The Electoral College Is the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy

You're right - it was created by a constitutional amendment. The worst ever.

But, what the Congress can do is assure that the Electoral College individuals are:
1) In exact proportion to the number of registered voters in the state, and
2) The results reported to Congress are purely of the number of popular-votes for both presidential candidates tabulated - and no winner-takes-all.

Democracy is not a horse race ... !

 

I dont see how

But I will not rule it out either

All the more reason to keep democrats put of power

 

And so does that comment above - only it's in red ...

 

I do, but I live in France where people arriving at a polling station are obliged to present a National Identity Card.

Which of itself is a damn fine idea. The local police and even the FBI would not mind in the least if every baby were applied an Identity Number (which is like the Social Security number employed today) and at majority age nationally (16?) the card was necessary to vote in both state and national elections ...

 

You live in France?

That ends this conversation

 

You never know until you try.

You'd be surprised what people will do if given the opportunity to do so. Bernie's campaign was "third-party" and had he won the Dems would have been thunderstruck.

The country needs to change the way it elects its representatives to office. At the moment, it is television that rakes in megabucks because Americans are supposedly impressed by TV commercials. But, what if that opportunity were constrained to no commercials and only multi-candidate talk-shows?

Then, those American voters keen to know what candidates really-think will watch those programs.

One would hope so, but I suspect it would be also necessary that the nation get a good handle on Civics courses at the high-school level and make the courses mandatory passage in order to graduate ...

 

Actually the greatest threat, at the number one position is what the Princeton Study revealed, using congressional record spanning two decades. No representation in DC for 300 million plus americans. Only the elites and special interests, who pay to play, get represented and their own best self interests granted.

Get rid of the EC, go fully democratic when it comes to elections, and nothing changes, given what Princeton revealed. Oh, it might make some of us feel good, getting rid of the EC, but when those you elect do not represent you, and you are too stupid, from partisanship to even see it, what is the *******ned point?

 

It would make sense to go by the popular vote, always has. The popular vote is reflective of who the people want, not the electoral college that only give a few points here and there. Nothing states like Wyoming flip automatically to Republicans all the time. We are a democracy, not a republic.

 

Most Americans doubt the country is that gullible. Do I have to go into the stares that turned or voted even more blue last year, like Arizona and Pennsylvania?

 

How democratic is it when you have super delegates guaranteeing the primary election for the DNC's chosen one, where a candidate can whup an opponent soundly and have a net gain of just 1?

 

We need to improve upon the electoral college. Not only should each state get two Senate electoral votes, and a representational vote based upon population; but each county should get one electoral vote as well. That way, those who live in the rural counties of CA, NY, and other big city states would at least get some voice in our presidential elections.

I see no reason why 5% of our country's land mass should be dictating to the other 95% how to run their states and counties.

 

Increasing Democracy won't solve the problem that one half of the country hates the other half and vice versa.

 

I speak pretty good French if you would prefer that language?

(Autrement, va te branler ... ;^)

 

From the on-line dictionary:
*Democracy = a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
*Republic = a state* in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

If anybody can see a Great Difference between those two definitions, then they are magicians ...

NB: state meaning a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.

 

We have nothing to talk about

 

Okay put down the Prozac and try to come into the real world. Certainly there are other means of power rather than the presidency but it is the executive, if it doesn't matter then why do you want to change it?

 

Yeah the people who designed the Constitution intentionally put the EC in to threaten the Constitution.

Go have a hamberder before they're banned.

 

TERTIARY EDUCATION FREE, GRATIS AND FOR NEXT TO NOTHING

Your making a personal reflection upon the nature of those who represent us. That is unacceptable. Why?

Because if people want dorks to represent them, then they should get dorks to represent them at all levels of governance. We, the sheeple, deserve the kind of government we elect even if manipulated to do so.

I am saying, therefor, it is the PROCESS that matters and not the result. Meaning that if Americans want to stay home instead of going out to vote, then they deserve the consequences. Click on this infographic: Historical voter turnout rates in America here, which gives these average results for the time-span 1916-2018:
*About 57% for the presidential election, and
*About 40% for midterm elections.

For any political party putting its mind-and-money to the task, with those numbers it is not difficult to manipulate elections in America. Which is what happens. Obama won his first election by a handsome margin (of 53%) in 2008 and when the "fit hit the shan" that same year economically, the following mid-term election (2010) saw the HofR go the Replicants - who refused him any further Stimulus Spending hoping that unemployment would win them them the presidential election of 2012.

Did they ever get that calculation wrong, wrong, wrong!

What did that intensely political calculation cost the country in terms of job creation? This graphic from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Employment-to-population Ratio (E-to-p):


Note that from 2008 to 2010 - in the midst of the Great Recession - the civilian unemployment rate skyrocketed up to 10% and the E-to-p Ratio plummeted to 58.5% and never recovered.

The Civilian E-to-p Ratio has never ever recovered to its above 64% level despite the fact that the Civilian Unemployment Rate did come back down to around 5%. How in hell does that happen?

Here's How:Those jobs that left are gone forever (mostly to China) as Manufacturing Employment was gutted. See here (also from the BLS) where the Manufacturing employment rate fell from around 27% of total to around 10% and has never recovered! But why?

Because the US is no longer a manufacturing nation it once was. What happened?

My explanation: We, as a nation, have left the Industrial Age for the Information Age and that evolution has forever changed the nature and composItion of employment in America* ...

*Which is why NOW (more than ever) we must get out kids out of secondary-schooling and into tertiary-education - and we must do it for the least possible personal cost to get as many as possible to overcome the hurdle! Meaning the US government subsidizes their education in state public post-secondary schooling!

 

I like awarding Electoral Votes by Congressional District presidential win.
Extra votes representing senator representation may be winner take all.
Being President should involve breadth of appeal too.
I like geographical representation to balance the tyranny of pure democracy.

 

There is that myth again. One of the most favorite lies told by some Democrats is we are the boogey man to minorities. We want to appeal to them, not shun them. We fought so hard for their rights, we earned their votes.

Hillary spent far more to win her election than did Trump. Money is not the issue.

 

I may be a cupa coffee short.
Please elaborate.

States flip. It happens.

Above quote was in reply to

 

Obviously the popular vote didn't prove that.

 

Going by the title, I don't think so, not even close. What the biggest threat to our democracy is the now ultra high partisanship and polarization in Washington which is dividing our country big time. It is our major parties putting the good of the party over the country and loyalty to party instead of nation. When it has become much more important to be an Republican or a Democrat than an American, we're in big trouble. Rome is burning.

When it becomes so important to stop every other party's proposal along with everything the party your opposing wants to do or in their legislation proposed and passed than to take those things on its merits whether or not it would benefit this country, We're in deep doo doo.

That is the bigger if not biggest threat to this country. The electoral college is way down the list. Perhaps number 26 out of a list of 25 bigger threats.

 

There would be no United States without the system of state electors for the president. The less populous states would never have signed on to the treaty.

 

true democracies self destruct, thats why they don't exist for too long, if at all... the usa is a constitutional republic, not a democracy, in fact during obama's last term they removed the wording "under democratic rule" from the worldbook of government of the usa, it now reads "constitutional republic"... go look it up...