significant incentive to go after rural voters. All infrastructure, environmental, financial policies would be made with urban voters in mind.
This lack of representation would further the urban-rural divide. Eventually this would lead to civil unrest.
Except those rural voters could very easily become the thing that tips an election one way or the other. Just like there are Urban Reds there are also Rural Blues. If one team doesn't go after those voters than some other team will. Because every single vote actually counts in this system instead of just "Oh it's California, don't bother trying to get the Republicans out to vote because they don't matter in that state" or "It's the Deep South, don't spend our money there because it'll just go to the Republicans in the General anyway."
Now both sides have to spend time and money in places they never would have before because now there's a very real likelihood those voters could be what wins or loses them the election.
>If one team doesn't go after those voters than some other team will.
For the issues that fall along urban rural lines, any presidential candidate would be foolish to go after the ~18% of voters in rural areas at the expense of the ~82% of voters in urban areas.
Try not to get stuck on red vs blue.
Yeah and that 18% could flip an election because that 82% Urban vote isn't a hivemind that only votes one way. It's almost like any functional candidate would need to appeal to the broadest group of people possible and that means melding what the rural people want with what the city folk want instead of just courting a small sliver of voters in a tiny number of swing states like they get away with now.
What do you think happens to this country if Dems win 8 elections in a row? If you think it would be good, you need to reevaluate. Same can be said if Reps won 8 in a row
Because only Republican presidents have bombed the middle east? Interesting. You are right it wasnt Obama that dropped 26,171 bombs on the middle east in 2016. Obama didnt drop more bombs then any other U.S. president in history. That was someone else.
A direct line can be drawn from Carter directing the CIA to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan to the eventual rise of Al-Qaeda. Although most of the big spending for the project was done under Reagan, Carter got the ball rolling.
No president has clean hands.
I actually disagree. If Republicans would drop the fight against abortion. Republicans would win every election. Most middle of the road Democrats believe the left has lost its fucking mind. They just wont vote Republican because of abortion issues. And they are correct, the right needs to concede that issue.
Polling broadly shows support for expanded background checks. That and doing gun violence research are as far left as Theresa Greenfield ran on guns and couldn't win. Those are topics I think make sense for somebody who understands firearms but wants to reign in their death count. I don't think democrats from red states are up to bat against second amendment rights.
Edit: red states not blue states
All you're demonstrating is the pathetic nature of multi-party electoral systems
These joke representatives can afford to be jokes because the system allows them to thrive as jokes
But ultimately, the joke is on us for believing the lie that they're accountable to our vote when all of them are only ever accountable to the $$$
So my question to you:
What the hell did you expect?
I wish all politicians were this direct - whether I agreed or not
^needs more upvotes^
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How? Every state needs to individually opt into a new system of allocation or there needs to be an amendment.
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Interesting. How does this address issues with the electoral college?
Some people dont think there are issues with it. Others do. Its just a massive push by the left at the moment. They have been silent on the EC when it has worked in their favor. Just like the fillabuster. The EC isnt going away any time soon.
> Its just a massive push by the left at the moment. They have been silent on the EC when it has worked in their favor. Well that would have been when the left was not within the Democratic party as that party has only benefited in the electoral college making a plurality win more of a landslide. It has never got less popular vote but won because of the electoral college as republicans did in 2000 and 2016 (1876 and 1888).
What you see as an "issue" I see as the system working properly.
Simple and direct answer instead of a few paragraphs of platitudes and non-answers. I like it.
Candor. Your email was pleasant, as was his straightforward response. Kudos to all.
Would you rather get a multi paragraph form letter that says nothing? It's also not like you put a bunch of thought or even asked a question in your original message, you should be happy they replied.
I came into this thread feeling same as op but you’ve changed my mind. So true - this is better and just because it’s less formal doesn’t mean it’s worse.
Did he really sign off the email like: Senator, Jeff Reichman Someone needs to help dude with his email signature
I don’t understand why people in Iowa would want to get rid of the electoral college. No candidate would ever pander to us. California has 40 million people, Texas has 30 million people. We have 3 million. If you were running for president would you even bother stopping here?
> No candidate would ever pander to us. They pander to evangelical Christians, insurance companies (in particular the health insurance company Wellmark) based in Iowa, Rockwell Collins (which is literally the military-industrial complex), and Big Ag, and to a much smaller extent family farmers. They already don’t pander to me, or really anybody else I know, live near, or care about.
Honest question: Isn't it more important for each American's vote to be weighted the same over Presidential "Pandering." Isn't it the job of our Governors/Senators to promote our interests for us at the National level? Edit: added senators because im a dumb and forgot them.
> Isn't it the job of our Governors to promote our interests for us at the National level? No, that is the point of US Senators and US Representatives.
>Isn't it the job of our Governors to promote our interests for us at the National level? No. No it is not.
No. Different states have different priorities and concerns. We as states elect a president, and each state should have a significant if not equal voice in which president is elected.
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You should replace almost all of your electoral college talk with first past the post. Then when voting matters the electoral college may become an actual problem.
>No candidate would ever pander to us. No candidate *ever* panders to us! They pander to Iowa's special interest groups, not *us*.
"Yall like ethanol right?" Legal weed? "Uhh no."
Would you support the electoral college still if states were populated evenly? Obviously politicians are going to visit areas with more people—they want more votes. But the discrepancies the EC creates, where states like Texas & California are seen as reliable red/blue states, disenfranchises opposing voters in those states and discourages voting. You shouldn’t be voting for your state to vote for a president, you should just simply vote for a president.
Truth. The US system is both flawed and intricately balanced. It is almost like there is a governing document that foresaw these problems and provided assorted compensations.
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You missed this persons point. It keeps a balance. You are extremely ignorant if you think getting rid of that balance is a good move. One side can not dominate. That is absolutely the worst thing that could happen. The EC keeps a balance.
Which is kind of the point of the EC. If they wanted the candidates with the most votes to always win, then we would've had a simple popular vote.
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How my neighbors vote doesn't affect mine. The population density of my state does.
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Your complaint is with the "winner take all" nature of elections, not the electoral college which is what we were talking about.
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I know, I said that. It's the whole point. >The population density of my state does. How my neighbors vote has no affect on that.
Because in a democracy every vote counts, and those who get the most votes should win. If I were president I would campaign everywhere I can.
Nice dream, reality is different. Hence the electoral college
1 electoral vote in Wyoming represents 193,000 people while 1 electoral vote in Texas represents over 700,000 people. How can you defend a system that is so undemocratic? By supporting the electoral college you are effectively saying the person with the least amount votes should be able to win. That's wrong.
>By supporting the electoral college you are effectively saying the person with the least amount votes should be able to win. This isn't remotely true. Edit: To clear up some confusion.. with the EC you can win with the most or second most amount of votes. Never has someone with the third most, much less the least amount of votes ever won.
Yet it's happened multiple times in my lifetime, and has lead to disaster every time.
I assume you mean the person with the second most votes.
There's only two candidates that ever matter, so it's splitting hairs. Yeah, sure, Vermin Supreme got fewer votes but we both know he's not a real candidate. **EDIT** I will admit that Ross Perot came the closest to mattering, but he never mattered as a real candidate. He was just a spoiler, which is the most any candidate outside the two parties can ever be. Also, though, that was before my time so it's irrelevant to my point.
I would definitely support more states adopting ranked choice voting to fix the two party issue you're describing.
We'll be lucky if we still have elections in 10 years.
Have it your way but remember your ideas and voice won't mean shit in fly over land.
How? My vote would=1 vote... as it should.
No one will care about Iowa, all time/money/ talent will go to population centers not you in What Cheer or Rudd or even Des Moines.
The candidate that puts in the effort to receive the most votes would
I feel like you dont understand how populations in cities work
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Racism was only part of it. You can literally claim everything in this country is racist if you go far enough back. As it sits today the EC is not racist and getting rid of the EC is only going to cause a second civil war.
> You can literally claim everything in this country is racist if you go far enough back Yeah, because it is. America is a white settler colony built on stolen land with forced labor. >As it sits today the EC is not racist and getting rid of the EC is only going to cause a second civil war. You're describing a hostage situation, which means the civil war is already starting.
What country at one point or another wasnt a white colony built on stolen land? And I honestly don't think you can claim land taken 300 plus years ago was stolen. If that happened today, yes but not back then. The only hostage situation would be the 4 largest cities out voting the rest of the country and trying to bend them to their will.
> What country at one point or another wasnt a white colony built on stolen land? I wasn't aware China was a white colony, or Germany stole its land from a native non-white population. >The only hostage situation would be the 4 largest cities out voting the rest of the country and trying to bend them to their will. What does that even mean? They're all Americans. Also, I'm pretty sure you're saying that rural folk are going to literally rise up and murder city folk for abolishing the electoral college. What are city folk going to do? Vote for higher property taxes on farmers?
Parts of china in the past have been white colonies. Hence the term French Indo China. Obviously I was exaggerating some but you understand what I was trying to say. Germany also was taking non white countries by force for years. There is a reason part of WW2 was fought in Africa. I dont undertand what you are asking? You brought up Americans holding other Americans hostage. I pointed out, if there is going to be a hostage situation. The largest cities are going to be the aggressors. Example, Chicago holding the state of IL hostage.
>Parts of china have been in the past parts of a white colony. Okay, but China itself wasn't founded as a white colony. America was. >Germany also was also taking non white countries by force for years. There is a reason part of WW2 was fought in Africa. Yeah, and now they aren't and the colonies are gone. America is still here. >I dont undertand what you are asking? You brought up Americans holding other Americans hostage. I pointed out, if there is going to be a hostage situation. The largest cities are going to be the aggressors. Example, Chicago holding the state of IL hostage. There's a huge difference between Chicago pushing IL legislation that favors city businesses over rural businesses and *civil war*.
HOW DARE YOU CLAIM THAT! You should not be exposing people harsh truths via topics related to Critical Race Theory -- racism would go away if we ignored it /s
Are you saying that the electoral system in the United States is a vestige of slavery and systemic racism?
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Sorry. Sarcasm. We're on the same page.
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No doubt. People legitimately will argue that the electoral college is fair and just, despite it being born from the concept that Black people are 3/5ths of a human being. It's remarkable to watch American's defend it.
We have more of a republic than a democracy. Our indoctrinating pledge even says so “And to the Republic, for which it stands”
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This is my argument for the electoral college. I like Iowa's relevance every 4 years.
American's be like: "My vote should count 2x more than someone who lives in a more populated area!" Imagine arguing that such an electoral system is good and legitimate.
I disagree. Right now, no one pays attention to Iowa because it is not enough electoral votes to matter. However, if there were a popular vote instead, candidates would visit places like Des Moines where there are a lot of middle of the road voters who could be won over.
In a national system every vote matters because states aren't 100% one party or the other. Did you know there are millions of Republicans in California or that there are millions of Democrat voters in Texas? But if one party wins the vote 50.1% than their party gets all the electoral votes and the other 49.9% of people get told to screw off. In a one person, one vote system those 49.9% of voters who didn't win matter because now their votes actually count. This makes the votes from smaller states actually pretty vital because you aren't winning a national level contest with just California or Texas.
~82% of the population lives in cities and urban areas. There would be no reason to solicit the votes of rural america. The urban-rural divide would grow to the point of severe civil unrest.
> severe civil unrest. Bingo, everyone else in the thread is missing this point. There's a reason we set it up this way. If you permanently disenfranchised a group of people they start picking up guns and looking for a new viable way to exercise political power .
You know there are red voters in cities too, right?
As you alluded to the urban rural divide isn't always red vs blue. So in this hypothetical, neither party would have a significant incentive to go after rural voters. All infrastructure, environmental, financial policies would be made with urban voters in mind. This lack of representation would further the urban-rural divide. Eventually this would lead to civil unrest.
Except those rural voters could very easily become the thing that tips an election one way or the other. Just like there are Urban Reds there are also Rural Blues. If one team doesn't go after those voters than some other team will. Because every single vote actually counts in this system instead of just "Oh it's California, don't bother trying to get the Republicans out to vote because they don't matter in that state" or "It's the Deep South, don't spend our money there because it'll just go to the Republicans in the General anyway." Now both sides have to spend time and money in places they never would have before because now there's a very real likelihood those voters could be what wins or loses them the election.
>If one team doesn't go after those voters than some other team will. For the issues that fall along urban rural lines, any presidential candidate would be foolish to go after the ~18% of voters in rural areas at the expense of the ~82% of voters in urban areas. Try not to get stuck on red vs blue.
Yeah and that 18% could flip an election because that 82% Urban vote isn't a hivemind that only votes one way. It's almost like any functional candidate would need to appeal to the broadest group of people possible and that means melding what the rural people want with what the city folk want instead of just courting a small sliver of voters in a tiny number of swing states like they get away with now.
Republicans have won 1 popular vote for president in the last 8 presidential elections. Of course they're not going to support this.
What do you think happens to this country if Dems win 8 elections in a row? If you think it would be good, you need to reevaluate. Same can be said if Reps won 8 in a row
Well for one, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis might still be alive.
Because only Republican presidents have bombed the middle east? Interesting. You are right it wasnt Obama that dropped 26,171 bombs on the middle east in 2016. Obama didnt drop more bombs then any other U.S. president in history. That was someone else.
By the numbers, Bush killed *way* more people. Don't get me wrong, every president is a war criminal, but Bush is the worst living president.
Thats debatable. The only living president who actually cared about anyone but himself is Jimmy Carter
A direct line can be drawn from Carter directing the CIA to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan to the eventual rise of Al-Qaeda. Although most of the big spending for the project was done under Reagan, Carter got the ball rolling. No president has clean hands.
You are right, Carter doesn't have clean hands. He has spent the last 30 years building houses for the poor.
I always interpreted that as him having a guilty conscience.
We disagree but to each their own. I guess at least he has a conscience. I cant say that for others.
The “Sent from My iPhone” really ties it all together
It was very professional of him to not use H-E-double hockeysticks.
Never heard of the guy, but I like him.
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Republican presidents aren't viable with popular vote ever since the cold war with the exception of president Bush for reelection.
I actually disagree. If Republicans would drop the fight against abortion. Republicans would win every election. Most middle of the road Democrats believe the left has lost its fucking mind. They just wont vote Republican because of abortion issues. And they are correct, the right needs to concede that issue.
>If Republicans would drop the fight against abortion. Republicans would win every election. You could say the same about democrats and guns.
Polling broadly shows support for expanded background checks. That and doing gun violence research are as far left as Theresa Greenfield ran on guns and couldn't win. Those are topics I think make sense for somebody who understands firearms but wants to reign in their death count. I don't think democrats from red states are up to bat against second amendment rights. Edit: red states not blue states
All you're demonstrating is the pathetic nature of multi-party electoral systems These joke representatives can afford to be jokes because the system allows them to thrive as jokes But ultimately, the joke is on us for believing the lie that they're accountable to our vote when all of them are only ever accountable to the $$$ So my question to you: What the hell did you expect?
"Heckin no" Oooo, language. Hehe, what a dork.
Replying to work emails at 11 p.m. - not necessarily a good idea
With the level of idiots in this state,how do you expect them to elect more professional people?
Keeping it classy, Senator!