Poll: most people who voted in 2016 want to abolish the Electoral College

From "Vox"? No credibility.

 

You really can't grasp why each individual state needs representation in the union regardless of population or lack thereof? Like I said, it's a sad commentary on the education level and intelligence of the average voter.

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There is that huh. Why did I even respond to this fake news?

 

As a developed nation, we have one of the worst voting frequency rates on record. See here: U.S. voter turnout trails most developed countries

Americans can't really complain about their democracy - or lack thereof. For as long as it is captured by BigMoney that helps "form" voting outcomes - particularly by simplistic commercials over the BoobTube that sells politicians like soap powder. "They all wash whiter than white".

The truth of political decision-making is in how economic decisions are taken. Reckless Ronnie, by means of a flat-rate upper-income taxation, assured the flood of money up from after-tax Income into Wealth. The super-rich now employ their riches to assure maintaining the status-quo of partisan voting in America.

Which is why one of the first remedies needed must be progressive taxation to stop the hideous deluge of Revenues flowing up into Wealth.

And the wealth just flows back downwards from generation to generation to generation.

(I thought we fought a Revolutionary War in the 18th century against a British Monarch and "his friends" for just such a reason; they were pilfering the wealth of the "colonies"* ...)

*How do you think the state of Pennsylvania got its name? A British King ceded the land to a Penn family member (Sir William Penn) for military-services rendered in Ireland. And it was his son (also William Penn) who became a rich real-estate developer as a result. It was this son who ceded most of the land to create the state of the same name.

 

First, thanks for exposing the sinister nature of income taxes, which always benefit the extreme wealthy.
Second, what does this have to do with real democracy ?

 

You Liberals still don't get it. Sure you won the popular vote only because you have a few big states with very large populations. But how did Americans all across the country vote? Let's see.

Q: In the election, did Hillary Clinton only win 57 out of 3,141 counties?

A: No. Clinton won at least 487 counties, according to two different counts of preliminary results.

So Trump won 2,654 more counties across the country than Clinton. Most of the counties won by Hillary were in mostly a few big populated Blue states. America spoke all across the country and it wasn't for Democrats. You not only lost to Trump, but you lost the House and Senate and many governorships too. Because you lost all those governorships, House and Senate that aught to tell you the majority of Americans across the country didn't like what the hell the Democrats were doing and the direction they were going. I might agree with you if only Trump had won and you picked up seats in the rest. But you didn't and the message was clear. We didn't want to go where you wanted to take us. But you ignore how the rest of the country voted and want to control future elections by having the larger population in a few big states and win by the popular vote. See how smart our forefathers were? They set it up to prevent just what you losers want to do.

You Libs are putting in big money too. But it wasn't money that won us this election. It's where the country wanted to go. By winning the Presidency, House, Senate and governorships, it should tell you where we wanted to go. We were fed up with you trying to splitting up the country. Pitting one group against another. Flooding our country with illegals and Muslim refugees.

 

Absolutely right!

Very well said.

 

Yeah sure----------------these are the same polls that said the criminal serial liar Hillary was going to win in a landslide.

 

Actually no. Just a bunch of crybabies that need to grow up, the election is over will y'all ever quit crying? It's pretty pathetic to be honest.

 

B-B-But you can trust THESE polls -- produced by the same polling companies in the pocket of the DNC -- because . . . because . . . leftists!

 

Define Real Democracy.

I define it to be where the fortunes of privileged individuals (benefiting by low upper-income taxation) are employed to warp campaigns by manipulating public opinion.

You may think this irrelevant, but you may also not know that TV-campaigning during election periods are significantly regulated in Europe. There is no Unlimited Commercializing of political candidates.

Which brings the matter of electing democratically to speechifying directly to the population but also making your opinions known in public debates. Why is electing a president so very costly in the US? Because parties hire people to run campaigns, whereas in Europe it is only capped-per-person campaign contributions of members that can be employed. It would do wonders in the US to simply adopt this one proscription.

The source of funds therefore decides how one approaches the "party faithful" and for the most part they are by means of gatherings in huge auditoriums throughout a country. (Just like stateside, but it is the funding that is very different.)

Not mind-bending commercials on TV that contain very little political content and sell candidates as if they were soap powder. Here in Europe, a political candidate must have "content". The "image" is far less important than the mouthpiece ...

 

And what you can't grasp is that in terms of the three powers of governance (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) that states assume the responsibility at levels of the state, and the nation manages its responsibilities along a parallel but national level.

An Electoral College (created by a state) has no business whatsoever counting and reporting the vote nowadays to Washington, DC. The popular-vote is the only acceptable determinant in the election of the Executive of a country.

Both are parallel, but must be separate to assure no mutual pollution of one upon the other ...

 

And your "credibility"? How do we asses that?

None the less, I must admit that a more recent survey has shown different results. Read here: Americans' Support for Electoral College Rises Sharply - excerpt:


Still, there is another study of the same question with different results: Poll: Majority of Americans believe popular vote, not electoral college, should decide elections - excerpt:

So, at the very least, it appears there is room for debate ...

 

To make it even more specific , it is a Constitutional Federalist Republic.
It is the United "STATES", not the United "People".

 

How does a union of states hold together if most of those states have no say in federal policy and are governed by a few high population states? You're not thinking this through. The founders knew what they were doing here.

 

If you will read the minutes of the Constitutional Convention, Sep 6, 1787 you will find that the Electoral College was developed by the Founding Fathers because the states like Delaware and New Hampshire with small populations did *NOT* want to be dominated in Presidential elections by the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia which had far larger populations.

By defining representation in the Electoral College equal to the number of Senators and Representatives, the larger states would *sill* exert a large influence on the election but a number of the smaller states could combine to neutralize this influence if needs of the less populated states required it.

This has *not* changed throughout the life of the Constitution. The concerns of the Founding Fathers in 1787 remain the same concerns today.

We are the United STATES, not the United People. Majority rule is mob rule, it is the tyranny of the majority.

Nor does the push for eliminating the EC recognize the practical problems with a majority vote. In a close election *every* single vote in the entire nation would have to be recounted because every single vote in every single election precinct would count toward the total. It could take months to work through all the lawsuits and recount challenges. It could actually mean we wouldn't have a President by Jan 20 making the interim President the sitting Leader of the House. It would be a disaster for our standing around the world.

 

Because you seem not to have understood "my silly reasons".

This is a debate-forum, not a Message Board. Employ your juvenile sarcasm elsewhere and respond here with well justified reasoning.

That is, if you can ...

 

Next time pay more attention to the post. Of course the electoral college is great because it stops one state like California holding the rest of the country hostage. By the way, there are millions of illegal immigrants in California. Whether you like it or not Donald J Trump is your president. Get used to it.

 

Here's a radical suggestion. Lets pick our Congresscritters and Senatewhores like we do for juries. Terms are 2 - 6 years and housing and food provided by the government for their term.

 

VOTING IN THE US

The states have a "say" in policy relating to the state. The federation/union/combination of states into a nation is under the jurisdiction of Federal law, and thus the Supreme Court of the nation.

Where's the problem? Each have their own jurisdiction - one within the state, and the other across all states in the nation.

State governance is made by governors and state legislatures, and Federal governance by the PotUS and Congress. The election of a national Executive (PotUS), a legislature (Congress) and the nomination of a national Supreme Court are under the jurisdiction of the national government and national laws.

There is a separation of powers between the states and the nation. There separation exists in both states and the country by means of same "three separate components" - an Executive (PotUS or Governor), a Legislature (bicameral) and the Supreme Court.

There is furthermore certain powers that the state does not have. Like the declaration of war. There are certain responsibilities that national government does not have - like secondary education and the upkeep of various means of transportation.

To each their own sphere of activity. But one aspect should be clear - the election of a National Executive is the singular domain of the national government. And any interference by the state (beyond the collection and reporting of results) should be considered unconstitutional. The will of the people in the election of a president should have no interference whatsoever by any state entity.

LACK OF "CONSTITUTIONALITY"

But that is not the way the Supreme Court sees the matter. In fact, the "Right to Vote" is guaranteed nowhere in the Constitution. It should be. See here: Beyond the Voting Rights Act: Why We Need a Constitutional Right to Vote.

Excerpt:

To my mind, the lack of constitutionality protecting voter rights is lacking in the US.

 

A low population state ruled by high population states in a popular vote system is essentially taxation without representation. Sound familiar?

 

All he does is wank ...

 

Trump won the popular vote in all the red States. Check the ratio of red to blue and see who actually won the election.

 

I disagree. The left and the denizens of big cities want to kill the electoral college. They want the major US left dominated big cities to control the fate of the US. The original framers of the Constitution saw the folly of the great unwashed controlling politics in the US. They wanted states that are not dominated by cities to have a balancing power.

 

Probably eightor more since you just elected people who are part of your problem rather than part of your solution.

 

Your politicians carry the water for the same old priveleged money class that oursdo. Don't fool yourself.

Ain't a one of them looking out for you, and all of their tax schemes strip your wealth, where it can be funneled to them through government edict.