If electoral college was ended, could the republicans EVER win another election?

[Underverse]

But the system is partially designed so that different areas get equal representation, not that each individual citizen does.

Think of it this way:

A bill is passed and CA is seeing economic growth, they're doing great. Cost of living has gone down and wages are up. Everyone in CA is happy.
However, that same bill has resulted in extreme poverty in Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, and Idaho.

Politicians continue to court the same policies and California ensures these policies continue to grow, further crippling everyone in the other 4 states mentioned. Those 4 states can never do anything about it, will never have a say about it, and are essentially meaningless lives that politicians have absolutely no reason to concern themselves with. "Let them eat cake" as it were.

That would be equal and fair right? Because the concerns of more wealthy people in a heavily populated region are the only thing that matters, not those filthy peasants in the dirt in rural areas, right?

That's one of the reasons there are various balances with things like the electoral college, House representation, etc.

Yes, but there are already mechanisms in place that grant this kind of representation - including both the House and the Senate. We don't need this weak, disenfranchising pseudo-representative elective system for the presidency.

[Independent voter]

The Electorial College is a fail safe put in by the founding fathers, if the masses elect a demagogue or something the EC can nullify their vote. Democracy was a new thing back then and nobody knew what would happen, there are more fail safes than the EC.

I know Athens was a democracy even though only a small percentage of the population had the vote, male land owners. It didn't have safe guards and things went badly a time or two, like deciding to attack Sparta.

Both sides knew about the EC at the start of the campaign, it's fair.

[Ghostpanther]

The president is representing every state, so how would smaller states be less represented?

You are a smart guy. The President represents the whole nation, as a whole. What is the best for the whole nation, not just the majority of the people.
The laws and such in this country are impacted by Congress and more importantly the Supreme Court. If it was by popular vote only for the President to get elected, who is the one who appoints Justices to serve on the Supreme Court, then the smaller states with no electoral impact, would have almost no say on who gets appointed.

One reason the Constitution amendment is not set up to easily be amended by popular vote. It is not a system many agree with, but that is fine. Not saying any other country should do it that way for them. But it is like it is here for what I believe is a good purpose. Agree or disagree if you want. not going to change how it is.

[Citizen T]

OR the Republican party can define a platform that commands the votes of a majority of voters, rather than relying on voter suppression, gerrymandering and a two hundred year old outdated constitutional construct to maintain relevance. At some point, the reliance on old white voters living in swing states will no longer be enough and they will have to adapt or die.

Despite their victory right now, the demographic trends everyone was talking about before the election have not gone away. The victory has delayed, not removed, the inevitable reckoning that is to come.

Also the number of people of this thread trying to justify an anti democratic system like the electoral college on the grounds that more people vote for the other side is shocking. Do you people value democracy at all? Because if this is your attitude, why let the Democrats win at all? Why keep up the pretense of using the EC? Why not just institute a junta and do away with elections if the people are going to keep returning the wrong answer?

In fact, let me elaborate. The OP presumes that the electoral college allows the Republicans to win sometime, and that they would have no chance under a more democratic system. This is ridiculous. What you really mean is, the electoral college allows the Repbulican party to win sometimes without being responsive to the population. If the Republicans cannot win under a purely democratic system due to their platforms and policies, then continued general election losses would compel them to modify their policies and platform to win.
The electoral college...as well as everything else they do...insulates them from being responsive to the people and prevents them from facing the reality that will crash upon them in the next few electoral cycles.

The problem is that you want a pure democracy when it would go your way and not so much when it doesn't. California voted for a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage and it won by a pretty good margin but it was overturned but you have no problem with that. You say it was unconstitutional. Well, I hate to break it to you but the EC is in the Constitution so quit being such a crybaby about it.

[Underverse]

The Electorial College is a fail safe put in by the founding fathers, if the masses elect a demagogue or something the EC can nullify their vote. Democracy was a new thing back then and nobody knew what would happen, there are more fail safes than the EC.

I know Athens was a democracy even though only a small percentage of the population had the vote, male land owners. It didn't have safe guards and things went badly a time or two, like deciding to attack Sparta.

Both sides knew about the EC at the start of the campaign, it's fair.

Nobody is saying that it's not fair for one of the 'sides'. It is, however, unfair to individuals who are guaranteed equal citizen rights under law.

[Ghostpanther]

The Electorial College is a fail safe put in by the founding fathers, if the masses elect a demagogue or something the EC can nullify their vote. Democracy was a new thing back then and nobody knew what would happen, there are more fail safes than the EC.

I know Athens was a democracy even though only a small percentage of the population had the vote, male land owners. It didn't have safe guards and things went badly a time or two, like deciding to attack Sparta.

Both sides knew about the EC at the start of the campaign, it's fair.

Absolutely. I do not think Trump spent any time campaigning in California for example. And Clinton lost because she failed to address the concerns of the people in the Rust Belt States.

[Mayhem]

You a smart guy. The President represents the whole nation, as a whole. What is the best for the whole nation, not just the majority of the people.
The laws and such in this country are impacted by Congress and more importantly the Supreme Court. If it was by popular vote only for the President to get elected, who is the one who appoints Justices to serve on the Supreme Court, then the smaller states with no electoral impact, would have almost no say on who gets appointed.

One reason the Constitution amendment is not set up to easily be amended by popular vote. It not a system many agree with, but that is fine. Not saying any other country should do it that way for them. But it is like it is here for what I believe is a good purpose. Agree or disagree if you want. not going to change how it is.

I have a feeling you´re inventing reasons that make little to no sense.

I mean, you surely can show how the presidents state of origin (who he most likely feel connected too the most) had any impact on supreme court appointments and laws, right?

[Tijuana]

I honestly feel that if the electoral college were abolished the way all these liberals want it to be that the republicans would literally never win another election for the rest of all history and time.

Kinda need the electoral college so republicans can get turns with the whitehouse honestly?

Liberal democrat voters will always win the popular vote as far as I'm concerned

You are assuming that the two parties would run on the same issues and in the same way. They would not.

Also, it would greatly weaken state rights to eliminate the EC.

[Deleted]

OMG really? you know I can bloody link what the OP wrote you know that right?




You lot made this bloody topic racial, you lot the connection starting post 4, 5 and then it turned dark at Post 13. The OP asked a what if question but then you lot turned this shit racial when it never had to be.

You can talk about demographics and how both parties try to play into this but noooo you had to go down the übermensch argument.

Because the demographic aspect cannot be ignored...

[Belize]

Bio-metric voter ID, US Citizens only. with a paper trail?

In Landslides.

Lemme guess, millions of people voted for Clinton illegally.

[Ghostpanther]

Nobody is saying that it's not fair for one of the 'sides'. It is, however, unfair to individuals who are guaranteed equal citizen rights under law.

The Constitution guarantees that by definition. Not by some popular vote. Sure there has been some bad shit happen in the past. But the Constitution has provided ways to ratify injustices. Which is why we have the Supreme Court.

[Thetruth1400]

Easily. If the Electoral College is ended, how candidates campaign is going to completely change. The only reason that Hillary has more popular votes is she overwhelmingly won blue states, especially New York and California. The reason? Republicans typically don't bother campaigning there much because they're winner take all states.

If it goes to a popular majority system, you're going to see massive shifts with both parties going to major cities first, like New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Diego, etc. Those areas today? Almost completely ignored by Republicans. So if Republicans were actually going there in full force, which they would have to considering they're the most population dense areas, there's a strong chance that there would be more than a few converts who only vote Democrat in those areas because at that point, every vote would matter, and a Republican from those areas vote wouldn't automatically be tossed in the trash because the state as a whole typically votes Democratic.

[Ghostpanther]

I have a feeling you´re inventing reasons that make little to no sense.

I mean, you surely can show how the presidents state of origin (who he most likely feel connected too the most) had any impact on supreme court appointments and laws, right?

And like always you like to be argumentative and lack a understanding or desire to accept what we do here in the US. That is fine. This is one of the main reasons I voted for Trump. To put the US first here. Others ( non US citizens ) failures to accept our ways is of little concern to me.

[ati87]

Because the demographic aspect cannot be ignored...

Sure it can just you don't want to.

You don't have to call yourself superior ( which you aren't) and focus on policy.

This is weakness, you don't have any winning argument so you lot have to involve race and not demographics in every discussion.

[Grapemask]

I've heard this argument for the electoral college, too, among the other ones. Where do these theories get made before they're uploaded to the Trump Network and used far and wide to defend his wins? One person I discussed this with went so far as to say that this is what makes the electoral college needed; it's the only thing keeping poor oppressed Republicans from being stamped out.

Bush won the popular in 2004. He narrowly lost the popular in 2000, but the electoral hinged on a single state and kind of reflected that.

Blaming the electoral college is simply delaying what Republicans themselves have been acknowledging since 2008 and 2012. In the last two decades, the Republican party's message has narrowed itself so extremely to white men and the wealthy that it's strangling their ability to win the way they should be winning. Yes, they can stick their heads in the sand and scream "white genocide," "liberal media," "class warfare," they can hide behind their propaganda news networks, but at the end of the day, Republicans need to change. They said as much themselves in 2012, and then Trump came along and shit on all of that.

That's what's really frustrating and ironic here - most likely, the Democrats will be the party that changes. Republicans have once again succeeded in shifting the message and the blame away from themselves, and now it'll be all about overplaying the corruption issues with the DNC and the example of "Crooked Hillary."

[Draco-Onis]

You are assuming that the two parties would run on the same issues and in the same way. They would not.

Also, it would greatly weaken state rights to eliminate the EC.

How would it weaken state rights? the states are represented in the senate and the house of representative, deciding elections does not grant them any special rights.

[Deleted]

Sure it can just you don't want to.

You don't have to call yourself superior ( which you aren't) and focus on policy.

This is weakness, you don't have any winning argument so you lot have to involve race and not demographics in every discussion.

Just lol. You completely ignore all the science I've given you because you don't like what it says, then you go on and call me deluded. Your "policy" doesn't work. How is it working in south america or africa?

[Venant]

Sure it can just you don't want to.

You don't have to call yourself superior ( which you aren't) and focus on policy.

This is weakness, you don't have any winning argument so you lot have to involve race and not demographics in every discussion.

So your argument for importing millions of people with IQs significantly lower than the average IQ of the native population is? You are the one not making an argument here, you are the one shouting 'racism, omg you are literally Nazis' and relying upon senseless appeals to emotion. You might as well just say we should agree with you because what you say is the will of god, because it sounds an awful lot like a religion.

[Tijuana]

How would it weaken state rights? the states are represented in the senate and the house of representative, deciding elections does not grant them any special rights.

While it is true that eliminating the EC would still leave some state rights behind, the argument that they are unaffected is a little strange to me. This nation is a republic, and there is nothing immoral about that; quite the contrary. Mob rule is not always a better way to handle things.

[Dug]

You would see a hell of a lot more voter turn out if the presidency was up to popular vote I can guarantee that. With the EC lots of voters are just apathetic and don't even bother to vote because "Oh my state is always red/blue". We could possibly see third party candidates become serious contenders as well.