Ditching it would allow imperial rule of California over colonial America.
Yes. I spend a lot of time in California, and believe me, you do not want these “liberal” fascists running your lives.
55 thoughts on “The Electoral College”
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Interesting article, but it would be worth mentioning that California’s departure from the rest of the nation isn’t just seen in presidential elections; they were a massive outlier in the 2010 mid term wave election as well as the one in 2014.
I disagree with calling them liberal fascists though – that’s far too charitable IMHO. 🙂
It is simply unhealthy for the national body politic to allow one big state to impose its will on the rest of the nation, which is exactly what a national popular vote would do.
California’s current influence is unhealthy enough; 55 electoral votes. The good news (potentially) is that electoral votes are apportioned on gross population, which includes illegal aliens. Factor in California’s already-existing net outflow of population, and then factor in a significant reduction in its illegal alien population, and California should be losing quite a chunk of house seats (and thus electoral votes) after the 2020 census.
At present each state determines voter requirements, runs the polling stations, and handles everything else regarding an election. That’s because it’s purely a contest among the residents of each state, and the state’s residents in opposition are the ones who keep the system honest.
But if we went by popular vote than my state would be sending election monitors to California because they’re letting illegals vote.
Or conversely, instead of Kentucky casting only 1.8 million votes for President, we’d round up the extra 45 million Kentuckians who live way back in the hills (where the census folks wont go) and simply outvote California.
because they’re letting illegals vote.
Funny how they’re letting millions of ineligible voters cast votes, and yet it’s so hard to find even a hundred actual examples.
The way elections are run in California might as well be designed to prevent illegal voters from being detected.
Really? The voting rolls are public.
And filled with names like Pepe Lopez. They weren’t allowed to check people’s citizenship, and California not only issues drivers licenses to illegals, they automatically register anyone getting a drivers license.
So some odd numbers from California.
Nationwide voter turnout for 2016 was up only 1.01% from 2012. But California’s voter turnout went up by 7.68% over 2012, with 996,362 more votes in 2016 than 2012. Can you guess where those votes went?
Nationwide, even including California, Hillary got less votes than Obama did in 2012. But in California, Hillary got 846,619 more votes than Obama did (10.7% more than Obama), which would be 85% of those new 996,362 votes.
Funny how if one were to actually do a little research and reading one could avoid making illiterate ignorant statements like yours:
“Barth interviewed Republican Assembly Candidate for District 15, Stan Vaughan, who had actual proof of the massive voter fraud in his Clark County district. A total number of 17,086 votes were cast in the District for both Republican and Democrat candidates. However, when confirmation letters were sent to the voters in the District, the US postal service returned mail from 9,200 of these voters.
Vaughn found that many of the people who are listed as deceased are still on the active voter rolls. Many of the returned mail came back with 5 people living in a vacant lot with no mail receptacle. Edward Snowden, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and dozens of movie stars were registered to vote in District 15 according to Mr. Vaughan.
Vaughan tested a sample of 200 people of the 9,200 return mail and found that 185 of those had indeed voted. According to Mr. Vaughan, there were other serious voting system irregularities he documented.”
Ok Jim so there’s 185 right there in one district……
President-elect Donald Trump lost by only 27,000 votes statewide in Nevada. So 9,200 fraudulent voters in one small Assembly district is more than 1/3 of the total margin that Trump lost by.”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/12/report-massive-nevada-voter-fraud-uncovered/
There is the worry that they may be able to buy off enough to win but it looks like they may actually have enough integrity to avoid that for now. Hard to predict the future though.
The more they talk about Hillary winning the popular the more we should resolve to completely destroy them before the next cycle.
The California phobic argument he makes against a one man one vote system quickly falls apart when you remember that under such a system the California (and all other states), wouldn’t be voting as a block, There would still be plenty of Republican votes coming out of the state.
Andrew, the math argues contra to your contention. Take California out of the equation on the popular vote and Trump won it.
Who cares? The system works just fine. The democrats proudly declared it a successful system with their “blue wall.” Now they’re crying foul.
Andrew, your “non-monolithic vote in California” argument is worthless. it’s a straw man that doesn’t speak to the point.
Let me see if I can enlighten you as you seem to be unable to enlighten yourself or think out of your own tiny little box:
Pure democracy sucks. It fails. It’s failed every time it’s tried.
One reason it fails is because of the size of the country. Unless the majority vote is evenly spread all across the nations – in other words the same fraction of liberals to conservatives in every single state – the majority (liberal or conservative) cannot, will not, do not understand what’s important in other parts of the country.
No liberal in California can understand – nor should be able to speak for – a conservative in Wyoming. Samewise no conservative in Wisconsin should be able to speak for a liberal in Massachusetts.
The smaller the nation the better pure democracy works but only to a point. In Lichtenstein it’s more likely that everyone understands the lives of everyone else in Lichtenstein. But even there pure democracy fails because the majority can sometimes go bonkers (like when we voted in Obama).
That you cannot see the effects of the tyranny of the majority is astonishing.
Russia and China decided they have more people than New Zealand, and just told the Kiwis to take their ideas and hit the road. Sucks to have all those Kiwiphobic people in the world, but when you go for pure Democracy the minority tends to lose every time.
The present political stance of California is mainly due to 20 years of out of control immigration. If California would vote to leave the US, it would also be likely, sooner or later, to vote itself into Mexico as a new state.
I fled California in 2008, after 28 years there. And I’d never go back, for any reason whatsoever. In the first place, I own too many guns (one being too many, though I own more). In the second, the taxes are oppressive. Even when I first moved there in 1980, my impression of the place could be summarized by my nomination for a state emblem: a hand taking a wallet out of someone else’s pocket.
That was right after the property tax revolt of 1977 (I was there just at the right time to lose an internship at JPL.) Amazing how quickly they overturned a tax revolt.
When Leftoids scream about aomething being unfair, whatever it is, I want more of it.
the Framers’ fears that voters in one large but highly atypical state could impose their will on a contrary-minded nation
This is ahistorical. The biggest state in 1789 was Virginia. Virginia had 14% of the nation’s free white men eligible to vote, an even larger share of the national popular vote than California has today. The electoral college did not restrain Virginia’s power to sway the presidential election, it enhanced it, granting Virginia 16% of the electors in 1792.
The electoral college was not designed to restrain the power of large states, it was designed to enhance the power of slave states.
It was a compromise, silly.
Where is Bob with his red haired analogy?
You understand that “red hair” was a proxy for African-Americans, or Hispanic-American, or Muslim-American or Gay-American or any other discriminated-against group? It isn’t necessarily true, but it is entirely possible that a Muslim-American (or Hispanic-American, etc) in one US state will feel that they have much more common with someone else who fits that description in a different US state, because both people want to oppose prejudicial laws and practices. And that’s why I suggested that if you want to play identify politics and have an electoral college which favored a minority called “Montana Voters”, you might just as well, except for historical reasons, have an electoral college which favors other kinds of minorities too. I’m sure any such alternative electoral college would strike you as both unfair and divisive, yet you’re happy to worry about the Montana minority, who, of course, have so little in common with the Wyoming minority. I didn’t want to get into a big discussion about whether racism still exists or whether there should be protection against legal discrimination based on gay vs straight, so I suggested red hair. I’m not sure if you understood.
why I suggested that if you want to play identify politics
I’m lol’ing.
I didn’t want to get into a big discussion about whether racism still exists
It does and its called identity politics.
Wow, this is silly and naive. Geographic and population divisions are efficient in a republic. Since all people are created equal, what is the point of a gay or latino division?
You’re making strange equivalences here.
“The electoral college was not designed to restrain the power of large states, it was designed to enhance the power of slave states.”
Nuts to that.
The EC DOES restrain the larger states but not to the point where it makes Rhode Island equal in voting power to California. It was never intended to do that. Large states were to have a larger voice because..they are larger. But they needed to be restrained so that smaller states did not become irrelevant. There’s thousands of words on this in the Federalist Papers, but I’m sure you’ve never studied them.
Besides which no one could foresee that Virginia would remain the largest state (it hasn’t). For all they knew, newer larger territories would be come states in the future and might be anti-slavery – they did. So if your idiotic suggestion had the slightest bit of truth to it, they wouldn’t have used this method to assure slave state supremacy.
Added to that, the fact that many of the Founders were anti-slavery means that they would have understood what was going on (if your stupid suggestion had the slightest merit – which it does not) and would have blocked it.
They knew that and knew what happens when you allow rampant democracy – idiots like you marxist/democrats take over and destroy people.
Your pathetic attempt to inject racism into this conversation and the Founder’s intentions belie an enormous ignorance on your part as well as a blind raging partisanship……..
…everything we’ve come to expect from you.
no one could foresee that Virginia would remain the largest state
In 1790 over 40% of Virginia’s population was enslaved. Anyone could foresee that as long as slavery was legal, Virginia’s share of the electoral college would be greater than its share of the U.S. voting population.
the fact that many of the Founders were anti-slavery means that they would have understood what was going on (if your stupid suggestion had the slightest merit – which it does not) and would have blocked it
They knew exactly what was going on. When James Wilson proposed direct election of the president at the Constitutional Convention, Virginian and slaveholder James Madison replied that “There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes.”
Note that he doesn’t mention the supposed threat of large states bossing around small states. The one difficulty he identifies is that direct election of the president would give the South no credit for the nearly 700,000 souls — almost 20% of the U.S. population — they held in slavery. The Electoral College would, and did.
And as the enslaved population grew in the decades following ratification, the political power that the Electoral College offered slave states grew as well. The ramifications of the EC’s design even outlasted slavery. When Southern states nearly outlawed black voting after Reconstruction they paid no price in their influence on national politics. In fact they had it better than before the war, since now their oppressed, non-voting black citizens counted as full persons towards House apportionment and electoral votes, rather than being discounted by 2/5ths.
So why did the North agree the South this enormous advantage? It wasn’t because they didn’t realize they were handing greater political power to slave states, they were smart men who knew arithmetic. They agreed because the alternative was to continue with the Articles of Confederation, and they concluded that they preferred having a strong national executive chosen disproportionatly by the South to having none at all.
So you are claiming the EC exists so that slave states would have more power over the non-slave states and that the non-slaves states wanted this explicitly to protect slavery?
Meanwhile, the current fad of supporting a popular vote would enslave your fellow Americans. Its a recipe for revolution. Its stupid. Its corrupt. And its short sighted.
Democrats will be singing the praises of the EC when the demographics change, just like they suddenly found out that going nuclear on the filibuster and giving Obama so many executive powers was a mistake.
“They agreed because the alternative was to continue with the Articles of Confederation, and they concluded that they preferred having a strong national executive chosen disproportionatly by the South to having none at all.”
Non Sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.
“There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes.”
You should learn to read. Maybe then you’d understand what Madison was saying.
Spend time on that instead of the ridiculous assertion that the EC was designed to enhance slave state power while at the same time limiting slave state power.
If a large slave state – like Virginia then a big one – wanted to retain power they’d have gone for the direct vote and no EC. The EC raises the level of power of the small states and diminishes the power of the large state.
You can’t even keep your own arguments straight in your own head. This is what happens when you take your position from someone else and don’t give it the slightest thought.
Lastly, Jim, we recognize your ploy to change the subject. It’s failed.
We don’t have slavery now so the EC doesn’t exist to promote slave state interests.
Nice try though.
The electoral college did not restrain Virginia’s power to sway the presidential election, it enhanced it, granting Virginia 16% of the electors in 1792.
Virginia had 18% of the House of Representatives (19 seats of 105 total) and it obtained that share because of apportionment round off error after the 1792 election (and probably their greater voting power in the House).
There would be no reason to expect this sort of advantage to continue, particularly as states were added.
Hey Andrew, NZ’s debt to GDP is 24.6%, up from 5.4% in 2008. You’d better switch to a more fiscally responsible government.
The Greeks – inventors of pure democracy – soon found out that pure democracy fails. Most (not all) governments since then has, in one way or another, tried to avoid a pure democracy. Those that tried it failed.
By “government” I’m talking about national governments. For example in the town I live in, town decisions are made by a pure democratic vote of the townspeople. This works ok because pretty much everyone in the town knows the *general* situation of everyone else. Particular problems with an issue on the town warrant are debated by the townspeople face to face at town meeting. That way, a more particular insight into people’s problems can be obtained. There’s a greater chance of understanding what’s best for the entire town that way.
San Fran moonbats not only do not know or understand the lives of people on farms in fly-over country – they don’t WANT to know and they think those people are ignorant jerks who vote against their own interest.
Here’s an example:
Embargo Act of 1807.
Now if you lived in a seaport town and made your living via international trade the Embargo Act flat-lined your income. You were against it. It wiped you out.
If you lived in, say, Tennesee or Kentucky country, your economy didn’t rely so much on international trade. You might be for the Embargo Act as it was actually designed to solve certain serious problems.
People living in different regions of a large country have different viewpoints and needs and desires. There’s no reason a bunch of screwball noddies in California, should dictate to the rest of the country what decisions should be made.
Even the Greeks could tell you that.
San Fran moonbats not only do not know or understand the lives of people on farms in fly-over country – they don’t WANT to know and they think those people are ignorant jerks who vote against their own interest.
It’s worth noting that the two classic demonstrations of Democrat bigotry, Obama’s “bitter clingers” speech and Clinton’s subsequent “deplorables” speech were both cases where the candidates in question were attempting to explain to San Francisco donors why certain other groups of citizens thought differently.
I’ll toss out another simple reason for the EC.
Re-run the last election as one-man one-vote and then calculate what happens if the Northeast happened to get hit with two feet of snow on election day, keeping everyone in New England, New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania (Philly) from the polls.
Trump wins in a landslide. But with good weather Hillary still wins.
Do we really want our Presidents picked by the weather?
Especially since, if the weather is bad, Democrat crybabies will blame the vaunted Halliburton Hurricane Machine.
And I’ll offer up yet another reason.
This past election in Kentucky I had almost nothing else to vote on. Our House race was a shoe-in, with the Democratic candidate only polling about 20%. There were no state-wide races, nor city-council races, or even a race for dog catcher. I think there was one court seat on the ballot. Since we knew that Hillary was only going to win about 2 out of 120 counties, there really wasn’t much reason to go to the polls.
Yet California’s ballots went on for pages and pages, full of state-wide referendums on all sorts of hot button issues and questions of great local importance.
Election day turnout hinges on things that vary widely by state and by year, for reasons that have nothing to do with the Presidential candidate.
How much of California’s turnout was for Hillary and how much was to weigh in on the all important state-wide condom-porn law, an issue that wasn’t on the ballot in Texas?
That’s a terrible reason to keep the Electoral College. By your argument, if there hadn’t been an Electoral College, Kentucky voters would have had a very important reason to go to the polls to elect a US president via the popular vote.
Yes, and 30 or 40 million extra Kentuckians would have voted, because who votes in our state is our own business, and we have tens of millions of people hiding in the hills.
The popular vote has no connection to the reality check from the Census Bureau. The electoral vote does.
As I posted in another thread, if you want to go ‘popular vote’, then you just cut your own throat (well, just starved yourself and your family). The issue is that large cities would dominate general elections. Winners of those elections would send more money to those places. Entire states, mostly in mid-west, would have ZERO say over national politics. Eventually, as the money leaves, the people leave. Well, there goes all of our country’s food generation, textile/machine base, and oil/coal/gas processing (hope you enjoy the blackout year round, not just in summer).
“hope you enjoy the blackout year round, not just in summer”
They wouldn’t live that long. Cut off the food and power, and the urban lefties would be eating each other within a week.
They literally have no idea of what their life would be like if the right said ‘no more’ and meant it.
Cut off the food and power, and the urban lefties would be eating each other within a week.
I don’t think they’d be experienced enough with meat preparation to do that.
Well, there goes all of our country’s food generation, textile/machine base, and oil/coal/gas processing
Uh, isn’t this what they want anyway? You say it like its a bad thing but then the misanthropists say, “Finally! Praise Gaia.”
You are arguing that people in large cities would act selfishly, and yet you are also arguing that people in large cities, who would be acting in their own self-interest to send federal money to rural areas, would not do it. In other words, you think city dwellers are idiots who are incapable of responding to a persuasive argument.
Let me ask you, were you offended by “What’s the matter with Kansas?”
Well, anyway, at least we agree that federal funding is the answer.
City dwellers are people. People are selfish. There are more selfish people in cities than selfish people in the country.
The electoral college and the constitution understand this inclination in humans. That is why it restricts power through competing branches (checks and balances), federal powers vs state powers, and other mechanisms. That is why it’s a document of negative rights.
Removing these restraints increases the power of a greater number of selfish people.
Selfish people want things that are produced in rural areas, so they selfishly won’t let those areas fail to be productive. See, greed is good, and it solves the problem Tom W. was worried about.
No. Selfish people vote for things they shouldn’t have. People do not vote for the greater good. If people voted for the greater good, we wouldn’t have a 20 trillion dollar debt.
When was the last time you thought, “Hey, what’s growing in that rural part of the state? I should make sure that I pay fewer taxes so they don’t become vassals of my city.”
Well, anyway, at least we agree that federal funding is the answer.
Where is that agreement?
You do know, bob, that DC, Virginia, and Maryland are the top 3 receivers of federal expenditures per capita, with Virginia residents each getting twice as much as Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska residents. Federal funding is not the answer.
Tom W’s entire post was focused on where Federal money would be sent. He wants it sent to rural areas. I argue that urban voters will agree, once they realize it is in their self-interest.
So, to spell it out: Tom W thinks that federal funding is vital, and I do too, thus, Tom W and I agree on importance of federal funding. I hope this was helpful.
BS bob, he specifically wrote of people’s money, which is personal money taxed by the federal government. And under Obama, Tom is right. Taxes have gone up. Federal receipts from taxes are all time high, and most of the money is going to urban residents. Federal spending is not the subject nor the answer.
You are arguing that people in large cities would act selfishly
The problem here is that the cities are exemplars of selfishness from top to bottom. You have endemic corruption and fiscal short-sightedness at the top down to rude behavior and crime at the bottom. Do I want people like that implementing one-size-fits-all policies for my country? Of course not.
You didn’t read my post carefully. I did not say the people would act selfishly, I said the politicians would funnel more money to those people to keep them happy. We see this all the time when LA, NYCity, Chicago, etc get more federal funds that are sent to the state. We currently see inner city ‘representatives’ say they need more money to solve their problems. I know that it’s hard for you to see, but that is the truth.
More federal funding means more people go there to try to get part of that money.
And to continue, @Bob, you were completely wrong about what I posted and the meaning behind it. It’s too bad you can’t comprehend beyond first order issues. Can’t believe you come to a place like this where folks actually can think for themselves.
Dear Jim
Once again I wish to apologize to you for believing you are an idiot and a troll for all these years.
I appreciate your near infinite patience constantly explaining why there is not any actual voter fraud in the country. I find your never ending search for fraud in order to disprove the existence of said fraud, along with your assurances that there is not and never have been any significant voter fraud, to be very reassuring.
I mean it is impossible to find on the second page of a google search for “illegal voting conviction” to find a list of over one hundred voter fraud convictions.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=illegal+voting+conviction&sout=1&surl=1&gws_rd=ssl#q=illegal+voting+conviction&hl=en&sout=1&start=10
Per the pdf article noted, the state of California has a list of trivial instances voter fraud convictions against republican activist being paid a bounty for each voter registered. This bounty systemis much like that insignificant fraud problem Wells Fargo had recently where more than 2 million fake accounts using real customers names were created. The poor political activist were forced by the system to make up or register unqualified people to vote. Much like Wells Fargo that can only continue for decades until multiple reports of its activities are finally noticed. I’m sure like Wells Fargo, both political parties will accept full responsibilities for their operatives without admitting any wrong doing what so ever. Of course it goes without saying that a adversarial system with citizens pushing for reform of voting rolls, procedures and voter ids would be counterproductive, wasteful and expensive for both political parties currently in power.
Also thank you for noting the ahistorical assertion that the Electoral College was designed to limit the influence of large states like the great state of Virginia but instead it was intended to limit the influence of disgusting slave states like Virginia. It’s not like there are any contemporary historical documents that describe the intentions of the founders for why a electoral college was created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68
Once again, thank you for your usual insightful thoughts on these and other matters.
🙂