Walz: ‘The Electoral College needs to go’

California gets 54 electoral votes; Wyoming gets 3.

California has 38.94 million citizens; Wyoming has 0.575 million.

California gets one electoral vote for every 721,110 people. Wyoming gets one for every 191,660. This means that per capita, Wyoming gets 3.76 times as much say in who gets to be the president as California.

Indeed. Scrap electoral college and remove the arbitrary cap on House reps.
- Don’t forget to implement proportional representation in the House, blow up the senate, and implement ranked choice voting or something similar in all elections
And that's even before the bullshit that is swing states.
- Aka FPTP wasting votes in most USA states since someone thought it great idea to issue electors as state size blocks. When Constitution gives each state right to decide ways of apportioning their awarded electors.
  
  State starts awarding 3 democrat electors and 7 Republican electors and suddenly both parties care to entice voters to try to make it 2 and 8 or 4 and 6.
  
  Doesn't even take removing the electoral college. Just state deciding "state wide FPTP is stupid", we are going to start using something more proportional.
  
  Even in swing states it would still work, work better. Since there would be fight over is it 5 and 5 or 6 and 4.
This isn't the electoral college causing the problem. It's Congress capping the size of the house 100 years ago. It needs to be increased, but it won't happen without force as it requires Congress to agree to reduce their individual power.
Problem is that without giving smaller states a bit more weight than their population, you risk loosing them, because they have no means to weigh in. Thats why in the EU smaller countries also have more representatives relative to their population.

For the US, if only the coasts would have political power in the federal level, the mid would have a lot of motivation to fuck things up for them.

The Electoral College is allowing more an more manipulation from these small states. It is time for that to end. They are holding this country back much too much.

As a pretty left person who lives in Tennessee, please get rid of it. Anytime I have this conversation with folks on the right, I always point out that there are more Republican voters in California than Texas. That usually gets them to concede.

ONE PERSON

ONE VOTE

ONE CAGE

ONE BELT

ONE CHAMPION
- SUNDAY
  
  SUNDAY
  
  SUNDAY

As an Alabamian I dream of the day that my vote actually matters, fuck the electoral college.

As a Washingtonian I also dream of that. It is ridiculous that only people in states that are kinda purple have their opinions heard.
- I'd prefer at least to maintain districts, 1 vote for 1 district, remove states and the extra two votes. Each district exactly the same number of people, give or take 1%. Give the low populated counties out in the boonies a chance to be heard.
  
  But failing that, straight popular vote is a better option than the current cluster fuck.

Trump in 2012: The electoral college is garbage and needs to go. Trump in 2016: The electoral college is genius. What a great system. Trump in 2020: The electoral college is garbage and needs to go

I remember his tweets each time.

But without the electoral college, politicians would suddenly have to care about states with a lot of people living in them

Yup, I understand it was meant to give smaller states an equal voice but he GOP weaponized it and now the minority is speaking for the majority. Tell me the system isn't broken when ONE vote in shitty red state Wyoming is equal to TEN THOUSAN VOTES in Blue California?

Weaponized.. sounds dangerous..

100% correct.

Hey hey! Ho ho! The electoral college has got to go!

I'm glad someone is saying it! Stupid ass lines on a map determines who becomes president

The EC should go. It's possible for someone to become president with as little as 27% of the popular vote.

I’m not sure I agree the EC has to go; it definitely has to change, but it also does provide protections — just ones that aren’t currently at issue with the present political climate.

Combined with the PV compact and a ranked vote system, it could actually become a more relevant part of the process.

What kind of protections?
- It feels like the only protections the EC provides is to the GOPs ability to win the presidency. I agree with Walz, the EC needs to go, it's too easy to game by focusing on swing states.
- What it was designed for, to protect the slave states and provide another barrier to populist movements.
  
  Also the EC will never be abolished, despite whatever candidates promise every 4 years. It's too useful.
- Let's see what the founders had in mind:
  
  The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
  
  In other words, it's supposed to stop someone like Trump from ever being President. Since that clearly failed, maybe we should junk the whole thing.
  
  Even this is generous. The Federalist Papers, IMO, should be taken as a way to sell the new constitution to the populace. They make it sound like the whole thing was more well thought out than it really was. The constitution that came out is just the compromise everyone could live with after debating it for hours. Politicians back then aren't that different from today; they have their own agendas, their own ambitions, and their own squabbles. They also get tired after long debates and will vote for anything as long as it gets them out of there.
  
  On top of that, a good chunk of what they were thinking at the time--which you can see echos of in the quote above--was deflecting criticism that democracy couldn't work. The US was the first modern democracy, and there were plenty of aristocrats in Europe (and even some useful idiots domestically) who laughed off the idea of a government run by peasants. The result is a system that doesn't go all in on democracy, and has all these little exceptions. "No, no, see, the electoral college will stop a populist idiot from taking executive power".
  
  We've changed a lot of those over the years, such as electing senators rather than having them appointed by state governors. In hindsight, these were not necessary at all. It's time for the electoral college to go.
- To be honest, I’m not sure it applies.
  
  The electoral college is an institution where electors cast votes to elect the President. In theory, it allows electors to choose a different president if the population chooses someone terrible.
  
  It’s not /supposed/ to favor red states. However the formula for counting number of electors relies on the number of representatives in the house. That is fixed at 435 by law. To fix the electoral college, we’d have to remove that cap and it would work the way the founders intended.
  
  But then, you’d need a helluva lot of dissenters to change. Is it possible? Sure. Is this system built for current day population and densities? Arguably not
- Consider the possiblity that the president will be elected by the popular vote. That might be dangerous
- It makes sure white people never lose political control of the country.
  
  It absolutely must go - fuck the EC with a rusty fucking spork.
- I'm curious too. The EC has a troubling history - it was invented because of slavery, https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
  
  Another strike against the EC - no other country uses one. If it really provided protections, surely another country would have adopted it by now? It's hardly a secret formula or anything.
This was the video that made me passionate that the electoral college needs to go. It is a dumb system that seemed good at the time, but makes literally no sense today.

https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k?si=sZ3pwgrXL2CYsZgk
The EC is undemocratic, but the Republican Party would never be able to win the presidency if it was decided by pure popular vote. So, it will never go or even change.
- Then, one would argue that the republican party should not government if they are unable to garner the requisit amount of votes!
- Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.
  
  And the corrollary, those who ignore peaceful protest signal that only violence will be recognized.
Sending one person to Washington to speak on behalf of a arbitrarily chosen group (and not even have to respect their choices) is an antiquated system from the days we sent representative by horseback..

You haven't even given a reason you think it shouldn't go away. The only reason to keep it would be to exploit it.. it's a ridiculous system.

Can we get rid of the senate too?

He'll never mention it again after the election.

He got his state on the national popular vote interstate compact as govenor. He's talked about it before and done more than most to make the popular vote a reality
- Without a constitutional amendment, the electoral college is going nowhere.

Guess you all are fine with having everything decided by a few states. I for one am not willing to end up with rle by the Mob.

Without the E.C., no presidential candidate will go to any Midwest state, southeast or the southwest. Politics will not matter in DC for any state past the coasts.

The system we have was designed so that instead of one group taking over we have to find common ground. Checks and Balances are important for keeping it in the middle ground. Just because it may help in one way, doesn't mean it can be used against the Democrats in the future.

I'm as far left as they come, but I don't think gutting the system for short term gains will help. We should increase the House due to thensize, but I think we should go back to a senate chosen by the state and not having senate elections. It has so far turned the senate into another popularity body instead of people being able to pass laws without regard of electioneering.

Guess you all are fine with having everything decided by a few states.

No, we're not, hence why we want to abolish the EC.
The purpose of the EC is to undermine the popular vote and to make sure we are ruled by a few states. The reason it exists is because slave states wouldn't join the union without a method to ensure they could control the president and protect the institution of slavery. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is just a rule that (when enough states sign on to make up the majority) their electoral college votes go to whichever candidate won the most votes, not how much dirt is controlled by states who voted for a candidate.

The fact that more people live in some areas should not mean their votes are worth less, like is the case for the EC. Why should someone in the Midwest be more valuable as a citizen than someone in, for example, California? Please don't respond if you can't answer that question.
Could it be that you are a Stalinist or something similar and have a deep hatred for democracy? Cause no electoral collage is more democratic and having senat elections is also more democratic then having them indirectly elected by the state legislators.

Obviously this changes the electoral landscape a lot, as presidental candidates no longer just have to care about voters in a few states, but the entire country. Again making it more democratic. It would also give the Democrats an advantage, but not an insane one. It however does give Republican voters in blue states and Democrat voters in red states a voice as well, instead of being ignored.
- Yes Stalin famously implemented an electoral college.
  
  The only reasonable explanation for an American to support the EC is claim it's democratic is him being a Stalinist or a Russian sock puppet.
  
  Couldn't be an American internalizing USA's own jingoistic propaganda about how it is the most democratic and free state etc.
  
  Always somebody else's fault.