[EL] electoral college

[Thomas J. Cares]

My biggest problem with the electoral college is that it makes it
impossible to use a national instant runoff system to elect the president.

How can one defend it though?

*It's about our system of states and their relationship with the federal
government. The state is the constituent, not the individual. The
individual is sort of a constituent of the president, *through their
state*.*

I still don't like it. I feel like it's hard to wrestle the power from
small states, but I'd be okay with giving voters in small states extra
weight on their votes - so small state voters still have the same
arithmetic power they do now - to have a national popular vote with instant
runoff voting (one election that allows multiple candidates, ideally
without respect to party - i.e. 17 republicans on the general election
ballot)

Best part about that is eliminating the barf-worthy primaries. (Why didn't
Americans Elect come back this year? Does anyone know? Are they ever coming
back? (I don't know why the chose 2012, a referendum on Obama, to try their
model) That question honestly deserves its own email.

On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> If the electoral college system is so great, why doesn't any state use it
> to elect its governor?
>
> No one can imagine that if this system didn't already exist, that any
> serious person would ever advocate for it.
>
> Among the countries in which the voters choose the head of government, no
> other country provides that the person who wins the most popular votes
> still doesn't take the office.
>
> "One person, one vote" may be a cliche, but it is a cliche that is
> accepted.  How we can respect the idea that every voter should be treated
> equally, and simultaneously support our existing system?
>
> Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* "Smith, Brad" <BSmith at law.capital.edu
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','BSmith at law.capital.edu');>>
> *To:* Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','richardwinger at yahoo.com');>>; Election Law
> Listserv <law-election at uci.edu
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','law-election at uci.edu');>>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:21 AM
> *Subject:* RE: [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary
> would be the winner
>
> This is horrendously wrong.
>
> Actually, there was a tremendous amount of voter suppression in 1876. The
> troops simply couldn't be everywhere, and were badly undermanned. The
> situation was so bad that President Grant asked Congress to authorize
> martial law in the South, in order to protect black voters from the Klan
> and other violence. Congress refused to pass the measure (it had passed a
> similar measure in 1871). The Red Shirts and the White League were other
> major Democratic paramilitary groups. In South Carolina, Ben Tillman,
> primary sponsor of the Tillman Act, was a member of the Sweetwater Club,
> which assaulted blacks attempting to vote with regularity.
>
> The election of 1876 was quite probably worse for violence against black
> voters than the election of 1888, because by 1888 southern whites could
> largely claim "mission accomplished" when it came to vote suppression.
>
> *Bradley A. Smith*
> *Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault*
> *   Professor of Law*
> *Capital University Law School*
> *303 E. Broad St.*
> *Columbus, OH 43215*
> *614.236.6317*
> *http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
> <http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx>*
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Richard Winger [richardwinger at yahoo.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','richardwinger at yahoo.com');>]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 09, 2016 11:05 AM
> *To:* Smith, Brad; Election Law Listserv
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary
> would be the winner
>
> There was no suppression of black votes in 1876, because the federal
> troops were still occupying the south.  That is why Mississippi's
> legislature sent two black US Senators to Washington, in the 1870's.
>
> Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* "Smith, Brad" <BSmith at law.capital.edu
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','BSmith at law.capital.edu');>>
> *To:* Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','richardwinger at yahoo.com');>>; Election Law
> Listserv <law-election at uci.edu
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','law-election at uci.edu');>>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 9, 2016 5:27 AM
> *Subject:* RE: [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary
> would be the winner
>
> Richard,
>
> There is pretty little reason to include 1824, when not every state even
> counted popular vote and the campaign was entirely different. In 1876 and
> 1888 the Republicans would have won the popular vote except for massive
> suppression of black votes and Republican votes more generally by the
> Democrats in the deep south. In each of those elections, the electoral
> college actually helped to make sure that the candidate actually favored by
> a majority of the populace actually won the election, by isolating the
> Democratic vote suppression and fraud.
>
> Even in 2000 and 2016, the results will be close enough that one can't
> really know what would happen in a system in which each candidate would
> have very different incentives on how and where to campaign.
>
> All of this points up that our electoral structure reflects values other
> than raw popular vote totals. At the same time, the popular vote usually
> carries the electoral college, and the system is designed to assure that no
> one without substantial and widespread popular support can be elected.
>
> *Bradley A. Smith*
> *Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault*
> *   Professor of Law*
> *Capital University Law School*
> *303 E. Broad St.*
> *Columbus, OH 43215*
> *614.236.6317*
> *http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
> <http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx>*
> ------------------------------
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu');>
> [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu');>]
> on behalf of Richard Winger [richardwinger at yahoo.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','richardwinger at yahoo.com');>]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 09, 2016 8:17 AM
> *To:* Election Law Listserv
> *Subject:* [EL] if national popular vote plan had passed, Hillary would
> be the winner
>
> With the greatest number of uncounted votes in California, Oregon, and
> Washington, by far, states that are very strong for Clinton, it is clear to
> me that she will have approximately 1,000,000 more popular votes than
> Donald Trump.
>
> The Democratic Party has been the victim of the electoral college five
> times now:  1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016
>
> Democrats should have been concentrating on passing the national popular
> vote plan instead of focusing on campaign finance reform.  Clinton's side
> spent far more money than Trump's side.  We should get over the idea that
> voters always vote for the candidate with the most spending.
>
> Another reform Democrats should have been working for is instant runoff
> voting.  Yet just a few weeks ago Jerry Brown vetoed the California bill to
> expand instant runoff voting.
>
> Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
>
>
>
>

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