Electoral College Effects

The net result of the electoral college is to value the per person votes of certain states above others. Now it also happens that, when you do the math and take the average value of a vote per state and then combine it all and divide by ethnicity, that the average white person's vote counts significantly more than the average minority person's vote.

I have not done the recent math, so perhaps somebody could track it down, but the old numbers were something in the .92 range for minorities.

So, in other words, if you say a white person's vote counts as 1.0, then a minority person's vote counts about .92.

You can see why this is considered strange and skewed when viewed from an international perspective.

Americans are equal, as the old saying goes, but white Americans are equal-ler.

If I'm understanding what you're saying properly, then it sounds like the EC votes per state should be changed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RS__

If I'm understanding what you're saying properly, then it sounds like the EC votes per state should be changed.

---

I'm not sure what should be done legally or ethically or any of that (not my job), but if I remember my stats correctly, people in Alaska count between two and three times as much as the average American in the Electoral College. So if you believe the country should be a one person/one vote/everybody's equal situation, then the EC certainly skews things tremendously.

I suggest everyone read up on the origins of it.

Long time hater of the electoral college. Seems to contradict the "one man one vote" idea. I have never been able to understand its purpose, especially this many years later, but it would take a constitutional amendment to change it. I think if abolished, it would encourage a higher voter turn-out in some states. For example in Illinois, it is pretty much a waste of time to go out and vote for a republican presidential candidate. Your vote, and time, would be wasted. Without the EC your vote would at least count.

Yeah...I don't really like the EC votes either. I think it's kinda dumb that a state like Florida or Pennsylvania [and others] the results can end in a damn-near tie, but all the votes go to one candidate. I don't think it should be the case that the elected president can have fewer (popular) votes than the loser but still win the election.

When's the last time the EC vote amounts were changed? IIRC, they are based on the population of a state, and since populations, I'd imagine, change from time to time, the EC votes should at least be changed. Please don't tell me they haven't been updated for 100 years or something like that.


And yes, I realize Trump lost in the popular vote but got more electoral votes (or rather, projected electoral votes, hasn't been done yet, right?). I don't think Hillary should be president, by any means, though. The EC votes thing makes it more of a "game", I think, where the presidential candidates need a strategy and target certain areas. The winner is merely the one who played the game best.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by regnis

Long time hater of the electoral college. Seems to contradict the "one man one vote" idea. I have never been able to understand its purpose, especially this many years later, but it would take a constitutional amendment to change it. I think if abolished, it would encourage a higher voter turn-out in some states. For example in Illinois, it is pretty much a waste of time to go out and vote for a republican presidential candidate. Your vote, and time, would be wasted. Without the EC your vote would at least count.

---

Same in Tennessee, regnis, but the other way (origin point of the KKK; state gun and all that). I could vote 10,000 times either way and it wouldn't matter.

Our founding fathers created the electoral college as part of the checks and balances philosophy of our government. The fear was that the general population of voters could not be trusted so the voters would choose representatives who would make the ultimate decision.

The makeup of the EC changes with the census every ten years. Each state gets 2 votes for its senators plus one vote for each representative in the House. If a state gains population and gains a house seat it gets an extra elector. If it loses a house seat it loses an elector.

It's been viewed as an antiquated method as long as I can remember and that was the 1960 Nixon/JFK election.

From the little that I've read, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the Electoral College was designed originally to protect slavery. Slaves couldn't directly vote at the time, but when it came to states' governmental representation, they were allowed to count as three-fifths of a person. This compromise enabled southern states to be able to count slaves indirectly as part of their population without actually giving them the right to vote. In other words, slaves couldn't vote directly, but the whites in a particular state were allowed to serve as the slaves' proxies. If the South hadn't done this, and if slaves were not counted at all, then the North would have dominated the legislation at the time.

Redietz I never saw that explanation before. Is there a source to read more?