It’s wild that if multiple things we implemented republicans would never win the presidency again.
Any anti voter suppression method, like universal mail in voting
Ranked choice voting
Removal of the electoral college
I am sure there are even more.
Remember that republicans are the minority, they just show up to vote more often (and aren’t actively suppressed)
Man what I’d give for ranked choice voting, it seems like a no-brainer
Gotta remember this system was setup by literal slavers.
The way elections are run Is mostly up to the states. The electoral college, though, is stipulated in the Constitution.
So is a method to change the Constitution.
That really is the only way to get rid of the electoral college.
That’s not exactly true. Each state could choose to give their votes to the candidate that wins the national vote. Then the electoral college system would still exist on paper but in reality wouldn’t be relevant to the outcome.
I think it would be better to amend the Constitution. But it’s not the only way to make popular vote reality.
The states changing their electors outside their popular vote is exactly what Trump was trying to do.
That sounds scary, but you gotta be precise. Trump was trying to do that after the fact, which would be a coup d’etat. In reality, many states have reasonably made changes over time before elections. Did you know that two states aren’t winner-take-all, and that this has changed over time? Wild!
Nice try
Actually, it would be better for Republicans to try to convince the population their solutions are better instead of the BS we have now. It might help the Republican Party become somewhat normal again and then get more votes. I would love it if we could have real debates on real issues, instead of the BS we have now. I might even be a tad conservative in some areas… But right now, the choice is between Dems or Crazy Town. I think a popular vote would change politics and strategy so that you couldn’t have a Trump anymore.
Problem is that “Majority” isn’t gonna get rid of the Electoral College. Because Electoral College. Unpopulated states still have excess control.
I wonder if Work-From Home culture might someday shift demographics of some of these small states.
I get that the Electoral College was originally designed to give smaller states an equal say. But, when Los Angeles county has more population than like 10 states combined, things are getting ridiculous.
California has like 67 times the population of Wyoming… yet they each have two senators. And that keeps increasing.
Our government is not a good representation of the populace.
It was originally designed to give slave owners a greater say than people in free states, since EC representation is mainly based on the number of representatives you have in the House, and the slave state representative count was inflated by the 3/5 compromise.
Can we please just get ranked choice voting
Would be nice, but I can’t see either major political party actually following through with something that hurts their power.
Let me happily inform you that several states have varying versions of RCV.
Maine and Alaska got there through a Democratic government and a voter referendum, respectively.
Highly recommend reading this Wikipedia page.
You’ll notice a trend of Democrats and voter referendums driving RCV, and on the other hand, Republicans fighting to reverse or delay RCV laws, and entire conservative states that have BANNED it.
This isn’t a “both sides” thing.
I agree Dems are pushing it more right now
What I would hope is that ranked choice would give rise to more parties/policies/options - people running on actual platforms, not just a two party system. Then we could actually start to push the country more to the left, because as it is, the US government is generally centre right and getting dangerously close to far right.
What I worry about though is that the second the Democratic party in it’s current state sees that they are pushing far more left than they want, they’ll try to put the brakes on it again because they don’t want to lose their power.
Both sides are not the same, and I’m not trying to say they are. But pretending the Democrats are a left wing or liberal party is just not true - they have been going more to the right than the left for decades.
Either way though, if we can get ranked choice all across the US, I think that would be a phenomenal start to actually being a democracy
Ranked choice.
Fix gerrymandering.
Popular vote.
If you don’t want this, you’re simply a sore loser. You dont want democracy, you want a boys club.
So how do we get a constitutional amendment passed to do this?
Especially with the republicans only able to win the presidency through the electoral college. They’re gonna cling to that shit with their dying breath.
We actually don’t need a constitutional amendment to do it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
I can already hear it…
wEr,E a REpUbLiC nOt A dEMoCrOcy111
Alternatively, with a simple bill we can establish an EC so large or doesn’t effectively matter. We would just repeal the inter-war bill freezing the size of the House of Representatives and set the ratio to something that means even Montana gets 20 EC votes.
Alternatively, with a simple bill we can establish an EC so large or doesn’t effectively matter.
Well it’s still up to the states to determine how electors are determined. That’s because the president was intentionally designed to not be a prime minister (speaker of the house) because they are intentionally not elected in the same way as the house
In theory a state could decide to just have the legislature vote. But in reality most, if not all states, have constitutional rules about having to have an election.
But that’s a tangential consideration to expanding the EC. If someone needed 5,000 votes for the EC then it would be very hard for the middle states to swing that election with their land, no matter how they selected their electors. And at the end of the day, that’s the point. People should vote, not land. We already have the Senate that gives equal representation to each state and acts as a representative for land. There’s no reason to have the EC doing the same and it wasn’t the EC’s original purpose.
I admit I have a ideological bias in favor of the current system because it makes a full sweep more difficult, limiting the federal government.
But,
There’s no reason to have the EC doing the same and it wasn’t the EC’s original purpose.
Yes it partially was. The point was to have the president basically be the middle point between state representation in the Senate, and popularish representation in the House.
It was a compromise but not between the Senate and House. Otherwise they wouldn’t have involved the people and states at all. It was a compromise between the House and a popular election. Between Congress and the President being too close and a democratic mob running things. It was also part of their idea that land ownership mattered.
But nothing in the Constitution requires us to remain tied to the land and the house was supposed to keep expanding. It expanded slower and slower over time though until it straight up stopped expanding in the 1930’s. Representation in the house was supposed to be far more personal, you were supposed to be able to sit down and talk with your rep.
That’s why the EC has started diverging from the popular ballot. We’re too big for the current cap on representatives to effectively represent. With the original ratio we’d have around 10,000 members of Congress. Even a tenth of that would go a long way to restoring the electoral system and breaking the power dynamics in Congress that favor mega donors.
It was a compromise but not between the Senate and House.
I wasn’t saying it was. I was saying it was designed to be representative of the people(also represented by the house) and the states(also represented by the senate).
You’re thinking of the 3/5ths and the large state / small state compromises. At no point did the founders want the state interests to vote for president. It was either the people directly or the people indirectly.
At no point did the founders want the state interests to vote for president.
No, you’re simply wrong
I get it, but then only like 4 counties in the whole country decide an election.
As opposed to now where only like 4 empty plots of dirt decide elections…?
Counties dont vote. Individuals vote. Even if you’re in LA youre still one person that gets one vote regardless of how those around you vote.
