Another perspicacious piece by the esteemed and thorough Nate Silver. While Mr. Silver was studying math in high school, I was winning Nebraska state debate championships. I am a Sophist. He is the true Athenian. Watch out for that hemlock. Having worked as the Director of Propaganda and Sophistry for one Jeffrey Lane Fortenberry (Retired U.S. Congressman, CD-1), and born and raised in the Cornhusker State, I can state with some confidence that Nebraska is never changing how it apportions electoral votes. First, that move would kill a key strategic reason for presidential candidates to visit Omaha, home of CD-2 and what we Bugeaters call "The Bacon/Biden" voter. In the 2020 general, Republican House member Don Bacon comfortably won CD-2, even as Democrat Joe Biden also comfortably carried CD-2. The reason for this split ticket is not that cities usually trend Democratic in national elections, even when the Mayor is Republican (as in the case with Omaha's Jean Stothert), but that in CD-2, there are two counties: all of Douglas County (which is Democratic in its urban core), and some of Sarpy County, which is a mixed bag. Sarpy is home to many Republicans and moderate Democrats who presently work or formerly worked at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue––which, due to weird redistricting, is part of CD-1)––where General Don Bacon was wing commander. Sarpy is the the heart of the Bacon/Biden voter. Secondly, campaigns spend large amounts of money in the Omaha TV market, not only to win CD-2, but, just as important, to win Iowa in the caucus elections and general. Omaha is right across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Finally, this election is not going to be close. Democrats are going to win it walking away, despite what current polls indicate. I outlined the reasons here: https://crotty.substack.com/p/joe-biden-has-99-problems-but-trump
There's not much to disagree with there, other than the definitiveness of your conclusions.
The most definitive thing we can say about this election is it's going to be a weird one. We can name so many factors going against both candidates -- for example, we could talk about Biden's lowest-in-history approval ratings, his inability to convincingly signal a tack towards the center. And yet one of these two men is going to win.
You bring up the popular vote -- and indeed, it should be clear to everyone that Trump isn't going to win the popular vote. I'm not sure if another Republican will ever win it, but if so it's not going to be the guy who lost it twice and who still isn't polling THAT well against a deeply unpopular incumbent. The GOP is structurally the minority coalition.
Part of me says that it's actually really, really hard to split the EC and the PV. There's a reason it seldom happens, and that it had never previously happened with as large a PV loss as Trump's in 2016. Which means that, taking a step back from the state-level polling, if we just take his PV loss as a given, Trump's odds of an EC win are bad, you shouldn't expect lightning to strike twice.
But maybe it's the case that CA is increasingly its own planet: huge, far away from most Americans, and marching to the beat of its own drum. Trump won the PV ex-CA in 2016 but lost it in 2020, and Romney also lost it in 2012, so maybe that's the current pattern: if a Republican can win the PV ex-CA, he'll generally win the EC. If not, he'll lose.
I've thought about this before. I think that first map is quite plausible and if that were the difference between Biden winning or Trump winning I'm pretty sure red Nebraska would figure out a way to give all of its electoral votes to Trump (and that Maine wouldn't be able to do the same for Biden). And I don't think courts would overturn it. So in my mind that's a map that's nominally 270-268 Biden but is fairly likely to yield a President Trump.
I agree that it probably wouldn't cost Biden, assuming it passes, but I think it's a lot more likely than Nate gives it credit for in this scenario. In fact, there's probably a multiple-point window in the national popular vote that could lead to a 270-268 win for Biden (or 269-269 if NE changes).
Let's assume that if any states outside the magic 6 flip, than whoever flips those is winning the election anyway and we can kind of disregard (i.e. I don't see Florida suddenly becoming more pro-Biden than Wisconsin). The six states we care about are WI, MI, PA, GA, AZ, NV. Biden is doing less badly in WI/MI/PA than GA/NV/AZ. The next closest "state" beyond WI/MI/PA for Biden actually might be NE-2 itself (which Biden won by 6% in 2020) or MN/NH are also pretty similar to that margin (Biden won by 7% in 2020).
Now, let's look at recent polling. I'll use the 538 polls in a nod to my boy Nate. (but they took away their weighted averages? sad!)
National Polling: Tied
GA: ~Trump +4
AZ: ~Trump +5
NV: ~Trump +4
MI: ~Trump +3
WI: ~Trump +1
PA: ~Trump +1
NE-2: ?
MN: ~Biden +6
NH: ~ Biden +6
Biden doing pretty bad in Michigan compared to his 2020 numbers is the main thing that might mess this scenario up, but there could be a solid 3-point window in the national results (anything from roughly a tie to Biden winning by 3-4 points) where this 270-268 scenario arises. So I would argue that any single scenario is unlikely, but this may be the single most-likely scenario even if it's only a 25% shot overall.
I wouldn't make assumptions on states outside of the magic 6. Several others are very close, and it doesn't take much to flip a state when most big partisan efforts are directed elsewhere. Virginia could flip, but it is unlikely the Democrats will be putting too much effort here because the magic 6 are a much higher priority.
I don't see any blowout victories, and think the Democrats will overperform their polls in the magic 6 swing states. This will be an incredibly close election. The winners in 2016 and 2020 had the same number of electoral votes (ignoring unfaithful electors), and I expect this one to be right in the middle.
I know it's early, but I'm ready for discussions about tipping point states and models again. I've got all my tailgating supplies ready for another season of American politics I am probably going to both obsess about and hate.
It's bittersweet. It's a dark well to get dragged down. But it's catnip, we're all going to be talking about polling firm quality and momentum and ground games before too long, let's just get on with it.
What if you did weighted probabilities? I know that adds subjectivity, but the Nebraska scenario seems (I know... I know...) more plausible than 1/64. We don't give equal weight to all 64 (less the play in game losers) NCAA tournament teams.
I'm a big fan of the winner taking two EVs (electoral votes, not cybertrucks - although that would be cool, too), with the remainder being allocated proportionately.
I've experimented with this. One interesting thing is that it gives third parties more leverage. A candidate like Perot would have maybe kept Clinton from the majority and been able to bargain with his electors. Not sure how that would sit with people, plus if everyone knew about these rules it would greatly incentivize more serious third-party candidates who might even dial in on certain states and try to get the leverage of a few EV's in a tight election.
For a campaign the Democrats and Biden are running on the threat to Democracy then Biden is sticking his thumb in the public’s eyes by holding so few unscripted press conferences without notecards. Also maybe holding a few of these would give Democrats a more confident feeling about Biden’s age. This is about Biden not Trump.
Maine's approach of awarding an elector to the winner of each Congressional district is at least in the direction of making the Electoral Vote closer to the popular vote, because all congressional districts have about the same population.
It is a far better approach than the National Compact, which could potentially award all of a state's electors to a candidate who didn't get even a single vote in the state. It may also violate Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution, which forbids states to enter into any alliance or confederation. This may be the reason, for example, that the New England Dairy Compact (which keeps dairy prices high) is a Federal Law rather than an agreement among the New England States.
In a perfect world I support a national popular vote, but imagine the conspiracy theories that would flower if the Republicans won the national popular vote by, say, 100,000 votes and there were simultaneously dozens of allegations about voter fraud or suppression in Texas, Florida, etc. Not to mention what we know people would say about California or New York if the Dems win. I think instead of restoring trust in the Presidential election it would destroy it even more.
We can just look to history -- a national popular vote would have been a gift to the southern states that regularly went 80-95% Democratic until 100 years ago, due to barely qualifying as democracies. The only reason the national popular vote was ever competitive from 1868-1908 was due their banana republic election proceedings.
So I understand the idea, but I'm skeptical it will solve the problems in practice that its advocates hope it will solve.
I am confused about why the electoral vote matching the popular vote is supposed to be a virtue. There are specific reasons the electoral vote was adopted and they pretty much all still apply.
The Electoral College was a compromise between using the popular vote or giving each state equal weight (as would happen if the Electoral College tied and the election went to the House of Representatives).
So from the beginning the US Constitution was crafted to strike a balance between these two extremes.
Awarding electors to the winners of each congressional district would only move that balance more in the direction of popular vote but still require a majority of the electors to win.
Wow, that is flat out wrong! I think they accidentally used the rationale for election to the Senate with president. You couldn’t have a national popular vote because of slavery…that’s it.
You made a false claim, someone posted multiple sources correcting you, and you called it “flat out wrong” and then revealed your glaring lack of knowledge relative to Senate elections. Adults know how to admit when they’re wrong.
Popular vote was never an option because of Rhode Island, they didn't want to be squashed under the heel of populous Virginia- they were big even without slaves then.
" There are specific reasons the electoral vote was adopted and they pretty much all still apply"
Maybe you could list the first 10 or so of those specific reasons in detail.
I still hold that the Constitution crafted a compromise between using the popular vote and giving each state equal weight in presidential elections and that awarding electors by district is in keeping with that. Awarding electors to the winner of the popular vote is not.
It's definitely *not* a better approach than the National Compact, at least if your goal is to make the outcome line up as often with the popular vote every time.
Note that if it had been in place in 2012, Romney would have won, despite Obama winning 5 million more votes.
Electors by district is a better compromise between the winner take all system today and giving the decision to CA, NY, IL, PA.
Of course, if you're going to change the innards of the Constitution, then none of this works as well as limiting the vote to those who have completed 3 years of military service.
One of my favorite topics to consider. If each state were to assign Electoral Votes by the Maine method, AND there were many more districts, it would result in a pretty fair way to elect a President. The number of districts has been frozen at 435 since the Reapportionment Act of 1929. Prior to that, the size of the House of Representatives (and thus the number of districts) grew as the nation's population grew. By freezing the number of districts (despite population growth), it makes it easier to gerrymander, and it ends up increasing the rural bias. Let's say there should be twice as many districts. Then the "bonus" that the rural states get by getting the two Electoral Votes for each state would be diluted. And smaller districts are tougher to gerrymander. With each state going by the Maine method, there would be incentive for candidates to campaign in more than just the handful of swing states. Repeal the Reapportionment Act of 1929 and require each state to use the "Maine Method." Who's with me??
435 is fine, we just need to replace the senate with a nation wide proportional representation body instead of giving wyoming and the dakotas as many seats as CA and TX.
Slavery and the 3/5 compromise were written in the Constitution too. Also, if Wyoming literally had 4 people - a governor, rep, and two senators - would you still be defending it? How far does your principle go?
Slavery was included, as were the means to ban it should minds change which of course they eventually did. Your asking me to comment on an unrealistic situation with respect to Wyoming. In the world we live in, I support the continued rights of small states.
Your two arguments for the current Senate were the founders supported it and that it stops tyranny. You admitted the founders made many grave errors and that there's a way to change it for a reason and that there's no evidence it has ever stopped tyranny. So basically there's no defense for the current system that involves any logic, it's just people thinking their vote should matter more than others when it obviously shouldn't.
But you understand we have 2 Dakotas so Republicans could keep their boot on the neck of the South?? Republicans had a long period of dominance because they gamed the EC.
Counterpoint, a more proportional representation more heavily slanted towards urban areas would have lead to the collapse of our political system at some prior point and it is exactly these types of compromises that keep it afloat despite the huge amount of rancor and discord between various people in the country.
It wouldn't be heavily slanted, it would be rightly weighted. Also tell me one time in US history where a senator from Wyoming saved the political system from collapse.
>It wouldn't be heavily slanted, it would be rightly weighted. Also tell me one time in US history where a senator from Wyoming saved the political system from collapse.
Its not about a Senator from Wyoming saving the system. it is about if you had a system where the urban/coastal areas got a lot more of what they wanted and pushed through an agenda more to their liking, the disaffection and rebellion in rural areas may have gotten more acute to the point of breaking.
It is a young persons dream to think "oh if we just always got our way things would be way better" ignoring that too fast a pace of change might have lead to actual social fracture. The country is a big diverse place with a lot of different areas that demand very different does of governance. Letting all the sardines packed into the 10 biggest tins decide everything for everyone might not have the utopian outcomes you are imagining.
Might have been better too, I grant that, I am an urbanist more or less and live in a city. But there are other considerations that are being balanced. The electoral college has some benefits.
The other outside-the-box proposal would be any state that represents at least 5% of the US population would get a provisional third Senator. That would currently give an extra Senator (and an extra Electoral Vote) to California, Texas, Florida, and New York (likely two Dem and two Rep). The state would lose the provisional third Senator after a census shows it dips below 5%.
It’s 2024–you don’t need a Rube Goldberg election system because we no longer have slavery…just have a popular vote election and then a Marine in California has the same power as a trans woman swimmer in Pennsylvania.
I've called out your factual inaccuracies in multiple other comments, as have others. Slavery *was* a big deal in American politics, yet has zero bearing on whether or not, in 2024, we should allocate votes directly or indirectly. You're either arguing in bad faith or you're just naturally full of fallacious arguments.
One issue with your proposal is it would lead to a legislative body with well over 1,000 members, and it’s realistic to doubt that such a body could function as well.
The 435 we have currently is extremely dysfunctional, no question about that. I don't think that means that doubling or tripling the size would fix anything, and I think it's very possible it could make things worse.
The arguments on both sides of this are tiresome. No one is capable of being objective when it comes to procedural questions like this. The party that’s in the majority opposes the anti-majoritarian features of the Constitution; the minority supports them. Big surprise.
But it doesn’t matter because it’s incredibly far-fetched. By my count 4 states would be big winners, 33 states would be losers, the remainder would be neutral or small winners.
Unlike the popular vote interstate compact, which is a real thing that could happen, there’s no way to redesign the Senate without a Constitutional amendment that would need 3/4 of the states. It’s a pipe dream until the day the Constitution is thrown out the window.
Are you comfortable with the idea of Texas or California having even more of an incentive to gerrymander their delegations? The 2020 vote in California was 63% Biden, but he won 46 out of 53 congressional districts (87%). Similarly the 2020 vote in Texas was 52% Trump, but he won 22 out of 36 districts (61%). Doubling the number of districts won't change this much, I believe, because it takes a good computer about 10 seconds to come up with a good gerrymander.
Aye! Agreed. Thanks, Nate, we’ll take it from here. If the real issue is the state of our democracy, ponder the positives of expanding the House, universal adoption of the Maine Method, and serious reform of gerrymandering. Maybe we’d get presidential campaigns in which huge swaths of the electorate weren’t essentially abandoned because they had the bad luck to live in a district that was embedded in a winner-take-all state with a massive urban area or three that reliably overwhelmed the opposition. (People in Fresno, which would be one of the biggest cities in the Midwest, know how that feels.) FWIW I’m an old-school lib who values popular sovereignty over party affiliation, grew up in Neb, have lived in LoCali most of my adult life, and wouldn’t vote for Trump for a million $. The party starts now. John Garvin, myself, and the rest of you out there for whom the duopoly has outlived its usefulness. Our strategy this time will be to let the powers-that-be screw up yet again, in the hope that the damage isn’t fatal.
I'm somewhat surprised that in the discussion of proportional allocation of electoral votes, nobody seems to have suggested the "obvious" plan of having each State allocate all of its electors based on the percentage of votes each candidate receives in the whole State. E.g. Maryland has 10 electors, the vote split was 65%-32% for Biden, so he gets 7 electors (rounding) and Trump gets 3. This is the closest you can get to the popular vote, without any risk of violating the Constitution (but of course all States would have to agree independently to do this, unless there is an Amendment). Based on this system, it's practically impossible for a candidate to win the popular vote while losing the Presidency (I actually calculated what would have happened in 2016, and Clinton would have won the EC).
I understand that there are 2 votes in each State that are considered to correspond to Senators (therefore the whole State), while the rest are supposed to correspond to House Reps (therefore to each House district). But that's just how the total number of electors is calculated, there is no direct mapping between electors and districts (and clearly there isn't one in the current system). So it's really surprising to me that this kind of system is not being discussed, either here or more broadly.
PS: Note that this is not the same as Pennsylvania's proposed system, discussed in the article linked in the end of Nate's post.
Nate the vast majority of libtards in the USA think the electoral college is an academic institution and probably was in the NCAA wimmins basketball tournament.
I still think this election will be very close to tied, so a 269-269 outcome, or something very close to that within ±10 is highly likely. We may not know until NE-2 and half a dozen states have their recounts.
"In some states there’s even a vicious cycle where state legislatures are responsible for setting congressional boundary lines and gerrymander them, but those state legislatures are also gerrymandered."
Could someone explain the last part of that sentence? How are state legislatures gerrymandered?
State legislatures are gerrymandered in exactly the same way as Congressional districts, and by the same people: the state legislature, itself, votes on the district maps under which the next election will be held.
Another perspicacious piece by the esteemed and thorough Nate Silver. While Mr. Silver was studying math in high school, I was winning Nebraska state debate championships. I am a Sophist. He is the true Athenian. Watch out for that hemlock. Having worked as the Director of Propaganda and Sophistry for one Jeffrey Lane Fortenberry (Retired U.S. Congressman, CD-1), and born and raised in the Cornhusker State, I can state with some confidence that Nebraska is never changing how it apportions electoral votes. First, that move would kill a key strategic reason for presidential candidates to visit Omaha, home of CD-2 and what we Bugeaters call "The Bacon/Biden" voter. In the 2020 general, Republican House member Don Bacon comfortably won CD-2, even as Democrat Joe Biden also comfortably carried CD-2. The reason for this split ticket is not that cities usually trend Democratic in national elections, even when the Mayor is Republican (as in the case with Omaha's Jean Stothert), but that in CD-2, there are two counties: all of Douglas County (which is Democratic in its urban core), and some of Sarpy County, which is a mixed bag. Sarpy is home to many Republicans and moderate Democrats who presently work or formerly worked at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue––which, due to weird redistricting, is part of CD-1)––where General Don Bacon was wing commander. Sarpy is the the heart of the Bacon/Biden voter. Secondly, campaigns spend large amounts of money in the Omaha TV market, not only to win CD-2, but, just as important, to win Iowa in the caucus elections and general. Omaha is right across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Finally, this election is not going to be close. Democrats are going to win it walking away, despite what current polls indicate. I outlined the reasons here: https://crotty.substack.com/p/joe-biden-has-99-problems-but-trump
There's not much to disagree with there, other than the definitiveness of your conclusions.
The most definitive thing we can say about this election is it's going to be a weird one. We can name so many factors going against both candidates -- for example, we could talk about Biden's lowest-in-history approval ratings, his inability to convincingly signal a tack towards the center. And yet one of these two men is going to win.
You bring up the popular vote -- and indeed, it should be clear to everyone that Trump isn't going to win the popular vote. I'm not sure if another Republican will ever win it, but if so it's not going to be the guy who lost it twice and who still isn't polling THAT well against a deeply unpopular incumbent. The GOP is structurally the minority coalition.
Part of me says that it's actually really, really hard to split the EC and the PV. There's a reason it seldom happens, and that it had never previously happened with as large a PV loss as Trump's in 2016. Which means that, taking a step back from the state-level polling, if we just take his PV loss as a given, Trump's odds of an EC win are bad, you shouldn't expect lightning to strike twice.
But maybe it's the case that CA is increasingly its own planet: huge, far away from most Americans, and marching to the beat of its own drum. Trump won the PV ex-CA in 2016 but lost it in 2020, and Romney also lost it in 2012, so maybe that's the current pattern: if a Republican can win the PV ex-CA, he'll generally win the EC. If not, he'll lose.
I like it--I think it's insanely overoptimistic from Biden's perspective, but it does make a very good baseline "bull case" to adjust against.
I've thought about this before. I think that first map is quite plausible and if that were the difference between Biden winning or Trump winning I'm pretty sure red Nebraska would figure out a way to give all of its electoral votes to Trump (and that Maine wouldn't be able to do the same for Biden). And I don't think courts would overturn it. So in my mind that's a map that's nominally 270-268 Biden but is fairly likely to yield a President Trump.
I agree that it probably wouldn't cost Biden, assuming it passes, but I think it's a lot more likely than Nate gives it credit for in this scenario. In fact, there's probably a multiple-point window in the national popular vote that could lead to a 270-268 win for Biden (or 269-269 if NE changes).
Let's assume that if any states outside the magic 6 flip, than whoever flips those is winning the election anyway and we can kind of disregard (i.e. I don't see Florida suddenly becoming more pro-Biden than Wisconsin). The six states we care about are WI, MI, PA, GA, AZ, NV. Biden is doing less badly in WI/MI/PA than GA/NV/AZ. The next closest "state" beyond WI/MI/PA for Biden actually might be NE-2 itself (which Biden won by 6% in 2020) or MN/NH are also pretty similar to that margin (Biden won by 7% in 2020).
Now, let's look at recent polling. I'll use the 538 polls in a nod to my boy Nate. (but they took away their weighted averages? sad!)
National Polling: Tied
GA: ~Trump +4
AZ: ~Trump +5
NV: ~Trump +4
MI: ~Trump +3
WI: ~Trump +1
PA: ~Trump +1
NE-2: ?
MN: ~Biden +6
NH: ~ Biden +6
Biden doing pretty bad in Michigan compared to his 2020 numbers is the main thing that might mess this scenario up, but there could be a solid 3-point window in the national results (anything from roughly a tie to Biden winning by 3-4 points) where this 270-268 scenario arises. So I would argue that any single scenario is unlikely, but this may be the single most-likely scenario even if it's only a 25% shot overall.
I wouldn't make assumptions on states outside of the magic 6. Several others are very close, and it doesn't take much to flip a state when most big partisan efforts are directed elsewhere. Virginia could flip, but it is unlikely the Democrats will be putting too much effort here because the magic 6 are a much higher priority.
I don't see any blowout victories, and think the Democrats will overperform their polls in the magic 6 swing states. This will be an incredibly close election. The winners in 2016 and 2020 had the same number of electoral votes (ignoring unfaithful electors), and I expect this one to be right in the middle.
Are we doing maps and models now!?!?
I know it's early, but I'm ready for discussions about tipping point states and models again. I've got all my tailgating supplies ready for another season of American politics I am probably going to both obsess about and hate.
It's bittersweet. It's a dark well to get dragged down. But it's catnip, we're all going to be talking about polling firm quality and momentum and ground games before too long, let's just get on with it.
What if you did weighted probabilities? I know that adds subjectivity, but the Nebraska scenario seems (I know... I know...) more plausible than 1/64. We don't give equal weight to all 64 (less the play in game losers) NCAA tournament teams.
I'm a big fan of the winner taking two EVs (electoral votes, not cybertrucks - although that would be cool, too), with the remainder being allocated proportionately.
I've experimented with this. One interesting thing is that it gives third parties more leverage. A candidate like Perot would have maybe kept Clinton from the majority and been able to bargain with his electors. Not sure how that would sit with people, plus if everyone knew about these rules it would greatly incentivize more serious third-party candidates who might even dial in on certain states and try to get the leverage of a few EV's in a tight election.
For a campaign the Democrats and Biden are running on the threat to Democracy then Biden is sticking his thumb in the public’s eyes by holding so few unscripted press conferences without notecards. Also maybe holding a few of these would give Democrats a more confident feeling about Biden’s age. This is about Biden not Trump.
The first map seems the most likely if the election were today and so in that case, wow what a difference Nebraska would make. Interesting stuff.
Maine's approach of awarding an elector to the winner of each Congressional district is at least in the direction of making the Electoral Vote closer to the popular vote, because all congressional districts have about the same population.
It is a far better approach than the National Compact, which could potentially award all of a state's electors to a candidate who didn't get even a single vote in the state. It may also violate Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution, which forbids states to enter into any alliance or confederation. This may be the reason, for example, that the New England Dairy Compact (which keeps dairy prices high) is a Federal Law rather than an agreement among the New England States.
In a perfect world I support a national popular vote, but imagine the conspiracy theories that would flower if the Republicans won the national popular vote by, say, 100,000 votes and there were simultaneously dozens of allegations about voter fraud or suppression in Texas, Florida, etc. Not to mention what we know people would say about California or New York if the Dems win. I think instead of restoring trust in the Presidential election it would destroy it even more.
We can just look to history -- a national popular vote would have been a gift to the southern states that regularly went 80-95% Democratic until 100 years ago, due to barely qualifying as democracies. The only reason the national popular vote was ever competitive from 1868-1908 was due their banana republic election proceedings.
So I understand the idea, but I'm skeptical it will solve the problems in practice that its advocates hope it will solve.
I am confused about why the electoral vote matching the popular vote is supposed to be a virtue. There are specific reasons the electoral vote was adopted and they pretty much all still apply.
The Electoral College was a compromise between using the popular vote or giving each state equal weight (as would happen if the Electoral College tied and the election went to the House of Representatives).
So from the beginning the US Constitution was crafted to strike a balance between these two extremes.
Awarding electors to the winners of each congressional district would only move that balance more in the direction of popular vote but still require a majority of the electors to win.
Popular vote was never an option because of slavery 3/5ths compromise…I’m not sure where you got your information??
And how would this have prevented the popular vote?
https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention
https://apnews.com/article/electoral-college-popular-vote-explained-f9ba69cbbe0493e0248603065790efad
https://usconstitution.net/consttop_elec.html
Wow, that is flat out wrong! I think they accidentally used the rationale for election to the Senate with president. You couldn’t have a national popular vote because of slavery…that’s it.
You could multiply the Southrrn states voters by 5/3 to account for slavery before Abolition.
But good thing you saved James Madison, Gouvernor Morris and the other contributors to the Constitution
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Constitution
"the rationale for election to the Senate "
Senators weren't elected by popular vote until the 17th Amendment, 100 years after the Constitution was ratified
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
You made a false claim, someone posted multiple sources correcting you, and you called it “flat out wrong” and then revealed your glaring lack of knowledge relative to Senate elections. Adults know how to admit when they’re wrong.
Popular vote was never an option because of Rhode Island, they didn't want to be squashed under the heel of populous Virginia- they were big even without slaves then.
That isn't really a response to what I said.
" There are specific reasons the electoral vote was adopted and they pretty much all still apply"
Maybe you could list the first 10 or so of those specific reasons in detail.
I still hold that the Constitution crafted a compromise between using the popular vote and giving each state equal weight in presidential elections and that awarding electors by district is in keeping with that. Awarding electors to the winner of the popular vote is not.
It's definitely *not* a better approach than the National Compact, at least if your goal is to make the outcome line up as often with the popular vote every time.
Note that if it had been in place in 2012, Romney would have won, despite Obama winning 5 million more votes.
https://fairvote.org/report/fuzzy-math/
Electors by district is a better compromise between the winner take all system today and giving the decision to CA, NY, IL, PA.
Of course, if you're going to change the innards of the Constitution, then none of this works as well as limiting the vote to those who have completed 3 years of military service.
One of my favorite topics to consider. If each state were to assign Electoral Votes by the Maine method, AND there were many more districts, it would result in a pretty fair way to elect a President. The number of districts has been frozen at 435 since the Reapportionment Act of 1929. Prior to that, the size of the House of Representatives (and thus the number of districts) grew as the nation's population grew. By freezing the number of districts (despite population growth), it makes it easier to gerrymander, and it ends up increasing the rural bias. Let's say there should be twice as many districts. Then the "bonus" that the rural states get by getting the two Electoral Votes for each state would be diluted. And smaller districts are tougher to gerrymander. With each state going by the Maine method, there would be incentive for candidates to campaign in more than just the handful of swing states. Repeal the Reapportionment Act of 1929 and require each state to use the "Maine Method." Who's with me??
435 is fine, we just need to replace the senate with a nation wide proportional representation body instead of giving wyoming and the dakotas as many seats as CA and TX.
Small state right protections were written into the constitution on purpose. many are pleased that they were and consider it a feature not a bug.
Slavery and the 3/5 compromise were written in the Constitution too. Also, if Wyoming literally had 4 people - a governor, rep, and two senators - would you still be defending it? How far does your principle go?
Slavery was included, as were the means to ban it should minds change which of course they eventually did. Your asking me to comment on an unrealistic situation with respect to Wyoming. In the world we live in, I support the continued rights of small states.
Your two arguments for the current Senate were the founders supported it and that it stops tyranny. You admitted the founders made many grave errors and that there's a way to change it for a reason and that there's no evidence it has ever stopped tyranny. So basically there's no defense for the current system that involves any logic, it's just people thinking their vote should matter more than others when it obviously shouldn't.
There are many arguments in defense of the current system with much support and understandably some people don't like it.
“Some things the founders supported were bad, therefore other things they supported are bad too.” This is a fallacious argument.
But you understand we have 2 Dakotas so Republicans could keep their boot on the neck of the South?? Republicans had a long period of dominance because they gamed the EC.
Neither of the Dakotas were reliably Republican states until 80 years after admission to the Union. Your post is disinformation.
Counterpoint, a more proportional representation more heavily slanted towards urban areas would have lead to the collapse of our political system at some prior point and it is exactly these types of compromises that keep it afloat despite the huge amount of rancor and discord between various people in the country.
It wouldn't be heavily slanted, it would be rightly weighted. Also tell me one time in US history where a senator from Wyoming saved the political system from collapse.
>It wouldn't be heavily slanted, it would be rightly weighted. Also tell me one time in US history where a senator from Wyoming saved the political system from collapse.
Its not about a Senator from Wyoming saving the system. it is about if you had a system where the urban/coastal areas got a lot more of what they wanted and pushed through an agenda more to their liking, the disaffection and rebellion in rural areas may have gotten more acute to the point of breaking.
It is a young persons dream to think "oh if we just always got our way things would be way better" ignoring that too fast a pace of change might have lead to actual social fracture. The country is a big diverse place with a lot of different areas that demand very different does of governance. Letting all the sardines packed into the 10 biggest tins decide everything for everyone might not have the utopian outcomes you are imagining.
Might have been better too, I grant that, I am an urbanist more or less and live in a city. But there are other considerations that are being balanced. The electoral college has some benefits.
The other outside-the-box proposal would be any state that represents at least 5% of the US population would get a provisional third Senator. That would currently give an extra Senator (and an extra Electoral Vote) to California, Texas, Florida, and New York (likely two Dem and two Rep). The state would lose the provisional third Senator after a census shows it dips below 5%.
It’s 2024–you don’t need a Rube Goldberg election system because we no longer have slavery…just have a popular vote election and then a Marine in California has the same power as a trans woman swimmer in Pennsylvania.
Your weird deflections to slavery and your disinformation in other comments reveal you are not here to argue in good faith.
Slavery was a big deal in American politics…you seem pretty ignorant so it’s not surprising that you didn’t know that. ;)
I've called out your factual inaccuracies in multiple other comments, as have others. Slavery *was* a big deal in American politics, yet has zero bearing on whether or not, in 2024, we should allocate votes directly or indirectly. You're either arguing in bad faith or you're just naturally full of fallacious arguments.
One issue with your proposal is it would lead to a legislative body with well over 1,000 members, and it’s realistic to doubt that such a body could function as well.
It’s realistic to assume that 1000+ would function better than the 435 we have now.
The 435 we have currently is extremely dysfunctional, no question about that. I don't think that means that doubling or tripling the size would fix anything, and I think it's very possible it could make things worse.
The arguments on both sides of this are tiresome. No one is capable of being objective when it comes to procedural questions like this. The party that’s in the majority opposes the anti-majoritarian features of the Constitution; the minority supports them. Big surprise.
But it doesn’t matter because it’s incredibly far-fetched. By my count 4 states would be big winners, 33 states would be losers, the remainder would be neutral or small winners.
Unlike the popular vote interstate compact, which is a real thing that could happen, there’s no way to redesign the Senate without a Constitutional amendment that would need 3/4 of the states. It’s a pipe dream until the day the Constitution is thrown out the window.
Even the popular vote interstate compact is likely to be ruled as unconstitutional due to being an interstate treaty without federal approval
Presumably if it got the backing of a majority of state populations it could easily get an act of Congress during the next Dem trifecta.
Are you comfortable with the idea of Texas or California having even more of an incentive to gerrymander their delegations? The 2020 vote in California was 63% Biden, but he won 46 out of 53 congressional districts (87%). Similarly the 2020 vote in Texas was 52% Trump, but he won 22 out of 36 districts (61%). Doubling the number of districts won't change this much, I believe, because it takes a good computer about 10 seconds to come up with a good gerrymander.
The House of Representatives would be unmanageable with near 1000 members. If we're going to daydream, why not just switch to the popular vote?
Aye! Agreed. Thanks, Nate, we’ll take it from here. If the real issue is the state of our democracy, ponder the positives of expanding the House, universal adoption of the Maine Method, and serious reform of gerrymandering. Maybe we’d get presidential campaigns in which huge swaths of the electorate weren’t essentially abandoned because they had the bad luck to live in a district that was embedded in a winner-take-all state with a massive urban area or three that reliably overwhelmed the opposition. (People in Fresno, which would be one of the biggest cities in the Midwest, know how that feels.) FWIW I’m an old-school lib who values popular sovereignty over party affiliation, grew up in Neb, have lived in LoCali most of my adult life, and wouldn’t vote for Trump for a million $. The party starts now. John Garvin, myself, and the rest of you out there for whom the duopoly has outlived its usefulness. Our strategy this time will be to let the powers-that-be screw up yet again, in the hope that the damage isn’t fatal.
"if Biden holds the former 'Blue Wall' states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio" I believe you meant to say Wisconsin, not Ohio
I'm somewhat surprised that in the discussion of proportional allocation of electoral votes, nobody seems to have suggested the "obvious" plan of having each State allocate all of its electors based on the percentage of votes each candidate receives in the whole State. E.g. Maryland has 10 electors, the vote split was 65%-32% for Biden, so he gets 7 electors (rounding) and Trump gets 3. This is the closest you can get to the popular vote, without any risk of violating the Constitution (but of course all States would have to agree independently to do this, unless there is an Amendment). Based on this system, it's practically impossible for a candidate to win the popular vote while losing the Presidency (I actually calculated what would have happened in 2016, and Clinton would have won the EC).
I understand that there are 2 votes in each State that are considered to correspond to Senators (therefore the whole State), while the rest are supposed to correspond to House Reps (therefore to each House district). But that's just how the total number of electors is calculated, there is no direct mapping between electors and districts (and clearly there isn't one in the current system). So it's really surprising to me that this kind of system is not being discussed, either here or more broadly.
PS: Note that this is not the same as Pennsylvania's proposed system, discussed in the article linked in the end of Nate's post.
Nate the vast majority of libtards in the USA think the electoral college is an academic institution and probably was in the NCAA wimmins basketball tournament.
I still think this election will be very close to tied, so a 269-269 outcome, or something very close to that within ±10 is highly likely. We may not know until NE-2 and half a dozen states have their recounts.
"In some states there’s even a vicious cycle where state legislatures are responsible for setting congressional boundary lines and gerrymander them, but those state legislatures are also gerrymandered."
Could someone explain the last part of that sentence? How are state legislatures gerrymandered?
Thanx
State legislatures are gerrymandered in exactly the same way as Congressional districts, and by the same people: the state legislature, itself, votes on the district maps under which the next election will be held.
Anyone want a rundown of the drama that led to this? Read my article here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thinkeratthegates/p/maga-declares-support-for-electoral?r=28s97t&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web