I already explained what the problem was. In the first elections, some states divided electors proportional to population. However, there was a race to the bottom where now its a winner takes all. This results in the votes of political minorities not counting which is morally wrong. States shouldn't be allowed to do that. Politicians focus too much on a small number of swing states while ignoring the rest of the country. Many people in non-swing states have much less enthusiasm to vote because they are getting much less attention from candidates and their votes have almost no chance of changing anything. This is a very big problem. Our founders never anticipated that all states would move to a winner takes all system. They knew that the constitution wasn't perfect and implemented an amendment system to make tweaks and fixes as time goes on. In fact the founders themselves amended the constitution in the famous ten amendments. They shouldn't have gives states control of how to select the electors when a proportional system is objectively the best. States shouldn't be allowed to take away representation from their minority party voters. I'm not talking about a national popular vote. I agree that state legislatures should select Senators because I believe in states rights myself. I don't believe in absolute states rights because the Civil Wars showed there were problems with that. But I do think there should be large areas that are left completely to the states. However, the problem is that you will need a constitutional amendment to get this passed and will need democrats to support that. You aren't getting any support without giving them something they want.
They never envisioned there would be elections for the Electors and the person a "minority persons" vote counts just as much as anyone else in their state if you can show me one where it doesn't I'd like to see it. Swing states change with the political winds they are not etched in stone somewhere. It wasn't a concern they established that the STATES elect the President, they did not require a vote of any kind and one is STILL not required. I don't know why that is such a difficult civics lesson to grasp. You are trying to effectively create one. Glad we agree on that. Read the OP, that is what Sasse is proposing. The question is are there enough statesmen in Congress to support it or would there be enough states to convene a constitutional convention which of course would open it to all sorts of amendment proposals.
the idea of The People losing control over who becomes a Senator, is stupid. we want to be the rulers....not the ruled. however I think the Electoral College should be changed. i dont like the "winner-takes-all" rule for state electors. it should be abolished.
The States of the United States are Quas-States at best. Being conservative you probably disagree since conservatives try to use the non-existent "State Sovereignty" to try and get away with all sorts of violations of our basic rights but facts are facts. From the beginning, States have been actual fictions, provinces writ large. They cannot mint coins, protect their borders, or have a foreign policy. Most importantly they cannot really legislate any law which the Constitution forbids. I once saw a parody organization chart where there was a box commanding an actual sovereign state and in the the box it said "Nothing and no one" A joke yes, but true. Modern States are Sovereign entities they do as they please. The States of the USA generally exist to duplicate functions which the Federal government does usually better and create administrative holes which they can and often do drive trucks of money through
The STATES are the STATES as the CONSTITUTION STATES your fallacious nonsense notwithstanding. They Constitutional standing just like the Federal Government and the People. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof Go study the Constitution which states
Uhhuh, I have studied the Constitution, the States are provinces, organized like States, but still just really just provinces in actual fact. They can't do nearly anything which States are supposed to, and which functions separate and define real States in actual fact Conservatives often try to use National organizations to turn this or that State (usually a Southern one) into a proto-fascist autarky where issues of basic rights are brought up once again by the forces of oppression. Fortunately, the SCOTUS usually has quickly put them in their place. Functioning as they should the States neither pick my pocket nor break my leg, and that is as it should be.
Well you need some more of that study. Providences are administrative areas of a state or a country. They are created by the government for those administrative purposes and only operate under the laws and functions of the country's government. The States of the United States were not created by the government THEY created the government in a FEDERAL system. Each state has it's own NOT federal controlled government which operate outside the federal system. A HUGE difference. They are STATES as the United STATES and sorry your unconnected off topic rants do not trump Constitution fact.
Repealing the 17th would be almost as good as term limits. The state governments could prevent lifetime tenure as a Senator. The states are often ignored and should be a powerful tool in curbing the appetite of the federal government for control over the individual people. I think repealing the 17th would also bolster the enforcement of the largely ignored 10th.
My point is that if 49% of the state votes for Trump, they get zero electors. This is zero representation for political minorities. Most states go to the same party by overwhelming margins so voting is almost pointless. You want to vote for Trump in California? Knock yourself out, but don't expect any electors to represent your voice. This is a terrible system that results in candidates ignoring most of the country while focusing on swing states. States should not have the right to strip political minorities of representation in the electoral system. This also hurts third parties who rarely get a single elector with winner takes for for each state. With a proportional representation system, third parties will be able to get a few electoral votes and can work from there. There is no state that directly picks the electors to vote for the president. Instead they defer to the voice of the people in their state as they should. It is the people in the states not the state governments who should decide the electors. Additionally, the electors should be selected proportional to percent of the population won. This is how many states originally did this and we should do it this way now. Its time to amend the constitution to improve the electoral college. No, I am not proposing that we go to a national popular vote. A proportional electoral college can leverage the electoral college to protect small states unlike a national popular vote. Many states in our first elections used a proportional electoral college and this is in the spirit of the electoral college. This probably isn't going to happen because it is extremely unpopular. The vast majority of voters don't want to lose the ability to vote for Senators. The only way it is remotely possible is if Republicans agree to improving the electoral college and banning gerrymandering for good. But I don't think even that will be enough without popular support.
States, are not people. No more than Corporations are people. Only people have the natural and god-given right to choose their leaders, especially if they pay taxes, and States do not pay taxes or have to follow laws or codes. Only people do. this thread is dumb
If 49% of a state votes for a governor they lose, did their vote count? Yes, they lost. Same with the electors of their state, if they other guy gets the most votes the wins the state and the state votes for the other guy, the STATES elect the President. How many times does that have to be stated. It's a brilliant system that has served the country well and serves it's purpose. The Constitution says the State legislature decides how the Electors are chosen. If you want to have proportional in your state then lobby for it. I want my state to be behind one candidate. You're trying to do an end run to get a national popular and the spirit of the Electoral college is the states vote for the candidate who won that state. One has nothing to do with the other.
Correct States are States and the People are the citizens of that state and the federal government is the United States just as the Constitution says.
And curbing those mandates the federal government likes to put on the states. Plus it takes the politics and out and hopefully we will have great statesmen (used in the neutral) again not just those who poster for the camera and engage in the petty attack politics and have to fund raise year round.
If you want to draw an analogy to a governor race it would be like if each county voted for the governor and it was a winner takes all for each county. Obviously governor races aren't analogous to presidential races. At the end of the election, you get one person elected whether it is the president or the governor. But in the process of selecting the president or governor what I'm saying is that every vote should be represented. And minorities in each state have the same right to representation by electors as the majority to be represented by electors. It makes absolutely no sense that you don't get any electors if you get 49.9% but you get all of them if you get 50.1%. Thats a ridiculous system and not what the founders intended. States won't individually go for proportional electors because then they will lose influence on the election, not because its the wrong thing to do. What we need is a constitutional amendment. You keep claiming proportional electors isn't in the spirit of the electoral college and winner takes all is. Many states actually did proportional electors in our first elections, and our founders never intended for all states to move to winner takes all. The GOP will have to compromise on something if they expect the democrats to compromise. Its really that simple.
It's like everyone in the state votes for governor like everyone in the state votes for electors. Who ever gets the most votes wins just because the person you voted for lost does not mean your vote was not counted. Where does the Constitution say that? Do they have a right to be represented by the govoernor? Maybe if the one person gets 55% of the vote they get to be governor 55% of the time and the loser 45%. I don't know why you have such difficulty with the fundimental principle of our government that we are a federal republic of States. The president is not elected by the People but the States. You vote in YOUR state for YOUR states electors and if the electors you vote for lose you lose the other guy wins. The person those electoral represent must win your STATE. They won't because it is the State that chooses the President and doesn't need to change and it doesn't require an amendment your state can do that if the state legislature decides to do so or it could decide to chose them themselves. You have no constitutional right to vote for the president or the electors. I've claimed it once vis-a-vis your specious claim otherwise and against the founding fathers dis not intend for elections for the electors but the state would appoint them. It is ONE Senator who is proposing the change back and it's not a tit for tat.
You are again bringing up this specious governor analogy. In an election, obviously one person gets elected, and the majority and minority can't have one governor for each. In the same way, we can't have two presidents. The end result of the election must see only one side get their person selected. But in the electoral college when the people in the states are voting for their electors, we are still in the process of choosing the president, and today the minority in the states have lost their representation of electors to pick the president. In governor races you can place your vote and are represented by your vote, and never lose that representation. In a presidential race, you are represented by electors who pick the president, and political minorities lose their representation in each state. You are conflating the end result of the whole election (where one side must win) with the process within the election before it is over (minorities needs representation). When picking a representative, minorities need to have their votes represented. That is the basis of democracy. Obviously the end result is that one side wins at the end of the election, but that doesn't mean minorities shouldn't get representation within an election when picking a governor/president. Governor races would be analogous to the electoral college if governors were selected by countries and it was winner takes all for each county. In fact the popular vote selects the governor, but you hate the popular vote so I don't know why you are trying to draw this analogy. No, the president was never ever elected by the states in actual practice, even though it is allowed by the constitution. This is because the states all made their votes based on their individual popular votes. So in actual practice, the states deferred to the people in the states, so we might as well make that part of the constitution. That isn't what always happened. Many states in our first elections distributed their electors proportionately. Our founders never intended it to be this way. Only you intend it to be this way. You are missing the point that I am proposing a constitutional amendment to change that. I get that my proposal isn't how things currently work. To get a constitutional amendment, you need both sides to compromise. Negotiation is tit for tat. That is actually the perfect analogy. Your other option is to actually persuade left-wing democratic voters to repeal the 17th amendment without fixing the electoral college or gerrymandering. Good luck with that lol. Your biggest argument is that you want the states to be in control. But you are missing the point that policies need to actually benefit the nation. If you support states rights, just because you support states rights, then this is just circular reasoning and has no connection to the benefit of the nation. A proportional electoral college will help third parties. It will help political minorities in states. It will help voters in non-swing states. It will prevent entire elections from being decided by these arbitrary tiny margins in a few swing states. It will also protect small states in a way that a national popular vote doesn't. These are practical real-world reasons why this is a good idea, and you haven't presented any real-world reasons why its a bad idea.
You are the one who keeps bringing up the specious argument that if you vote for Democrat electors and they lose then your vote didn't count. It did you just lost. You are in the process of choosing Electors to represent your state. If you electors loses oh well try again next time. There is only one election in your state and that is for the state electors. Again by what you are saying here the governors office should somehow be split between winners and losers. And we are not a democracy we are a FEDERAL REPUBLIC. Until you can grasp that FACT your arguments are baseless. It is the STATES that cast their votes in the EC again you simple do not understand the Constitution and how Presidents are chosen and no the states are not going to change that. The founding fathers never intended that you would even vote for the Electors Are you an American citizen? No you need 2/3's of the Congress and 3/4's of the states, there is no requirement for a tit for tat and two amendments being passed or a counter issue being included. My biggest argument is to stop the Senate from being a political body subject to political whims and having to campaign and raise money and all things political and back to a deliberative body representing the States as originally designed. The subject here is not the electoral college, focus.
the Founding Fathers also allowed slavery and said ONLY white men could be citizens. so....screw that.
just cause the "Founding Fathers" wanted the States to elect Senators, doesn't make it right. they did not fully embrace Rule by The People, but today we do. unless you prefer to be ruled!!!
They guarantied the Federal Government would not be a Democracy but a Federal Republic and yes they got it right the first time. We see how disjointed and political is the Senate, we need to get rid of that and get it back to it's intended purpose, the represent the STATES and the interest of the STATES. The House is for the PEOPLE.
The States, do not deserve representation. Only citizens do. if anything we should dissolve the Senate.
The citizens within their states do and no we should take the Senate back to what it is supposed to be doing.
You have that exactly backwards... The Republic given us by the Founding Fathers was designed to prevent the power of government from being harnessed by anyone, any group, faction, or the people themselves from its wielding power outside of tightly defined parameters. Rule by the people, i.e. democracy, is inherently unstable and unsustainable. Only an uninformed, ignorant fool would want to live in a democracy.
