What is your opinion on Colorado's (largely symbolic) effort to get rid of the Electoral college?

The author of that op-ed has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about. The individual states may apportion its electoral votes in whatever manner it chooses. If a state wishes to assign all its electoral votes to the national popular vote winner then it is well within its Constitutional right to do do.

It’s bigger than Colorado; eleven states totaling two thirds of the necessary electoral votes have adopted it.

It is a great idea, and takes the Red State/ Blue State division out of the Presidential election.

Interesting idea. I’ve always been unhappy with the electoral college. If a state decides it’s fair to vote with the national majority vote, it seems to me that is a legitimate choice for the state to elect to do. Although, I can see the argument why people would feel it doesn’t represent the individual state then. But, I also think giving all electoral votes to one candidate doesn’t represent the people of the state either.

Some states can give some votes to one candidate and some to the other, that to me is the best compromise. Then the electoral votes would be more accurately representing the people within the state. It would mean TX, CA, FL, and NY would not longer be the huge voting force one way or the other, but they would still be significant.

I think if the Democrats do nothing, eventually it will be more difficult for Republicans to win even with the electoral college, but it would take years of patients. The way I see it, lots of Democrats seem to be moving into red parts of the country for warmer weather and jobs. The Bible Belt states tend to brag about lower taxes and attracting companies. That usually attracts some northerners too.

These type of law and policy changes always have the risk if working against the very people putting them into place. Unforeseen consequences.

Wasn’t the Electoral College created to make it fair for everyone?

I’ve never come to a firm conclusion about the electoral college. This is one of those areas where I really do appreciate both sides of the argument. The electoral college system does prevent candidates from ignoring the issues of large, low population parts of the country. Clearly the Constitutional framers wanted the government to respect geography and the importance of the states (e.g. Rhode Island and California both get the same number of senators).

That said, it does seem very wrong that a candidate can receive the majority of the popular vote (potentially by a very large margin) and yet still loose the electoral college.

@flo

The electoral college was created because certainly heavily influential southern states (i.e.: Virginia) hated the idea that northern states, with free blacks, had a potentially larger voter base then they did. Of course, southern states didn’t want slaves voting, but they still wanted their slave population to count towards the number of electoral votes they got. Hence the 3/5ths compromise (each slave was counted as 3/5ths of a person when determining electoral votes). This put Virginia in particular in a powerful position. Virginia alone counted for ¼th of the country’s total electoral votes, despite having a smaller population of free people than a state like Pennsylvania.

I agree with @gorillapaws and I have mixed views. However since Bush v Gore I’ve become a strong anti-Electoral college guy. I just felt that it wasn’t fair that a vote in Florida means WAY more than a vote in California or Texas.

@Caravanfan Right! Way more. Every time I move back to Florida (3 times now) I feel like my vote counts again for president. That’s partly why I feel eventually the EC will be more likely to go Democrat. More and more liberals moving down here from what I can tell. It feels that way anyway. I’m in a traditionally red part of the state.

My sister feels if the Democrats want to win they should run a Floridian for President, or at minimum as the VP pick. If not Florida, another swing state.

I think the electoral college should be done away with and Presidents should be no longer affiliated with any party. They should be bipartisan. No party endorsements. This way we get a President who isn’t in any parties pocket but will lead for the nation. Both parties must endorse those qualified to run, whether they were democrats, or republican or libertarians or non affiliated with any party. And people will have to decide on character and ability and platform, rather than just going for party.

@Pandora “Both parties must endorse those qualified to run, whether they were democrats, or republican or libertarians or non affiliated with any party.”

That sounds like a great way to ensure hopeless gridlock and a perpetually vacant presidential office.

@JLeslie In a nutshell, you have described teh problem with the Electoral College as it currently stands. If enough states adopt the Electoral College Compact, the rest of the country is not held hostage to Florida.

One problem with the Electoral College is that states get at least 3 electoral votes, 2 for senators and one for a House member, regardless of the population of the state. That gives too much power to small states. They could make things fairer by eliminating the 2 electors for the senators.

@LostInParadise

Yep. Case in point: California and Wyoming.

Wyoming, with a population of 579,000, gets 3 electoral votes. California, population 39,500,000, gets 55 electoral votes. Now this seems like a lot, but under this system California gets 1 electoral vote for every 712,00 people. Wyoming gets 1 electoral vote per 195,000 people.

Now even this would not be such an issue if the size of Congress, and thus the number of total electoral votes, had truly grown with the population, the way the Founding Fathers established, instead of being fixed at the current number a century ago.

If all the states had proportional distribution of Electors like Nebraska and Maine have then it wouldn’t be so bad.

It is a simple question.
Do you believe that everyone is created equal, and that, consequently, all votes should be of equal weight?
Or do you believe that some people are worth more than others, and thus their votes should have a higher weight.

@ragingloli exactly.

@Caravanfan I think the republicans don’t like the idea of proportional, because they feel like the big cities would still have too much power over the rural areas. But, many republicans say if we had a direct vote CA and NY would decide every election (I think those states are code for liberal, huge government, and secular) even though I point out that right now 100% of the electoral vote from those states goes to the democrats, and if it was proportional it would only be 60–65%. I think the bigger problem for them is their red states would now be giving up 10–40% of the electoral vote to the democrats.

@JLeslie I believe you are correct in this.

I don’t think they should get rid of it, because no electoral college means only certain states votes count.

@thesuperherotwins

That’s exactly what we have now.