• jj4211@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Well yeah… The electoral college consistently lets a minority opinion override the majority, so of course a majority want it done.

    Problem is that minority that gets their way today aren’t going to yield if they can help it.

  • Kcap@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I remember being in 3rd grade and learning about the electoral college and thinking, “that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of”. Still true to this day.

    • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Okay guys stop up voting this! Simply let me assure you that I will upvote for you!

      If you upvote this comment to 100, I will upvote the way you want me to upvote.

      Actually I’ll do you better! Look. I know these guys who can upvote. If you upvote my comment past 100, I’ll have them vote for you just the way you telepathically have told me to upvote by up voting for me…what? Why would you even need to know me or my friend who hasn’t even talked to you directly? That’s crazy talk! I’m an upvoter, I upvote. They. My friends who can upvote are true upvoters too. Soon you won’t even need to upvote at all! You can just go read all the shit we Upvoted for you! Yey! We call our selves the “Upvotlectoral” college. We learn algebra in this college too, but we never graduate…at least you don’t know if we have graduated or not.

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Learning that it was so rich white people in the south could substitute the votes of newly freed black slaves with theirs is what got me.

      All this shit is because they were too fucking nice to the slavers.

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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      2 months ago

      Then how do you stop urban concerns from completely trouncing rural concerns? Voters from rural areas have valid concerns which are largely opposite of urban voters. If you get rid of electoral college, candidates will campaign in major cities and that’s it. Nobody else will matter.

      For anyone downvoting me- you should know I’m a liberal-libertarian registered Democrat from Connecticut, who’s very much against Trump and most of the BS today’s GOP is peddling. I just don’t think disenfranchising anyone who doesn’t live in a city is the answer.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Not the previous commenter, but I’m pretty certain that the, apparently fictional book, that Leave Burton showed on either The Daily Show, or Last Week Tonight, entitled It’s all Because of Racism, would cover what the EC’s actual purpose is. Though in this particular case it may be fairer to say classism.

      • orrk@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        and what has that gotten us? rural communities are subsidized out the wazoo as the urban centers across America are strangled and starved. as the more powerful minority of people is catered too

      • GeneralVincent@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        So the people in cities should just be worth less when they vote? It’s a federal vote for a federal office, everyone in the country should count the same.

        The individual states already have their own powers which make sure the federal government doesn’t make decisions that are bad for those states. And each county and town have their own governments that pass local laws.

        I’ve also heard this argument so many times but I haven’t heard any actual examples.

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          Which would be replaced with “Can the Democrat win California by a large enough margin?”

          Which was literally the case when people complain about Clinton winning the popular vote in 2016 - across the 49 states that aren’t California more people voted for Trump, but she won California by such a large margin that she won the popular vote because of California alone. Same thing in 2000, where Gore’s popular vote lead was smaller than his margin in CA.

          • Stern@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Which would be replaced with “Can the Democrat win California by a large enough margin?”

            If it’s going to be fucked either way I’d rather at least have it be fucked in a way where every vote counts the same rather then a Wyoming vote being worth like 4 times a California vote owing to the house of representatives population being limited which means Californians aren’t being properly represented in the house.

            • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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              2 months ago

              FYI Hillary did not win the popular vote just because of California

              Yes, she did. That there are other combinations of states that she won that combine to have a similar total margin doesn’t change that her national margin was smaller than her margin in California. And that’s the crux of the argument Snopes makes - she won the national popular vote by 2,833,220 and sure she won California by 4,269,978 votes but there are other states she won that if added together had a combined margin in her favor of more than 2,833,220 votes and also just her California votes alone wouldn’t be enough to exceed Trump’s vote count nationwide so it doesn’t count.

              Which is…kinda ridiculous? It’s a big stretch for a frankly kinda dumb claim.

              • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Also, what is wrong with only winning California, anyway? California represents the broad spectrum of a modern America and it has its rural areas as well. It is easy to argue that it is our most important state, too.

                What people in California want should matter even if it overrides smaller red states - since they will likely only hold us back anyway.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Cool. Too bad it’s never going to happen. The entire US political system is designed to prevent the will of the people from being enacted.

  • Sundial@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Large majority of voters want to change a system where the large majority of voters don’t have as much say as a a minority of voters.

    If the Democrats actually get the house and the senate this election, they should definitely looking into changing the voting system. It would be in their best interest.

  • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Thing about the electoral collage is that it doesn’t matter what the large majority wants.

  • 0^2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Everyone saying this can’t happen and stuff but we already have started the process. There is a set of several states that signed a pact that make it vote for the majority. Can’t think of the name of it but we only need several more states (not all of them) to meet needed electoral votes to basically bypass the electrical college.

    • irinotecan@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      As usual, Republican states won’t adopt this. And you can expect Republicans to appeal this all the way to the Supreme Court if it ever does get adopted, which the current conservative majority will almost certainly bend over backwards to find “unconstitutional.”

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    2 months ago

    The only reason they want a popular vote system is because it would have worked in their favor in 2000 and 2016.

    The minute it goes against “their” candidate they’ll scream to go back to the electoral college.

    See the multi-state pact here:

    https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation

    Currently passed in 17 states for 209 electoral college votes, it doesn’t take effect until there are 270 accounted for.

    But do you really think the residents of a state like Oregon, or Washington, or California will just be OK with their electoral college votes being passed to a popular vote winner who is a Republican?

    Especially if that person failed to win their state?

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      But do you really think the residents of a state like Oregon, or Washington, or California will just be OK with their electoral college votes being passed to a popular vote winner who is a Republican?

      Yes, because they won. People who favor democracy understand they won’t always be in the majority, and that’s OK bedause they aren’t shitbags. People who only want the system to work in their favor are called Conservatives.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        2 months ago

        You have more faith than I do. If Oregonians thought their vote was overturned because of a national popular vote winner, there would be riots.

        • monkinto@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Their vote wasn’t “overturned” their vote counted just as much as anyone else’s they just lost.

          • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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            2 months ago

            Under the multi-state pact, if Oregon voted overwhelmingly for Harris, but Trump won the national popular vote, and our electoral college votes were delivered to Trump because of the popular vote, yeah, that would be overturning the will of Oregon voters and there would be riots.

            • monkinto@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              So when one town votes for trump and Harris wins the state the votes of that town are “overturned” by the state then?

    • EndOfLine@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Is the suggestion here that the only people who support the electoral college are those who don’t want the president to represent the majority of the voting population?

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        2 months ago

        No, the suggestion here is that the people supporting the popular vote are doing it because they got burned in 2000 and 2016.

        Had it gone the other way, they wouldn’t be agitating for it.

        If Trump somehow wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college, WA, OR and CA will be THRILLED.

        • sh00g@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          Your suggestion is wrong. Eliminating the Electoral College is advocated for by everyone who supports Democracy. It is also not a coincidence that the Electoral College disproportionately benefits one party over the other. And to cement that advantage they employ anti-Democratic measures in an attempt at voter suppression.

  • sumguyonline@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It will be a cold, dark day, over my dead body, when New York City has more voting power than all of Washington state. I will fight people to the death to keep the electoral college. Get you’re moronic facts straight, the Electoral keeps high population areas from forcing their ideals on the rest of the Nation, it also makes cheating harder. FIX THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE! Fine. But remove it and you give the ruling class the ability to add a billion votes nation wide and winning an election, instead of now where they cheat district to district. Just because it’s becoming obvious your drug war baron might not win because people hate that she had jailed people for simple drug possessions, and she’s as much a traitor to the Republic as Donnie T, you don’t get to change the rules. GET A BETTER CANDIDATE WORTHLESS DEMOCRATS! Weak humans blame the system for their weak candidates, when it’s them and their candidate that are to blame, not the system that rejects them.