The idea of the Electoral College makes more sense when you consider it to be the weighted average of 50 elections. It keeps elections confined to a state-by-state event. Imagine the shit show if we had a full popular vote, and a candidate won by 5 votes, so the entire country got recounted?
But having the Electoral College be actual people is silly. And it’s weighted all wrong, because the House hasn’t expanded in 100+ years. Maybe if the House were twice it’s size, things might be more representative.
There is an actual algorithm to determine House apportionment based on the population in the 50 states. One of these days, I want to take the time to figure out if Trump would still have won if the House were twice the size in 2016, or whether that would have skewed the weightings just enough for Clinton to have won.
Your statement about recounts makes no sense. We can still hold elections on a state by state basis, and determine the winner via popular vote. That would not require a full 50 state recount. It would require individual recounts in states where the votes were within the recount margin. This is precisely what the National Popular Interstate Vote Compact is attempting to do right now, and what should have been done long ago.
I believe that if we had a full-on popular vote for President, and each state’s margin was outside their recount threshold, but the total popular vote was extremely close, the losing side would petition to have all 50 states recounted. Some states would oblige, under the notion that the total popular vote is what counts, and that is within their threshold, while others won’t, because they will use the text of the recount law as written. it will all be inconsistent, and up to the opinions of dozens of judges. Imagine the chaos of 2000 in Florida, times 51.
If the NPV compact goes forward, then I think it is more likely that recounts would be triggered everywhere if the popular vote is close enough, because it specifically allocates electors based on that. And if recounts are going on in any one state by the Safe Harbor deadline, there will be a push to certify both slates of electors in every NPV state.
NPV is a good idea, but is a ticking time bomb. If we decide we want to have the Presidency decided via popular vote, we are better off ripping up the entire EC and starting over from scratch. The NPV compact should be seen a just the first step toward that.
In Federalist 68, Hamilton gave some reasoning as to why the Electoral College exists. Now, I think the Federalist papers should be treated with some care. They’re often post-facto attempts at justifying committee decisions when that committee had been sitting in meetings all day and just signed off on something. That’s very likely what happened with the Electoral College.
That said, the explicit reasoning in Fed68 was to stop someone like Trump:
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,‘’ yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
Additionally, it’s also justifying decisions in light of pro-royalist critics (both foreign and domestic) who said democracy was a trap and the rabble can’t be trusted to decide on their leaders. As a result, the Constitution doesn’t go all in on democracy, and you have this stuff above about one of these not-quite-democratic mechanisms are meant to prevent a populist dullard from gaining the office.
Those royalist critics are all but extinct now, but we’re stuck with some of the things designed to counter their objections.
Since then, the US has put in several measures undoing some of the not-quite-democratic stuff. For example, universal suffrage, President and Vice President elected as a pair, senators elected by the popular vote of their state, and the parties having primaries instead of appointing candidates. It’s been an improvement for the common people at every step of the way. Fledgling democracies looking for how to structure their government have largely not chosen to repeat the mistakes of the US; not even one’s the US itself helped setup, like Germany, Japan, and Iraq. They’ve preferred European-style parliamentary systems.
So we’ve got this Electoral College thing that, at best, is there to counter arguments nobody makes any more, and at worst, was rubber stamped by a committee that wanted to go home for the day. It’s shit, and it needs to go.
After giving us W and Trump, it’s got a lot of making up to do.
The idea of the Electoral College makes more sense when you consider it to be the weighted average of 50 elections. It keeps elections confined to a state-by-state event. Imagine the shit show if we had a full popular vote, and a candidate won by 5 votes, so the entire country got recounted?
But having the Electoral College be actual people is silly. And it’s weighted all wrong, because the House hasn’t expanded in 100+ years. Maybe if the House were twice it’s size, things might be more representative.
There is an actual algorithm to determine House apportionment based on the population in the 50 states. One of these days, I want to take the time to figure out if Trump would still have won if the House were twice the size in 2016, or whether that would have skewed the weightings just enough for Clinton to have won.
Your statement about recounts makes no sense. We can still hold elections on a state by state basis, and determine the winner via popular vote. That would not require a full 50 state recount. It would require individual recounts in states where the votes were within the recount margin. This is precisely what the National Popular Interstate Vote Compact is attempting to do right now, and what should have been done long ago.
I believe that if we had a full-on popular vote for President, and each state’s margin was outside their recount threshold, but the total popular vote was extremely close, the losing side would petition to have all 50 states recounted. Some states would oblige, under the notion that the total popular vote is what counts, and that is within their threshold, while others won’t, because they will use the text of the recount law as written. it will all be inconsistent, and up to the opinions of dozens of judges. Imagine the chaos of 2000 in Florida, times 51.
If the NPV compact goes forward, then I think it is more likely that recounts would be triggered everywhere if the popular vote is close enough, because it specifically allocates electors based on that. And if recounts are going on in any one state by the Safe Harbor deadline, there will be a push to certify both slates of electors in every NPV state.
NPV is a good idea, but is a ticking time bomb. If we decide we want to have the Presidency decided via popular vote, we are better off ripping up the entire EC and starting over from scratch. The NPV compact should be seen a just the first step toward that.
I was curious, Someone did it. (Close) https://qz.com/865380/to-fix-the-electoral-college-increase-the-size-of-the-house-of-representatives
Doesn’t move the needle enough in their estimate.
In Federalist 68, Hamilton gave some reasoning as to why the Electoral College exists. Now, I think the Federalist papers should be treated with some care. They’re often post-facto attempts at justifying committee decisions when that committee had been sitting in meetings all day and just signed off on something. That’s very likely what happened with the Electoral College.
That said, the explicit reasoning in Fed68 was to stop someone like Trump:
Additionally, it’s also justifying decisions in light of pro-royalist critics (both foreign and domestic) who said democracy was a trap and the rabble can’t be trusted to decide on their leaders. As a result, the Constitution doesn’t go all in on democracy, and you have this stuff above about one of these not-quite-democratic mechanisms are meant to prevent a populist dullard from gaining the office.
Those royalist critics are all but extinct now, but we’re stuck with some of the things designed to counter their objections.
Since then, the US has put in several measures undoing some of the not-quite-democratic stuff. For example, universal suffrage, President and Vice President elected as a pair, senators elected by the popular vote of their state, and the parties having primaries instead of appointing candidates. It’s been an improvement for the common people at every step of the way. Fledgling democracies looking for how to structure their government have largely not chosen to repeat the mistakes of the US; not even one’s the US itself helped setup, like Germany, Japan, and Iraq. They’ve preferred European-style parliamentary systems.
So we’ve got this Electoral College thing that, at best, is there to counter arguments nobody makes any more, and at worst, was rubber stamped by a committee that wanted to go home for the day. It’s shit, and it needs to go.