[ The Electoral College in USA ] - Why vote in partisan states?

GaryAnderson

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This topic is for those who are familiar with the voting system in United States and I wanted to get your thoughts on this topic which comes up sometimes in discussion with friends.
I don’t vote. I live in Massachusetts which is a hyper-partisan blue state. So whether I vote for Trump or the Mickey Mouse it doesn’t really matter because my vote will be overridden and it will always go blue. I vote with my residence basically because I like my state.
Same can be applied for Texas. Why should anyone vote for Biden in Texas since their votes will be overridden?
But I wonder that if we get rid of the electoral college we might end up with mob rule/democracy.

What do you guys think? It seems to me that elections are determinate on few key swing-states so the participation from the other partisan states seems pointless. I guess in a way states are our “echo-chambers” where our views fit with a particular lifestyle.
I dunno but I just find our system a bit weird and outdated. Can we do better? Like a coalition system in Europe? But keep in mind that Americans think of Europe as “socialism”.
 
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The states where they have a balanced electoral college based on vote share seems a better way of doing things, rather than the equivalent of winner takes all system so many states choose.
 
I suppose it's worth voting if only to have your vote recorded as part of the "popular vote", which sometimes shows that the winner actually got fewer votes than the loser. It's a weird system, as you say, and I can't see any problem with getting rid of the electoral college, or making it a balanced college in all the states.
 
The same was said regarding the red wall seats in the UK, however change does happen.
 
Can we do better?
I learned recently about the Congressional seats being re-allocated on the basis of population census. Further that there is little the Democrats can do to win congress in 2022 due to the redistricting.

The legal arguements about changing the 2-votes per state in the Senate I found quite interesting :blush:

The electoral college: is this outwith the US constitution and purely a legislative matter?
ISTM that each vote should carry the same weight.

Edit:

Add US prefix to thread title :lease:
 
The electoral college system is archaic. An even bigger problem for your country is the amount of gerrymandering and voter suppression that goes on.

 
Yes, the "winner takes all" approach does seem wrong, not just in a highly partisan State but more-so in a State when 50%+1 instantly invalidate the 50%-1 of the votes cast.

The Democrat "fix" of giving all the votes to whomever wins the nation's popular vote seems a worse idea.

Ideally States would give a share of their votes to candidates based upon the proportion of votes won in the State. Though I'm aware it's likely only the Democrat States who'd change their State law to do so and tip the scales to the Republicans more-so as it's the block votes of States like New York, California and Illinois that give the Democrats a chance. If we took College votes from them we'd be handing the Presidency to the Republicans for many years.

Personally, a better fix would be to increase the College votes. Currently it benefits the low population States because every State is guaranteed at least 3 votes (two Senators and one Representative).

Wyoming gets one Representative because every State needs at least one. Wyoming's Representative, represents 579K people. California's Representatives represent around 810,000 each. This is because the House of Representatives is limited to 435 people.

If everyone were to get the same level of representation in the House of Representatives (therefore in the College) as Wyoming then California, Texas and New York would have more Representatives.

@brunation the Electoral College is Constitutional. However the number of Representatives is a Federal law and is easier to change (and has done so). How the States choose who represents them in the College is State Law.
 
This topic is for those who are familiar with the voting system in United States and I wanted to get your thoughts on this topic which comes up sometimes in discussion with friends.
I don’t vote. I live in Massachusetts which is a hyper-partisan blue state. So whether I vote for Trump or the Mickey Mouse it doesn’t really matter because my vote will be overridden and it will always go blue. I vote with my residence basically because I like my state.
Same can be applied for Texas. Why should anyone vote for Biden in Texas since their votes will be overridden?
But I wonder that if we get rid of the electoral college we might end up with mob rule/democracy.

What do you guys think? It seems to me that elections are determinate on few key swing-states so the participation from the other partisan states seems pointless. I guess in a way states are our “echo-chambers” where our views fit with a particular lifestyle.
I dunno but I just find our system a bit weird and outdated. Can we do better? Like a coalition system in Europe? But keep in mind that Americans think of Europe as “socialism”.
Its normal for seats in any political system to be firmly in one camp. Parties pursue and defend particular interests and groups of voters, who live in different places. . Those are not great examples as MA is competitive many years , and Texas is becoming more so in the longer term. And the swing states do change. Ohio and Florida were swingers but are now solidly red because of local issues, and the Democrat's problem with key voter groups like key industries in Ohio and Jewish and anti-communist Latino voters in Florida. Biden won by taking the new current swing states.

Coalitions don't work well often as they lack responsibility , consistent policy, inability to do what anyone offered, and ability to make hard choices. Look at Belgium, italy, Germany or Israel. Israel currently is trying an experiment where its governed by eight parties with widely, massively different policies - only united by not wanting Netanyahu back in power. The US would have a similar array of parties from umpteen racial, political, regional, and foreign policy view points if it didn't have the two major parties , and the uneasy coalitions they represent. . That could fall apart any moment, just as the Israeli one could. .

The US constitution was actually written to produce good wise men coming together - with state rights there as a veto against actions some states didn't want. Since then its grown a two party system, the split between left and right has grown, and the varying size of states, has made the result unrepresentative of the majority view -while geographic expansion has created very different regional interests. Its essentially a recipe now for permanent log jam.
 
Its normal for seats in any political system to be firmly in one camp. Parties pursue and defend particular interests and groups of voters, who live in different places. . Those are not great examples as MA is competitive many years , and Texas is becoming more so in the longer term. And the swing states do change. Ohio and Florida were swingers but are now solidly red because of local issues, and the Democrat's problem with key voter groups like key industries in Ohio and Jewish and anti-communist Latino voters in Florida. Biden won by taking the new current swing states.

Coalitions don't work well often as they lack responsibility , consistent policy, inability to do what anyone offered, and ability to make hard choices. Look at Belgium, italy, Germany or Israel. Israel currently is trying an experiment where its governed by eight parties with widely, massively different policies - only united by not wanting Netanyahu back in power. The US would have a similar array of parties from umpteen racial, political, regional, and foreign policy view points if it didn't have the two major parties , and the uneasy coalitions they represent. . That could fall apart any moment, just as the Israeli one could. .

The US constitution was actually written to produce good wise men coming together - with state rights there as a veto against actions some states didn't want. Since then its grown a two party system, the split between left and right has grown, and the varying size of states, has made the result unrepresentative of the majority view -while geographic expansion has created very different regional interests. Its essentially a recipe now for permanent log jam.
That could equally apply to recent US & British governments
 

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