[bluejekyll]

America did not elect this administration by a majority of the popular vote. The electoral college did.

It’s an artifact of the original founding of the country where there were checks and balances put in place to deny direct democratic rule.

It’s been slowly rolled back over many years, but until we get rid of the electoral college, it always has the possibility of ignoring the will of the people.

[andrewla]

> America did not elect this administration by a majority of the popular vote.

This is technically correct. Less accurate, but implied, is that a majority of voters wanted a different president. That may be the case, but the evidence is not sufficient to confirm or reject it.

First off is that turnout is very low relative to the number of eligible voters. Secondly is that the electoral college and states' decision to only do "all-or-nothing" apportionment means that it's a totally rational decision to stay home if your state is not close, since your vote has no chance of affecting the election besides the value of signalling that opposition to the consensus exists.

If Lessig's scheme [1] works out to break the winner-take-all apportionment, we could at least start to see some meaningful turnouts because the battle for a single electoral vote can be a close contest. More likely to succeed by less interesting (because your vote does not contribute to a single outcome but just to the collective) we have the interstate compact [2], which this year has made good progress towards achieving a majority.

[1] https://equalvotes.us

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...

[zanny]

The electoral college is the tip of the iceberg. It is fundamentally undemocratic to have a winner take all first past the post race for head of state no matter what middlemen you put between the ballot and the winner.

I'm a firm believer US ballots are way too broad and have people direct electing (almost always first past the post) way too many positions, especially esoteric and irreverent ones like justices, sheriffs, school boards, etc. For representative democracy to legitimately work we need people electing representatives to appoint and delegate the responsibilities of government on their behalf, because of those that actually do vote (only about 60% of voting age peoples do) 99% don't actually vet individual candidates for every one of the 12+ direct elections they are participating in on the ballot every year.

Even when I try to do that, information on these esoteric position candidates is so sparse and I'm so hugely unqualified to judge what makes a good district magistrate or police chief its mostly a waste of time - I end up going off very limited information on anyone running, often people running without opponents, for positions whose function I cannot fully understand because specialization for my locality on whatever they do isn't readily available.

That is a fully intentional design, though. Both parties have it in their self interest to bloat the ballot with tons of esoteric positions so voters feel choice paralysis and fatigue and just start voting party line en masse without actually auditing the people they are actually electing.

Its a mockery of democracy and republicanism, though. I should be voting for a professional representative to make these decisions on my behalf in forum, and if I did only have a, preferably, singular elected role I vote for with multiple winners where I just need to judge all the candidates for that one function whom I could then rank at the ballot people would be much less privy to falling under the total influence of party lines when voting. Which, being against the interest of the ruling duopoly, would never practically happen anywhere except where the demographics are so skewed in favor of one or the other they are nigh guaranteed to win anyway.

[jki275]

This country was not founded as a direct democracy, was not intended to be a direct democracy, and absent a Constitutional amendment cannot be made a direct democracy. States are supposed to have a voice -- going to a direct democracy completely removes almost all of the states in favor of a few small high-population states, which leaves all the rest of the states unrepresented in the Presidential election. It's the same reason we have a Senate -- to represent the states in government, and a house -- to represent the people in government.

[cmurf]

Federalist 68 applies to any conversation on the original intent of how the Electoral College was supposed to work. Unfortunately, state legislatures long ago perverted this system by making the worst possible people in America the Electors, by law: party loyalists.

By definition a party loyalist is not a deliberative person, as described in Federalist 68. And further, party loyalists are the people most centrally located in bitter partisanship, the very thing that lends itself to "cabal, intrigue, and corruption" referred to as things most to be avoided, in Federalist 68.

We have all permitted this perversion of something that, despite its also racist past, could actually be useful but is instead detrimental. The Electoral College could play a role if we were serious, but Americans right now take their TV shows more seriously.

[BigChiefSmokem]

Theres a good reason why we shouldn’t use direct democracy and the Founders where very clear about that.

[spease]

You mean the concern that the people might elect a demagogue...?

[aey]

Yes, the concern is that in a direct democracy demagogues will be elected far more often and with far more extreme views.

Bicameral parliamentary systems are even less prone to this since the prime minister is elected by the ruling coalition. But they have other problems.

[Fjolsvith]

After the next 6 years of "America being greater", I am sure that your concern will definitely be a sticking point to returning to a majority rule election system.

[onemoresoop]

All these tools from the founding fathers were abused and misused.

[a3n]

1. All systems can be gamed.

2. All systems will be gamed.

3. The people are not the players, they are the chips.

[sigzero]

Getting rid of the Electoral College would destroy America. You would basically have two large areas control the whole process. Nope, no thank you. The only reason it failed last time is Hillary failed to understand it.

[zanny]

Mind blowing that a majority of the people might win a democratic election.

Its all hyperbole overshadowing the root problem - first past the post non-proportional elections are hugely undemocratic. You need proportional legislatures where you have both multiple winners per race for better proportional distribution and alternate votes to first past the post regardless of what they are - STV, ranked choice, IRV, etc. Anything is better than what we have now.

[AnthonyMouse]

> STV, ranked choice, IRV, etc.

What we really need is approval voting / range voting. First past the post creates polarization because it causes there to be two parties and requires every issue to be bifurcated into on of those two boxes, and if your preferences don't all perfectly align with party lines then welcome to hell.

But the problem with proportional representation systems is that they would require flipping over the table in the US. Senators are from specific states, Congressmen are from specific districts, and that part of the system isn't the broken part, it's actually helpful -- if your state or district has a specific problem then you have a specific person who actually cares about it because your vote matters more to them than the vote of someone else in some other place.

But apply range voting to the same districts and states and you don't end up with a two party system, because two very similar candidates no longer split the vote with each other. Then anybody who can represent a given district or state better than the incumbent can win the election regardless of party affiliation, and you're no longer stuck choosing between two party platforms because now there are twelve.

[a3n]

> What we really need is approval voting / range voting.

What we really need is for everyone to vote.

Or, for nobody to vote, which would trigger chaos. As Mel Brooks said, "Out of chaos, comes order."

[AnthonyMouse]

> What we really need is for everyone to vote.

If the people who currently vote are a representative sample of all people eligible to vote, this would change nothing at all.

They're not, so what would end up happening is that both parties would spend more time pandering to the people who currently could vote but don't, the additional votes would end up split evenly between the two parties and the difference from the status quo would be modest at best.

First past the post creates a polarized two party system independent of what percentage of the population votes.

> Or, for nobody to vote, which would trigger chaos.

That would never happen because the fewer people who vote the more incentive there is for anyone go to vote, because your vote counts more when other people don't.

It's more effective in general to cast a protest vote for a third party you know won't win than to stay home -- especially since they often need a certain percentage of the vote for ballot access or public financing. And if enough people do that then the third party actually wins. Then ideally they can do away with first past the post.

[mindslight]

> What we really need is for everyone to vote.

This is squarely in the territory of religion.

[warmwaffles]

> Mind blowing that a majority of the people might win a democratic election.

People in dense urban areas should not have a dictatorial say in what those who live in rural areas do.

[josephdviviano]

Yes but also, people in rural areas should not have a dictatorial say in what those who live in urban areas do.

If democracies like the USA (Canada has a similar problem) simply counted the votes, the majority of the country would be happier with the outcome. From a pragmatic standpoint, this is a good thing.

"U.S. Cities are Home to 62.7 Percent of the U.S. Population, but Comprise Just 3.5 Percent of Land Area"

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-33....

[AnimalMuppet]

You might have a system where neither side can force anything down the other side's throat. To do that, you might need something like one legislature where the cities predominate, and another where the rural has more sway. You might call it a "bicameral legislature" or something.

[josephdviviano]

I'm not sure why in a democracy, the majority of people don't have the majority of the power. If they happen to be urban / rural, so be it.

The developed world is becoming more urban because we do not need that many people in the rural industries any more. It's that simple. Fighting for their 'rights' just makes the country non-competitive. We need to actively incentivize and assist those in rural areas find a way of life where the economy is actually happening.

[zanny]

We should measure people not in the amount of land they own or occupy but as individuals, and every one of them should have equal merit in deciding how society is run.

As it is I could have a substantial unequal share in representative interest moving to a sparsely populated state than I would living in a major metro area. There is absolutely no way to consider that as anything other than a mockery of democracy.

[a3n]

Most (my total guess) US states elect governors by direct election. Why are they not destroyed?