Electoral College is slowly dying, bitches

[Ksandra]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-..._medium=social

Ten states and the District of Columbia are already in a compact to pool their electoral votes and pledge them to the popular-vote winner. With Connecticut added, the compact's voting power would rise to 172 — fewer than 100 electoral votes away from the 270-vote majority that decides the presidential contest.

Ten bucks says next election dem wins electoral and repub wins popular.

[Byrthnoth]

There is almost no chance that a democrat would win the electoral college without winning the popular vote.

This idea is fine and I would like to see red/pink states get on board, but they probably won't in which case it doesn't matter.

[Fiye]

Need more democrat governors before I think this has a chance to make it to 270.

God I hope it does happen though would be amazing.

[Serra]

There is almost no chance that a democrat would win the electoral college without winning the popular vote.

This idea is fine and I would like to see red/pink states get on board, but they probably won't in which case it doesn't matter.

Do all ten states lean Democratic, cause if so, lol?

[synistar]

In addition to Connecticut, the other jurisdictions in the pact are California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state, along with Washington, D.C.

Imagine the tears if an R wins the popular vote and this compact actually goes through.

[Tymon]

If this does actually happen look forward to seeing Presidential candidates never set foot in probably about 30 states again, lol

[Fiye]

If this does actually happen look forward to seeing Presidential candidates never set foot in probably about 30 states again, lol

Getting the Iowa primary abolished can't come soon enough.

[Byrthnoth]

Do all ten states lean Democratic, cause if so, lol?

The block is all-or-nothing, so it doesn't actually matter in practice.

I did initially read it and think that it was a bunch of blue states volunteering to give 40% of their electoral votes to Republicans (dividing based on the popular vote), but actually it is a bunch of blue states volunteering to give 100% of their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote.

[Serra]

So in effect, it won't matter -- either a Democrat wins the electoral college, or a Republican wins by a larger margin.

[Niiro]

The compact does not go into effect until a enough states constituting a majority of the EC votes sign on.

[archibaldcrane]

There is almost no chance that a democrat would win the electoral college without winning the popular vote.

People think the electoral college is biased against democrats, but it really isn't. It hurt us in 2000 and 2016 because it actually swung the result away from the popular vote, but there's been plenty of times in the past 30 years (including in 2012, 2008, and 2004) where the democrat outperformed the popular vote in the electoral college.

It's really just a random walk.

[Niiro]

If Democratic candidates only win the EC when they've already won the popular vote then no, it really doesn't help them.

[archibaldcrane]

Have anymore dumb bad arguments?

[Niiro]

You're saying the EC favors Democrats as often as it does Republicans because the margin for victory in Dem wins is skewed upward by the EC.

How much you win the EC by is meaningless if you've won it, it's not even a strong indicator of popular support because the EC is a horribly skewed metric to begin with.

[archibaldcrane]

Did you read the quote I was refuting?

The chances that the EC tips an election in Dems favor against the popular vote is just as likely as it doing the opposite. That's both true and the sum total of the entire argument I'm making. The electoral college is a pointless relic but it is not fundamentally biased against Democrats.

[dasva]

If Democratic candidates only win the EC when they've already won the popular vote then no, it really doesn't help them.

Keyword if... but that chart shows it's very possible in tighter races and that it rarely happens regardless and it's just been dumb luck that it's worked out in Republicans favor recently... well and it looks like when they beat the popular vote it's usually by a bigger amount

[Niiro]

Did you read the quote I was refuting?

Byrth wasn't trying to say it would be literally impossible, the same rules apply to both parties.

What he's saying and what I agree with is that when you look at the reality of the situation in terms of politics and campaign strategy it is incredibly unlikely to happen and has never happened in the modern era.

The EC's potential to upscale Democratic wins is not the same thing as the EC enabling Republican victories where they would have otherwise lost, and that's what the system has demonstrated in practice.

[archibaldcrane]

The EC has the same "potential" to enable democratic victories where they would have otherwise lost as it does for republicans. Indeed, a uniform swing in vote share by 1.8% towards John Kerry in 2004 would have produced exactly that result.

[Surealistic]

the EC is biased towards large swaths of land with few voters, i.e. the entirety of the midwest, which is why trump "thinks" he did so good... LOOK AT ALL THE RED, I WON SO MANY VOTERS, BUT OBVIOUSLY HILLARY HIRED MEXICANS (or some shit, with a lot worse grammar)

[GoggleHead]

Yes, let's make sure our government only caters to dense urban population centers and never has to consider other populations. That can't backfire at all.