I’m sure this is a general comment on the electoral college, but it’s always bothered me that criticisms of the electoral college (generally made by Democrats, since they are negatively affected at the national level) tend to completely ignore the fact that a huge portion of people are disenfranchised in nearly all states. I imagine that Republican voters in California feel just as frustrated about their electoral votes going blue as Democratic voters in California are about the relative value of their electoral votes (which they get to control completely).
The focus is on the national outcome so much, that actually enfranchising voters is seen as a problem. And unlikely other ways of suppressing and disenfranchising voters, it’s perfectly fine to discuss and strategize around this.
Personally, I’d much rather see states send proportional electoral votes than a national popular vote. Perhaps that can fix the problem here? Give the counties to Idaho, but on the condition that both Oregon and Idaho assign electoral Nebraska-style — everyone is enfranchised, and you have an outcome (from those states at least) that is practically guaranteed to be representative.
The electoral college was not originally winners take all.
The problem is that going proportional only works out for the states if everyone is doing it, otherwise a massive winner takes all state is that much more important to swing.
> The problem is that going proportional only works out for the states if everyone is doing it, otherwise a massive winner takes all state is that much more important to swing.
It completely depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to enfranchise all of your citizens, then going proportional is great. If your goal is for your state to pick the winner, then it doesn't. But the first one seems more important to me, so I think going proportional is beneficial even if not all states are doing it (and some states do it already).
The problem is not that the state doesn't pick the winner, the problem is that it disadvantages the winner of that state immensely.
If in some hypothetical election state A goes 15/10 for candidates X and Y but state B goes a full 20 for Y, then it the majority opinion of state A got screwed over and B hands the election to Y.
"The majority opinion of state A got screwed over" => the state didn't disenfranchise the minority in favor of the majority? It's funny to say that you "got screwed" by having your vote count for only your vote. The reality is that the minority in large states are the ones getting completely screwed today, and that a proportional system would result in a more fair outcome. That only "screws over" the majority voters in the sense that it takes away their privilege that they enjoy today.
Yes, other states would continue to "screw over" the minority, but that's hardly an argument in favor of you doing so given that the whole argument against the electoral college is a moral one (one citizen, one vote). The ol' "everyone should be moral, but I will only do so if it doesn't disadvantage my majority" isn't a great look.
If we all agree that a national popular vote is the ideal because every single vote counts, then surely a proportional electoral vote is an improvement over winner-take-all per state. The only reason to say otherwise would be that it doesn't produce the outcome that you want. (Which is why I find the electoral college arguments somewhat cynical -- they seem to be interested only in that aspect.)
well, not really. people would like EC vote outcomes that come as close as possible to the popular vote as possible. In that regard for the past 250~ years a EC winner who didn't win the popular vote only happened 5 times, and it didn't happen at all for 112 years.
A weird halfway proportional reform, if anything, would probably take elections farther away from representing the popular vote outcome. And ultimately, that's what matters, because the entire point of voting is that more votes are supposed to result in greater say.
The focus is on the national outcome so much, that actually enfranchising voters is seen as a problem. And unlikely other ways of suppressing and disenfranchising voters, it’s perfectly fine to discuss and strategize around this.
Personally, I’d much rather see states send proportional electoral votes than a national popular vote. Perhaps that can fix the problem here? Give the counties to Idaho, but on the condition that both Oregon and Idaho assign electoral Nebraska-style — everyone is enfranchised, and you have an outcome (from those states at least) that is practically guaranteed to be representative.