Poll: most people who voted in 2016 want to abolish the Electoral College

Meh. I've never been a fan of the EC, but 1 thing I know unequivocally is that the majority vote means nothing in terms of what's best. Most people are too detached, too stupid or treat politics like a GD religion. They know nothing about what's best for the populace. It's why we have such a messed up government. People have no clue.

The earth was once flat by majority belief. Obv it doesn't make it true.

 

It's still not a direct election, and it can change. There are so many strange things with parliamentary systems that it's rare that people actually vote for the head of the government directly.

Regardless, you do not have direct election in most of the Western World. France is hardly a great example. Their "President" is not the head of the government, but is the person who chooses the Prime Minister who is the head of the government (basically a split power kind of thing). Also, they used an electoral college up until 1962.


The Electoral college is a great system as it helps to keep any one group from having too much power. Until this past election, when the Popular vote loser won the electoral college, it was due to the election being a virtual tie (within 0.5%), so the EC was serving as a tie breaker. Most of the time the Popular vote and the EC have produced the same winner.

 

The French get along with the notion, there are separations of power, just like in the US.

The "new tripartite governance" was introduced by DeGaulle in 1957 who won the first presidential election. (He had previously been head of the parliamentary majority.) It has worked well enough these past 60-years despite having the president twice with a national legislature of the opposition party.

Which is far more common in the US than in France.

The French have been happy enough with the method of direct election of the President and the relation with a congressional majority is not a as stark as it is in the US, where the opposition (in the HofR) since 2010 has refused a PotUS spending-power in a time of need to restart an economy after a major recession thus instituting stagnation. Political parties in America are "playing games" with the electoral system.

And the American voter has happpilycontinued that voting sectarianism in 2012, 2014 and 2016. So, if any country is blamable for freezing a system of tripartite political power (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) in place it is not in France that such happens.

But in the US. Since 2010, we've undergone disruptive partisan-power politics in governance of the nation.

Of course, that ends now with Donald Dork and his across the board party-majority. Heaven help Uncle Sam, the original reason for the separation of powers has been negated by American democracy-in-action.

Good luck America ... !

 

And in what nation has that "ever been the best method for electing national political leadership"?

That's democracy - because in the end, the people elect their leadership. So, when something goes not quite the way you like it - then to find out who is responsible, look in the mirror.

The American-voter has one of the worst voting records in history (from Pew Research here: U.S. voter turnout trails most developed countries).

Instead of voting, apparently, we prefer complaining-in-a-blog ...

 

That's probably a good indication of why we still have it. People THINK they want "mob rule", but that's only until the mob rules against them.

 

It doesn't matter how many yards you gain, it matters how many times you score a touchdown.

 

In order for someone to have won some "thing", there would have had to be a contest for that "thing". Since there was never a contest for the national popular vote, saying someone "won" it seems less than rational.

 

Some people don't stop and think of what would have happened had our country been a pure Democracy... The majority would be deemed right, even if the results were immoral, or violated the minority unjustly. Would gays, or mixed races be able to get married if it were up to the majority? Would blacks be able to vote? Would abortion be legal? Lots of things the left has won they have won because we AREN'T a direct Democracy.

 

I differ on this. I believe voters are the term limiters.

 

Yes. That person has, nonetheless, extraordinary powers as regards particularly National Defense. It is "their finger" on the nuclear-button.

Other European "presidents" are not elected by popular vote but "nominated" and their sole purpose is to assure a swift transfer of power to a head of government selected by the national parliament.

Yes, but in case of a parliamentary majority of the "opposition-party" in the Chamber of Representatives (Chambre des représentants) the president selects that person as head Prime Minister. Otherwise, all legislation will be blocked by the opposition until the president does nominate the head of the opposition party.

 

Agreed. I don't do the blogging. I voted for the Johnson. Dude who can't locate the ME on a map sounds pretty good compared to the choices we had. Obviously the voter is to blame. As my sig goes, I truly believe every population has the government it deserves. Majority vote is worthless when the public is stupid and oblivious.

 

France, but so what?

Bollocks! (You are making a bad-habit of it.)

All EU-countries have a popularly-elected Legislature, of which the head of government is chosen.

In select instances (such as Italy) there is also "nominated" as a go-between in case of a legislational vote that is lost by the party "in power", which triggers automatically the search for another head of government. It is for this very reason that Italian governments are a "dime-a-dozen" and French governments (that were once that way) are now far more stable with a President (elected by plebiscite).

Other European nations (north of the EU's soft southern underbelly) don't need any president to negotiate the leadership of a parliament.

Period.

 

You have my vote! I very much agree.

We are all to blame for the crapola-government that we have. And even more-so when we make it so effing easy to manipulate the popular vote by infantile commercials on the BoobTube.

America has the democracy it deserves. One run (for the moment) by Excessively Rich Plutocrats ...

 

yes, your right, the number of votes doesn't mater, if it did, Trump woudl of lost as he got less votes then Clinton did

 

Still citing that stupid national popular vote line. You arent dumb enough to think that voting habits wouldnt change if the voting system was, so why keep parroting this line?

Trump won the popular vote in 4 of the 5 states that actually matter in a Presidential election, plus 2 others that history shows should have been easy Clinton wins. If you really want to complain about something, forget about this one election. Concentrate on the fact that voters from 45 of the 50 states already have their votes counted in the 2020 election. The only votes that have yet to be counted are from Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

The EC needs to be adjusted by Constitutional Amendment to have all 50 states on a single system of proportional or by district voting. No other system accurately represents the will of the people.

 

In France, the head of government is not popularly elected.
In Germany, the head of government is not popularly elected.
In the UK the head of government is not...
In Canada, the head of government is not..
In Australia...
In Japan...
In (insert a western democracy here) the head of government is not popularly elected.

Irrelevant. The head of government is not popularly elected.

Irrelevant. The head of government is not popularly elected.

This is not only false, but irrelevant where true. The head of government is not popularly elected.

In fact, you cannot name one -- just one - Western democracy where the head of government is elected.

Thus, your claim that "the fact that a Popular Vote does not win the presidency is a major debility for any functional democracy on earth" does not stand to any degree of scrutiny.

 

Trump not only got the most votes in the 2016 election, he got more than a majority of them.

 

How do you get more than the majority of votes? If all is still considered as a majority, how do you claim more than? Are you claiming fraud? Sorry, your use of the English language has defeated me.

 

I think we both know you understood what I meant.

Trump got THE majority of votes.

Better?

 

In fact, as long as we're at it.

Neither the head of state nor the head of government is popularly elected in...

UK
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Belgium
Netherlands
Spain

Further proof, your claim that "the fact that a Popular Vote does not win the presidency is a major debility for any functional democracy on earth" does not stand to any degree of scrutiny.

 

Separation of powers is not taken away when a single party controls two branches of government. (The Third branch is not controlled by any party). That's just a silly misinterpretation of the idea.

 

What single-party controls "two branches" of government?

There are three branches in a classic model of governance: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. The first two are elected position, the third nominative with approval of the Senate.

We are not debating about parties, but the three separate segments of power in a democracy ...

 

Bollocks, and I am not even going to waste my time proving you wrong. (At present, the campaign for president of France is at full steam with an election set for 23rd of April.)

The heads of all legislatures who become Prime Minister (are the Chief Executives of the nation. Some nations have non-elected presidents with no authority whatsoever - they are thus "titular heads".

Go back to sleep ...

 

So change it. Those who claim Hillary won the election are fools though. The election was decided by the rules. This guy saying she should go to the Supreme Court didn't say exactly what she should argue.

[video=youtube;7OMcqFOFmog]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OMcqFOFmog[/video]

There are several countries with electoral colleges. Others have their legislatures elect their heads of state. And yes, many use popular vote.

 

No country elects an "Executive President" by means of an electoral college as antiquated as does the US.

Go read the history of the elected-college. The southern-states, far less populated than the northern states, accepted Amendment 12 of the Constitution only when they were allowed to count blacks as part of their population, even though blacks had no right to voted until after the Civil War!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which gave them a larger population on which the electoral college number was based. The college was lie from the very beginning and it still is today.

In no way does it reflect the popular vote, which should be the only measure by which the head-of-state (whether a President or a Prime Minister) should be decided ...