Ending the electoral college and changing to popular vote for the presidency is a very important goal and young people should commit to make it your life’s work, because that’s how long it will take to get a constitutional amendment done, and only if a sustained effort is made.
In the meantime we can also work toward other goals than can help:
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Expand the size of the House of Representatives. The population is now way too big for the number of representatives we have, each representing 1/2 to 3/4 of a million people or more, when the founders envisioned a ratio of 1 per 30,000. Obviously we can’t achieve that ratio, but there are several good proposals out there to make it more fair.
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Statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico (they deserve representation! and it would add 4 more senate seats).
Then there’s our representation in the Senate. Our population is distributed very unevenly among the states which get two senators each. Each Wyoming senator represents less than 300 thousand people; Each California senator represents about 20 Million people (2017 figures). By 2040, 2/3 of Americans will be represented by 30 percent of the Senate, and only 9 states will be home to half the country’s population [1]
What can be done about this? What about splitting the most densely populated states into 2 or 3 states? Highly unlikely to ever happen, but it’s an idea. Then there’s the idea of population redistribution. This is happening all the time anyway, but people could consciously choose to move into lower population states where their vote would count more (and cost of living is lower). With remote work much more acceptable these days, it should be easier for people with certain kinds of jobs to do, but it would also need investors choosing to start businesses in those states instead of always flocking to the high density states. There is a little bit of that happening but not much. Otherwise I don’t know how this problem can be solved.
While we are at it, we should add 1 more state. That would give us 53, which is a prime number.
We would truly be one nation, indivisible…
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Yeah, but only (rural) land here has any say, so whether most Americans want to do away with the EC is irrelevant. Only Republicans in rural areas should get to dictate the future of this country.
Turns out even that level of rigging is not enough for the traitorous Republican scum; they might be planning on having just enough states refuse to call the election and throw it to the House so their scum there can install the insane and incompetent donnie in the White House.
This is the kind of comment that we do not need here amongst the righteous. Of course you have a say, you have a vote. It doesn’t matter which state, just fucking vote. The republicans are on their last leg, their only hope is that you give up and resign to your fate.
Don’t. Don’t give an inch. Go vote. Show them that we the people are still in power, and we will no longer stand for their corporate distopia.
I very much plan on voting (this being Colorado, I don’t have to go anywhere, thankfully - and I can sit down and thoroughly read the ballot measures and so on and read about them, etc., and fill out at my leisure, then mail in. This is as it should be in every state.), just like most here on Lemmy (minus the bots and trolls). However, since I’m from Colorado, it turns out that voting for POTUS in Colorado is more or less a foregone conclusion.
In states like mine, that are not “battleground states”, our vote counts very much less when it comes to POTUS. Same goes for things like representation in both the House and the Senate for states with larger populations. The House is EXTREMELY tilted for the reactionaries, and is way out of step with the voters, even though they did indeed vote.
So, yeah, voting is important. I plan on voting like my life depends on it, even though I’m not in a battleground state, because those other things on the ballot matter as well. You have to play to win, as the lottos are fond of saying. However, there is no good reason to pretend that the system is not seriously flawed in some very important aspects.
It will be a cold, dark day, over my dead body, when New York City has more voting power than all of Washington state. I will fight people to the death to keep the electoral college. Get you’re moronic facts straight, the Electoral keeps high population areas from forcing their ideals on the rest of the Nation, it also makes cheating harder. FIX THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE! Fine. But remove it and you give the ruling class the ability to add a billion votes nation wide and winning an election, instead of now where they cheat district to district. Just because it’s becoming obvious your drug war baron might not win because people hate that she had jailed people for simple drug possessions, and she’s as much a traitor to the Republic as Donnie T, you don’t get to change the rules. GET A BETTER CANDIDATE WORTHLESS DEMOCRATS! Weak humans blame the system for their weak candidates, when it’s them and their candidate that are to blame, not the system that rejects them.
Who are you voting for?
Does it start with a Q and wear tinfoil on it’s head?All your arguments against it are the reason I want it. Isn’t that fascinating.
You forgot the /s
Naw op definitely drank the Qoolaide
Lol … when has the will of the common people ever mattered to politicians who are beholden to the ultra wealthy.
I’m in Canada and we suffer from the same problem.
Lol … when has the will of the common people ever mattered to politicians who are beholden to the ultra wealthy.
The French Revolution leaps to mind.
Yes, please. This shit is so 1787.
What, and end the control and power the establishment has over you? Good luck
Cool. Too bad it’s never going to happen. The entire US political system is designed to prevent the will of the people from being enacted.
America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare
Madison and Hamilton believed that Athenian citizens had been swayed by crude and ambitious politicians who had played on their emotions. The demagogue Cleon was said to have seduced the assembly into being more hawkish toward Athens’s opponents in the Peloponnesian War, and even the reformer Solon canceled debts and debased the currency. In Madison’s view, history seemed to be repeating itself in America. After the Revolutionary War, he had observed in Massachusetts “a rage for paper money, for abolition of debts, for an equal division of property.” That populist rage had led to Shays’s Rebellion, which pitted a band of debtors against their creditors.
Madison referred to impetuous mobs as factions, which he defined in “Federalist No. 10” as a group “united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Factions arise, he believed, when public opinion forms and spreads quickly. But they can dissolve if the public is given time and space to consider long-term interests rather than short-term gratification.
To prevent factions from distorting public policy and threatening liberty, Madison resolved to exclude the people from a direct role in government. “A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction,” Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 10.” The Framers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where enlightened delegates of the people would serve the public good. They also built into the Constitution a series of cooling mechanisms intended to inhibit the formulation of passionate factions, to ensure that reasonable majorities would prevail.
The people would directly elect the members of the House of Representatives, but the popular passions of the House would cool in the “Senatorial saucer,” as George Washington purportedly called it: The Senate would comprise natural aristocrats chosen by state legislators rather than elected by the people. And rather than directly electing the chief executive, the people would vote for wise electors—that is, propertied white men—who would ultimately choose a president of the highest character and most discerning judgment. The separation of powers, meanwhile, would prevent any one branch of government from acquiring too much authority. The further division of power between the federal and state governments would ensure that none of the three branches of government could claim that it alone represented the people.
We could also just make it irrelevant by expanding Congress radically. Adding back all the seats we missed when we froze the numbers in the 1940s. Even better, we were slipping on the ratio of representatives to people even back then so we could go back to the original ratio or something in between. That would be a max of around 10,000 representatives, but you would be far more familiar with your representative and they could do elections without the support of the economic elite or being rich.
That doesn’t require an amendment and it functionally obliterates this tyranny of the minority.
We could also just make it irrelevant by expanding Congress radically. Adding back all the seats we missed when we froze the numbers in the 1940s.
or we could just do a CGPgrey and rework the math because we have computers now.
Yup, that too
Doesn’t change the number of senators, sadly.
That was always the point of the system though. And if we need to 86 the Senate then having them constantly blocking the house provides that momentum. It would be a huge fight.
yeah no, that should be the same, unless you wanted the senate to hold a proportional amount of seating to the house for some reason.
The senate and house are two independent bodies, they work together, and at odds simultaneously, the point is that the senate is different.
This is insane but I like it
Insane, but modern technology makes it much more feasible today than ever before.
Proper representation shouldn’t be so unthinkable. And we could achieve the idea of better representation with one or two thousand. We don’t need to go to ten thousand yet.
This doesn’t make the electoral college irrelevant, it just rebalances the votes per state so they’re closer to proportional. California Republicans and Texas Democrats are still disenfranchised even if their states get a lot more votes.
Can’t beat it with people majority, need to have the land majority.
Where a county of 1000 dipshit rednecks have as much voting power as metropolitan sector of 100,000
Large majority of voters want to change a system where the large majority of voters don’t have as much say as a a minority of voters.
If the Democrats actually get the house and the senate this election, they should definitely looking into changing the voting system. It would be in their best interest.
Would require a constitutional amendment to do so. 2/3rds majority of the House and Senate and then ratification by 3/4ths of all state legislatures to outright remove it.
Or the interstate voting compact which just needs a couple more states. But that’s a less direct mechanism that keeps the electoral college intact, just changes the way electoral votes are distributed.
Yes and no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
The NPVIC may work to get around the electoral college without amending the constitution. It would still be FPTP which wouldn’t be great. But it would at a minimum be an improvement, because it would do away with swing states, red voters stuck in blue states, and blue voters stuck in red states.
because it would do away with swing states, red voters stuck in blue states, and blue voters stuck in red states.
…and replace it with the election being won based primarily on turnout in California. Like seriously, the last few times a candidate won the electoral college but lost the popular vote it was a case where their margin in California was larger than their margin nationally. As in across the other 49 states more people voted for the person who won the electoral college, and California by itself was responsible for the swing to the other direction. Because California is just so ridiculously big compared to the other states.
and replace it with the election being won based primarily on turnout in California
No, it would replace it with a majority FPTP country wide system. Californians are a minority of the country. They do not get sole control, nor would they under a popular vote system.
California was larger than their margin nationally.
But not all of that margin comes from California, and not all of Californians vote blue.
Where you live should have no effect on how much of a voice you have in the federal government. Everybody’s vote should be counted, and counted equally, because we’re all made equally. The current system completely fails at that.
No, it would replace it with a majority FPTP country wide system. Californians are a minority of the country. They do not get sole control, nor would they under a popular vote system.
Unless this also dramatically changes voting patterns nationwaide it’s essentially the same thing. Every time in recent history the electoral college and popular vote have yielded different results, the difference was smaller than the margin in California.
While dramatic things like making the senate votes proportional or abolishing the electoral college might require a constitutional amendment, the text is silent on plurality vs RCW or what have you.
Congress could mandate a switch with a simple law, and point to their power to ensure democracy, same as the post bush v gore laws that mandated electronic voting machines.
There are still some other things that can be done federally to help. If they change the size of the house (determined by legislation not constitution), it also changes electoral votes for states. Electoral votes are based on house + senate seats per state
On its own that makes the electoral college much closer to representing the population of each state
I would also presume it likely would also make the popular vote compact way closer or cross the needed majority of electoral votes. Though I haven’t done or seen any analysis on that directly so not 100% sure because the ways seats are appropriated can be funky and non-linear
I feel like it would be more realistic to repeal the Apportionment Act of 1911. At the very least, it would correct the massive inequality in congressional apportionment. It would also increase the number of electors in the largest states, which would mostly benefit democrats.
As if Dems would do anything that could compromise their own power.
Democrats generally favor ending the electoral college, if nothing else because it would tend to make them win elections more due to the packing effect of NY and California and the tendency of rural states to get more votes per capita. In fact several states, pretty much all the solid blue states in the last couple of elections, have passed a compact to give all electoral votes to the popular vote winner.
Dems face an electoral cliff if they do nothing. In a few more cycles, it may be impossible to win the senate or the presidency, even with a majority vote behind them, due to too much power in small states.
Cool. Can we also get moving on Ranked Choice Voting?
I’d take RCV over nothing, but STAR and approval are significantly better like the other user said.
Some reasons for approval
- Addition is the only math involved. So it is extremely easy to get live results during counting. It makes auditing votes extremely easy.
- It is dead simple to understand, so the least amount of voters will be confused by it.
A longer form explanation of some of the other stuff:
Approval voting sounds good.
One issue I see with the star system is that people tend to have preconceptions about star ratings. E.g. some people never rate 5 stars on principle or will rate something 3 stars without realizing that is a 60% rating. My point is I think you might see some weird skew in the results based on this.
I can see that happening, which is why I think approval is the best of them all.
And with that said, so long as not all the votes are given equal scores, their votes would still matter even if they don’t believe in 5 star perfection.
And IIRC, there is nothing actually stopping a STAR system from using a 1 to 10 point scale instead of 5, which would further help with that issue.
Let’s ne honest though, that’s not the real issue. The real issue is low info voters aren’t going to have a nuanced opinion like. It will be 0 or 10. All of the votes coming in like this will invalidate any consideration you spent some time working out to decide a 7.5 is the perfect representation of how you feel.
Even more big picture. We are wasting our efforts arguing over the details of a voting system when voting reform isn’t even on the table.
The real issue is low info voters aren’t going to have a nuanced opinion like. It will be 0 or 10.
Yeah. For the reason I think each candidate should be given one page to explain their policy. And that page should be printed out and available to all voters.
For mail in voters it should be included with their ballot.
Far too often I’ve voted in local elections and tried to research the candidate just to find no information on any of them. It’s infuriating trying to make a choice when it’s impossible to know anything.
We are wasting our efforts arguing over the details of a voting system when voting reform isn’t even on the table.
Agreed. But we can dream.
I love how this video explains the differences between the voting methods. It’s what made me prefer STAR over RCV.
This is the only issue worth campaigning on. Fuck everyone for not realizing it. We will never get this system under control if it continues to misrepresent what the majority wants. There is no amount of bargaining and compromise that will ever bring forth the change we need to stop global climate change. Ranked choice - for its simplicity. Star - for its utility. Etc. Etc. Make the debate strictly about how we will reform voting and push everything else to the end of the list.
BTW, I’m not asking politicians to do this. I’m ask you, the people, if you will make your voice heard and enshrine it with a government that truly represents you.
Tough luck, if you want to ask the people and want to have a say in national discourse, you have to buy a media outlet like billionaires do.
Defeatism
This is the only issue worth campaigning on.
You’re not going to like the people campaigning on it, though.
Spoilers: It’s the Spoiler Candidates
Every candidate should be campaigning on it. Not until the Republicans are brazenly defending the broken system, or alternatively join the move for reformation because they think they can capitalize on it, is the country moving in the right direction.
When the pollsters call you your answer to every question should be, “I don’t care we need vote reform.”
When the media focus groups you,“I don’t care we need vote reform.”
When the NAZIs try to bait you, “I don’t care we need vote reform.”
I know, this isn’t a fully fleshed out strategy but it is a stance that will elevate the discussion.
You’re not going to like the people campaigning on it, though.
Spoilers: It’s the Spoiler Candidates
…because the Dems and GOP benefit from the current system. Any move away from FPTP harms them, so they aren’t going to support it and any other party is a “spoiler candidate” because of how FPTP works.
I respectfully disagree. Any attempt to frame both parties as the same is a big fat down vote from me. You sound insightful and intelligent though.
As far as wanting to maintain the current electoral system, both parties are the same and they are the same in this one particular thing because they both benefit from it and any move away from it upsets the status quo that keeps the money and power flowing to them.
The only move either party wants to make away from the current electoral system is if they could find a way to reduce it to a single party system and that party was theirs.
They aren’t the same in virtually any other way, to the point of being as extremely and overly opposed on as many other things as possible, in part because presenting everything as a dichotomy of extremes reinforces that system.
Any move away from FPTP harms them, so they aren’t going to support it
Sure. But if you don’t vote for the Democrats then you are implicitly supporting fascism and that will mean an end to all forms of democracy (or so I’ve been told).
Star Voting is better in every way.
First I’m hearing of this. I’ll look into it.
Approval voting is the only method that meets all the requirements for a fair election without elevating an unpopular candidate.
I’ll take better over perfect especially since better is on the ballot as an option this year for me, but who knows might try to get approval voting on the ballot for next time
My pet peeve is that RCV has a lot of the same issues as FPtP voting, and some local and state governments that have started using RCV are rolling back their progress.
Better might not be good enough, and if it’s not good enough, it lends credence to the argument that progress is bad and the old corruption is better than the new corruption.
I’m curious to hear what those issues are?
I feel well represented under RCV.
The biggest problem opponents are using to block or roll back RCV is transparency and time. Hand counts take longer and may get vastly different results if there are discrepancies. But those concerns are mostly smokescreen from groups that benefit from the status quo. Any hand recount takes time, and if you fully tabulate the entire vote, it’s easy to locate potential problems with the computer count.
My concerns are transparency and honesty, and both stem from the fact that only your first remaining choice counts in each round, and one candidate is eliminated in each round. Because only your first preference counts, the most important selection is your first choice. Everyone’s second choice gets no votes in the first round and will be eliminated, even if they get 100% of the second choice selections.
Several candidates from the same ideological neighborhood split and dilute the vote from those voters for the first round. If everyone doesn’t rally around one specific candidate, all of those candidates could be eliminated in instant runoffs as the lowest vote getter. You have to vote strategically to make sure that the spoiler candidate on your side is eliminated before the spoiler candidate on their side.
Like, let’s say we have five fictional candidates, and arbitrarily assign them Green, Blue, Purple, Red, and Nazi. Blue and Red are the front runners, Green is the spoiler for Blue and Nazi is the spoiler for Red. Purple is a third centrist party
Blue voters assume Green voters will pick Blue or Purple as their second choice, and Red voters assume Nazi voters will pick Red or Purple as their second choice. It’s in both Blue and Red’s interest to see Nazi and Green beat Purple in the first round and then have their opponent’s spoiler beat their spoiler in the second round. This creates a scenario where strong Blue supporters are strategically voting for Nazi as their first choice, even though that would be there last preference.
So let’s say the preferences roughly break down into 6 categories
30 BPG 30 RPN 15 GPB 15 NPR 5 PGB 5 PNR
With a FPTP election, Blue and Red would convince everyone that Green, Nazi, and Purple have no chance of winning, and therefore voters should pick a frontrunner. And they’d be right, because FPTP sucks balls. But the winner would be whichever frontrunner can convince enough voters to pick their third choice.
With RCV, it is better but still not great. This scenario would be deadlocked at the second round, so Red attempts to convince a few Nazis that their candide cannot win and switch their vote from NPR to RNP. Blue tries a different strategy, and takes some of their own voters to switch from BPG to NBP. Both frontrunner candidates are still vying to convince some of the Purple supporters to change their minds. Anyone that picks some combination of GNP risks having their ballot expire, so they have to pick R or B even if they hate both equally.
So there’s still almost no chance that a third party will win, only now it’s more complicated. Plus if there’s a hand recount, a few votes one way or the other can dramatically change the final tally by changing who comes in last. A better name for RCV is Last Past the Post. It’s better, but it’s still not representing the true will of the voters, and it’s not encouraging campaigns to win hearts and minds. It promotes gamesmanship and back-room deals over voter outreach and turnout.
Approval voting is pretty good, someone else mentioned that one. The only problem I have with that is that it encourages negative campaigning. Every campaign would be attacking Purple, and promoting party purity and loyalty as an ideology. Compromise becomes the enemy, because you have to control the ball.
Star Voting is fair. Every vote counts, and every vote is an accurate representation of the voter’s preference. There’s only one instant runoff, so a recount might change who is included, but there’s no reason to be strategic with your votes. Negative campaigning is discouraged, and candidates are rewarded for finding common ground because ratings are not mutually exclusive. And the best advantage, there’s no way for the frontrunners to use demagogeury or political maneuvering to box out new candidates with their clout.
My biggest concern with RCV is that its flaws are dampening enthusiasm for change. People recognize that the current system sucks balls, but if RCV ends up disappointing those who were on the fence about change, they aren’t going to look for new solutions. They are going to retreat to the devil they know.
Right…I’ll preface all this by saying I live in an RCV country which used to have a 2 party system way back when. The question was genuine because I’m very happy with our voting system and if there were flaws I’m interested to explore better options.
The hypothetical you’re discussing there never happens. I’ve been voting for 30 years and have never come across (or myself done) the kind of shenanigans you mention. There’s just no need for it.
You go in, rank your options in order and the fairest option for you (with some small caveats) comes out on top. Our recent European elections in my district are a good example. There were 4 seats up for grabs and 8 parties and a bunch of independents up. The larger parties will frequently field 2 candidates. In that election, the 5th place candidate overtook 4th on eliminations from the 6th place preferences to take the last seat.
In the case of the nazi’s, they get eliminated first round here then 90+% of their votes will pass to some other right wing party with 10% not counting because they are the end of the line for that voter.
One example I’ll give is for a centre left voter. They would hypothetically vote some combination of labour, greens and centre left independents. Once those options had run out on the ballot, you’re looking at whether they’re more likely to go far left or centre right. Where I live, a large number of the votes will actually fall centre right as they’re closer idealogically than far left.
For what it’s worth, here’s how the breakdown of voting was in my district:
https://www.rte.ie/news/elections-2024/results/#/local/fingal-county-county
The counting thing actually adds a bit of spice and voter excitement because you’re keen to see how votes transfer in each round. Certainly I was checking in regularly and was keen to see if the pundits were right on the final elimination I mentioned above (they were).
Recounts are rarely necessary but do happen in the event that it’s looking close for an actual seat and not who’s going to be eliminated next.
I have heard of star voting and must read more on it, but I am very happy with RCV for now and I’m not sure Star would represent any meaningful change in a country that moved from 2 party to many party with a strong independent voice in our parliament.
Edit: One thing I like about RCV is voting for a candidate even though I feel they’re likely to get eliminated simply because they match my views closely, knowing that my further down preferences will count and if they are elected well all the better. That is just not really an option with FPTP. It’s a horrible system.
We should put all options for voting on the ballot. Then FPtP will win because the reform vote will be split and the status quo people will vote as a bloc.
Approval voting still encourages strategic voting and “dishonesty” and does not strongly correlate with actual preference. If there are three candidates, Love, Tolerate, and Hate, 60% could strongly prefer Love, and 30% strongly prefer Hate, but both groups would prefer Tolerate over the other alternative, then Love voters would be smart to not make a second choice even though they would approve of Tolerate.
The goal of approval voting isn’t to pick the candidate the thinnest plurality are the most ecstatic about, but rather to pick the candidate the largest majority consider acceptable. It trends towards moderates by design.
Moderation is not inherently virtuous, and compromise is not always the best path forward. Have you read Project 2025? As an American, that shit is terrifying, and the idea that we should find a middle ground with Christian nationalists is abhorrent. Trending toward moderation encourages extremism and obstructionism, because you get more leverage on the center from the edges. Look at what is happening in France right now, where they use simple ballots but will have runoff elections until majority candidates are elected. Moderation, cooperation, and compromise on the left led to failure.
Approval voting is where you mark any number of candidates that you want, and the person with the most marks is the elected person.
The most important issues with a fair voting system are eliminated by this method. Strategic voting will always happen under our performative democracy, which means that all parties are pathways for getting close to the actual goal. It’s only a problem if people are overly worried about genuinely “voting your truth”.
Approval voting counts all “approve” votes equally, which doesn’t eliminate the spoiler effect or create a more fair system than FPtP. Star voting eliminates the benefits of strategic voting and creates the most fair and accurate system possible. Genuinely voting your truth is the only measure of a fair election.
how does approval voting allow for spoilers? The experts that study election systems consider it eliminated under approval voting. It’s literally impossible to be a spoiler, because there’s nothing to spoil. There could be 4 real candidates and 16 no-name candidates, and nothing would prevent people from voting for 18 candidates. All of the eliminations you’re concerned about happen all at once, because it’s about having the most total votes. Votes for “spoilers” does literally nothing to affect the chances of other candidates.
As for “genuine voting”, how does one determine whether a vote was strategic vs genuine? Why does everyone have to conform to a ranked system that is highly susceptible to runoff upsets? I don’t care if people vote strategically, because if the options are check boxes or not, strategy is very limited. STAR is based on instant runoffs with a bit of range voting mixed in. Both are highly susceptible to strategy, as well as several undesirable traits that don’t exist with approval. Please explain to me how it prevents strategic voting.
how does approval voting allow for spoilers? The experts that study election systems consider it eliminated under approval voting. It’s literally impossible to be a spoiler, because there’s nothing to spoil.
I suspect he’s thinking of it’s tendency to trend towards moderates. Like say 60% strongly prefer A, 30% strongly prefer C, but many supporters for either would also be OK with B. Under a lot of ranked choice and similar systems, B has no chance and A definitely wins but under approval if enough A and C voters also tick the box for B then B will win, even if B was only the top choice for a tiny minority because they were “good enough” for enough people.
Australia has optional preferential voting. If there is 10 candidates, you can list them in order you want, but you don’t have to pick them all. You can stop at any point. Pick 3 or 4 in order, or say 7, but you don’t have to rank the nazi at all.
That’s pretty much star voting, except you can give candidates the same ranking
Ok. But why rank them the same?
I don’t see the point. In preferential voting you choose your candidates in a ranked order, so if number 5 doesn’t make the cut in the final count, your next vote (number 4) kicks in, and so on. Not exactly - all number 1 votes are tallied, and the losers are eliminated and then the second vote from the loser candidate gets tallied and so on until the winner is chosen. In this way your ranked choice is never exhausted until a winner arises. Your number 3 choice may get voted in. All votes are potentially important. FPTP sounds like a crap shoot.
Because that may be the most accurate description of your actual preference, which is what a vote should be.
If your vote retabulates when someone is eliminated, you still need to be strategic with your rankings. you want to make sure that your preferred candidates are not eliminated, but you also want to make sure that you’re ranking doesn’t cause one of your preferred candidates to be eliminated prematurely. with star voting, vote always counts.
There’s no runoff If I remember, all your votes are tallied instantly, so you rank them the same if you feel the same towards them
Ireland also has this. It’s great. I believe that’s what’s being referred to as “ranked choice voting” in this thread.
I would generally go quite far down the ballot though I do believe some stop at 1 or 2.
Add Ranked choice voting along with getting rid of this.
STAR or approval is better.
Is ranked choice voting the new shibboleth to determine the in -group?
Go to bed, Jordan Peterson
Some Democrats oppose ranked-choice voting (RCV) because they fear it could threaten their incumbency and power. For instance, the District of Columbia Democratic Party has opposed a ballot initiative for RCV, with Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser calling it “a bad idea.” source
“some” == 5 children on a college campus
The only reason they want a popular vote system is because it would have worked in their favor in 2000 and 2016.
The minute it goes against “their” candidate they’ll scream to go back to the electoral college.
See the multi-state pact here:
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation
Currently passed in 17 states for 209 electoral college votes, it doesn’t take effect until there are 270 accounted for.
But do you really think the residents of a state like Oregon, or Washington, or California will just be OK with their electoral college votes being passed to a popular vote winner who is a Republican?
Especially if that person failed to win their state?
But do you really think the residents of a state like Oregon, or Washington, or California will just be OK with their electoral college votes being passed to a popular vote winner who is a Republican?
Yes, because they won. People who favor democracy understand they won’t always be in the majority, and that’s OK bedause they aren’t shitbags. People who only want the system to work in their favor are called Conservatives.
You have more faith than I do. If Oregonians thought their vote was overturned because of a national popular vote winner, there would be riots.
Their vote wasn’t “overturned” their vote counted just as much as anyone else’s they just lost.
Under the multi-state pact, if Oregon voted overwhelmingly for Harris, but Trump won the national popular vote, and our electoral college votes were delivered to Trump because of the popular vote, yeah, that would be overturning the will of Oregon voters and there would be riots.
Overturning what exactly? To record their votes in the EC for the losing candidate in a symbolic gesture? No one gives a shit about that, they’re still losing. You’ll have the state tallies, which actually count people, if you really want to say “most Oregonians disliked Trump”.
The way the multi-state pact works is that member states agree to give all their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote, regardless of who the state actually voted for.
It doesn’t actually get rid of the Electoral College, that would take a constitutional amendment, it just re-apportions the Electoral College votes based on the outcome of the popular vote.
So in 2000 and 2016, the Democratic candidate won Oregon, and won the popular vote, they would get all the electoral college votes, not a problem, even though they lost the election overall.
Where it WILL be a problem is if the Democratic candidate wins the state, but the Republican candidate wins the national popular vote.
State voters will be told “Yeah, we don’t care who you actually voted for, the Republican gets the votes from your state.” OMG there will be riots.
Think of it like this… Your vote in your state gets inverted because of voters in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, etc. etc.
Your state EC vote for a losing candidate is a purely symbolic exercise with zero effect whatsoever on the result. And once the NPVC is in effect even the symbolism will be effectively nil as people no longer care or count electoral votes.
If the Republicans win the popular vote, they’ve also won the electoral college, but even if they didn’t, that’s democracy. Trying to overturn the will of the people by reverting to an archaic and undemocratic system is anti-democracy. You have to actually believe the EC has some value to try go to the streets to try to restore it, but it’s a bad system that invalidates people’s votes, whether or not Democrats are winning.
So when one town votes for trump and Harris wins the state the votes of that town are “overturned” by the state then?
Pretty much, and they’re so pissed off about that they want to split the state and join Idaho.
Really? I grew up in a red town in Massachusetts and I’ve literally never heard a single person talk about their vote like that ever, let alone suggest that the town should join another state.
You mean if they lost? How many riots have there been in Oregon when the candidate Oregon shows didn’t win the electoral college? Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, but we didn’t see riots in Oregon.
That’s not your best argument against a national popular vote agreement. The best argument is that no national campaigns would give a shit about Oregon if the goal was winning the national popular vote. Oregon is a progressive coastal state, but it’s still a flyover state.
In fact, states wouldn’t matter at all. State borders are just imaginary lines drawn around population centers. Campaigns would focus exclusively on demographics and high density population zones. Oregonians as a demographic would be considered “safe” for progressives and “lost” for conservatives, so neither side would give them much effort. California Republicans and Texas Democrats would be the big winners. States like New York and Florida would become the new battlegrounds, as candidates spoke to the concerns of the most people.
And in a way, that would be much better. It would encourage more voters to actually show up, and local races would become more important. But with first past the post, winner take all national elections, you’ll still have two parties demonizing the other.
Oregonians as a demographic would be considered “safe” for progressives and “lost” for conservatives, so neither side would give them much effort.
That’s now. You’re describing the electoral college.
Found the person not from Oregon:
Lol, I’m from Philly, that’s not a riot.
This runs counter to the Lemmy narrative which says we need like 40 years of Democratic rule to unfuck the country.
The unfuck the Supreme Court. That’s still an issue regardless of how the voting is done. And it’s usually referenced to discredit people just saying “let the system work it out” and in favor of quicker solutions like packing the Court.
It would be nice to implement stuff like one of the voting systems under the broader ranked choice voting umbrella first before getting rid of the electoral college.
Is the suggestion here that the only people who support the electoral college are those who don’t want the president to represent the majority of the voting population?
I think the argument boils down to the same one that created both a Senate and House of Representatives, which is does the US have allegiance to it’s citizens or it’s States.
No, the suggestion here is that the people supporting the popular vote are doing it because they got burned in 2000 and 2016.
Had it gone the other way, they wouldn’t be agitating for it.
If Trump somehow wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college, WA, OR and CA will be THRILLED.
Your suggestion is wrong. Eliminating the Electoral College is advocated for by everyone who supports Democracy. It is also not a coincidence that the Electoral College disproportionately benefits one party over the other. And to cement that advantage they employ anti-Democratic measures in an attempt at voter suppression.
Everyone who supports Democracy… right up until it goes against their interests.
Thankfully, there are many people who don’t think like this.
I think you’re giving average people too much credit.
“Consider how dumb the average person is and then remember 1/2 of them are dumber than that!” - Carlin
So you don’t think it’s ok to do the right thing, because people want it for the wrong reasons?
I think people want it now because they feel burned by the 2000 and 2016 elections, but the first time it goes the other way they will be like “Wait, not like THAT!”
I look at the 2000 election like this:
Gore won. If we had completed counting the ballots in Florida, however they were counted, Gore won.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/29/uselections2000.usa
(Published 8 days after the Bush inauguration)
The problem there wasn’t popular vs. electoral college. The problem was Democrats are spineless and refuse to fight. “When they go low, we go high” and all that.
In the end though, if Gore had also bothered to win his own home state of Tennessee, Florida would not have mattered.
In 2016, again, less of a problem with popular vs. electoral and more that Clinton utterly failed to campaign in key states like MI and WI, taking them for granted and assuming they were a lock. Surprise! Not a lock.
Had she done her job correctly, she wouldn’t have lost the EC.
Gore won. If we had completed counting the ballots in Florida, however they were counted, Gore won.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/29/uselections2000.usa
(Published 8 days after the Bush inauguration)
The problem there wasn’t popular vs. electoral college. The problem was Democrats are spineless and refuse to fight. “When they go low, we go high” and all that.
There were recounts beforehand. Didn’t change the result. The last recount, the one that got interrupted by the injunction and killed by SCOTUS was of a handful of specific counties and counted under a different standard for over- and under-votes than the rest of the state.
If it had been completed, Bush would still have won. According to some media outlets doing research on the topic, had the entire state been recounted under the standard Gore wanted to use for that handful of places, Gore might have won. Some surveys done after the fact also suggested Gore could have won but surveys aren’t votes, it’s why we don’t just let news media do a poll and decide the president that way.
The SCOTUS decision leaned on two things: Election deadlines are enforceable and using different rules to count votes depending on which district you are in violates Equal Protection. They killed the last recount because it violated equal protection and a version of it that wouldn’t could not possibly have been completed before the deadline (about 2 hours after they released the opinion).
The logic behind Bush v Gore is why Trump switched from launching lawsuit after lawsuit in 2020 to bloviating and whining and hoping for a coup starting at about mid December. He’ll do the same this year if he loses - he’ll launch any lawsuit he thinks might have a ghost of a chance until we reach election deadlines then incessantly bloviate in a vain attempt to foment rebellion.
Common Dreams - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Common Dreams:
MBFC: Left - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.commondreams.org/news/electoral-college-map-2024
Well yeah… The electoral college consistently lets a minority opinion override the majority, so of course a majority want it done.
Problem is that minority that gets their way today aren’t going to yield if they can help it.
The one time we all could’ve used conservatives’ hatred of minorities and they just let us down.
because in this case they’re the minority
It’s rule by the majority with respect for the minority not rule by the minority in the majority just take it.
Edit: at least it’s supposed to be
What they tell you that it is -vs- what it actually is.
The political and economic system hides everything from us so that all we see is the individual and all these fragmented pieces – and our education only reaffirms this viewpoint. It isn’t until you educate yourself as a worker and understand the system from a class perspective (Marx) that you can begin see it in its totality for what it really is.
