What change(s) would you make to our political process, were you granted the power?

Bazza · Apr 2, 2019

I'm bumping this thread because of the post by Charmin in the "2020 Dem POTUS candidate catch all discussion thread" as follows:

I've been waiting for the Ezra Klein interview with Buttigieg, since these interviews always dive deep into the details. This was no different, and IMO it answered the question, "what would be your very first priority in office." Structural and democratic reform, which would be my answer as well, and then talked about the details of what that means for a long time. While everyone else is throwing grand policy ideas into the winds, Buttigieg and Warren are the only two making the argument that fixing the system is paramount, and that you can't keep trying to ram policy through the broken mechanism that is our current democracy.
https://www.vox.com/ezra-klein-show-podcast

The bolded part of Charmin's post above is my doing - and I think fits right into this thread.

I've listened just to a small portion of the linked podcast but will listen to it in it's entirety as soon as I can.

To be honest, I don't know how our system can be fixed with so many people entrenched in the financial gains aspect of it, but who knows. I'm always willing to listen.

rgw · Apr 2, 2019

I want to know how you fix a broken system from inside the broken system. Seems like people are really dancing around a scary line of thought.

Crimson1967 · Apr 2, 2019

I would make presidential primaries more transparent. Nobody understands exactly how votes relate to delegates.

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Crimson Pig · Oct 20, 2019

Gotta disagree here on the point of ditching EC. Will of the people, majority rule. One person, one vote. To hell with one person's vote counting for more than another's. Big population centers are mostly populated by the left...doesn't matter. If there were more conservative/republican citizens then they'd win the popular vote and big cities wouldn't matter. But there aren't...and yet, as the minority they elected the president despite the other candidate having 3,000,000 more votes. With 3,000,000 more votes, why should the OTHER person be president instead?

Crimson1967 · Oct 20, 2019

If we didn’t have the EC, maybe Republicans would be more motivated to vote in places like California. So it wouldn’t automatically hand the White House to the Democrats forever.

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Tidewater · Oct 21, 2019

Crimson Pig said:
Gotta disagree here on the point of ditching EC. Will of the people, majority rule. One person, one vote. To hell with one person's vote counting for more than another's. Big population centers are mostly populated by the left...doesn't matter. If there were more conservative/republican citizens then they'd win the popular vote and big cities wouldn't matter. But there aren't...and yet, as the minority they elected the president despite the other candidate having 3,000,000 more votes. With 3,000,000 more votes, why should the OTHER person be president instead?

Then get ready for recounts to take four years per election.
When "every vote counts," then until every vote in every ward of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi gets recounted, then the election cannot be certified.
The one advantage of the EC as it now sits is that it firewalls recounts. Nobody needed a recount in California because Clinton won it by such a wide margin.
Ditch the EC and adopt "one person, one vote" and get ready for recounts to take years, because there is no firewall. Every dimpled chad, in every ward of every county of every state must be recounted, every close election. Add lawyers, shake, wait until the court cases are resolved. It should be done in time for the elected president to take the oath of office before the next election.

Bamaro · Oct 21, 2019

Tidewater said:
Then get ready for recounts to take four years per election.
When "every vote counts," then until every vote in every ward of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi gets recounted, then the election cannot be certified.
The one advantage of the EC as it now sits is that it firewalls recounts. Nobody needed a recount in California because Clinton won it by such a wide margin.
Ditch the EC and adopt "one person, one vote" and get ready for recounts to take years, because there is no firewall. Every dimpled chad, in every ward of every county of every state must be recounted, every close election. Add lawyers, shake, wait until the court cases are resolved. It should be done in time for the elected president to take the oath of office before the next election.

We wouldn't have needed a recount in the last election, or the one before that, or before that, or before that and the one before that we had one anyway.

Crimson Pig · Oct 21, 2019

Tidewater said:
Then get ready for recounts to take four years per election.
When "every vote counts," then until every vote in every ward of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi gets recounted, then the election cannot be certified.
The one advantage of the EC as it now sits is that it firewalls recounts. Nobody needed a recount in California because Clinton won it by such a wide margin.
Ditch the EC and adopt "one person, one vote" and get ready for recounts to take years, because there is no firewall. Every dimpled chad, in every ward of every county of every state must be recounted, every close election. Add lawyers, shake, wait until the court cases are resolved. It should be done in time for the elected president to take the oath of office before the next election.

I get what you're saying. I guess you'd have to do like it's done with state and local elections, wherein it has to be within X number or percent to trigger a recount. Then you just dedicate the resources to getting it done. Democracy's cost of doing business, you know? To hell with not doing a thing because it's potentially complicated or difficult. If it's the best thing to do, then a real man(woman, person) does what they have to do to get it done. I wish we operated more that way as a country overall...we're America. If OTHER countries can have cheaper healthcare then we can make it happen too. If it works here, America can damn sure make it work too. We have too much potential as such a diverse population to be so maliciously divided as we have become.

Tidewater · Oct 21, 2019

Bamaro said:
We wouldn't have needed a recount in the last election, or the one before that, or before that, or before that and the one before that we had one anyway.

I do not believe that is true. I think that every one of those elections would have required recounts, and recounts of recounts, because a 1% margin of error in Mississippi is smaller (in raw vote numbers) than a 1% margin of error in the United States as a whole.

You are assuming away the problem. As it now stands, there was no recount in California, but, if an overall popular vote standard was adopted, then it would be worth recounting every ballot in California not because the loser in California would have won the state, but (since that no longer matters) he might have won the overall nation-wide popular vote.

But, whatever. Propose your amendment. All you have to do it gain the approval of 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states. Simple.

Bamaro · Oct 21, 2019

Tidewater said:
I do not believe that is true. I think that every one of those elections would have required recounts, and recounts of recounts, because a 1% margin of error in Mississippi is smaller (in raw vote numbers) than a 1% margin of error in the United States as a whole.

You are assuming away the problem. As it now stands, there was no recount in California, but, if an overall popular vote standard was adopted, then it would be worth recounting every ballot in California not because the loser in California would have won the state, but (since that no longer matters) he might have won the overall nation-wide popular vote.

But, whatever. Propose your amendment. All you have to do it gain the approval of 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states. Simple.

Whats the purpose of recounting specific states when EC votes wouldn't mean anything anymore?

TIDE-HSV · Oct 21, 2019

Tidewater said:
Then get ready for recounts to take four years per election.
When "every vote counts," then until every vote in every ward of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi gets recounted, then the election cannot be certified.
The one advantage of the EC as it now sits is that it firewalls recounts. Nobody needed a recount in California because Clinton won it by such a wide margin.
Ditch the EC and adopt "one person, one vote" and get ready for recounts to take years, because there is no firewall. Every dimpled chad, in every ward of every county of every state must be recounted, every close election. Add lawyers, shake, wait until the court cases are resolved. It should be done in time for the elected president to take the oath of office before the next election.

While recognizing your point, I'd also submit that other first world countries seem to manage it. However, as you said above, the present structure of constitutional amendment would require vast numbers of people to vote against their own interests (never mind that vast numbers already do), so it would be extremely unlikely to pass...

selmaborntidefan · Oct 21, 2019

TIDE-HSV said:
While recognizing your point, I'd also submit that other first world countries seem to manage it. However, as you said above, the present structure of constitutional amendment would require vast numbers of people to vote against their own interests (never mind that vast numbers already do), so it would be extremely unlikely to pass...

I'm sure having lived through it (unlike me) you recall the details better than I, but after the 1968 election, both parties thought they might abolish the EC because they feared what a guy like (wait for it) George Wallace could do to the system (even if he didn't win, we would wind up with a Prez chosen by Congress). Nixon and Humphrey both wanted it, and it looked like it would pass.

And then the Southern senators pointed out the big cities were going to wind up choosing the President - and filibustered it.

In 1972 - before he got shot - Wallace then went around calling for election by popular vote and blaming "the big cities" for "opposing us" on abolishing the Electoral College!!!

(To make it even better, folks, in 1979 there was another attempt to abolish it......and all of a sudden a bunch of Northern liberals opposed it on the notion it would weaken the influence of the votes of blacks and Jews and women in the large cities. I'm no genius, but it would seem to me that not ALL of these arguments can possibly be true at the exact same time).

Tidewater · Oct 21, 2019

Bamaro said:
Whats the purpose of recounting specific states when EC votes wouldn't mean anything anymore?

That is exactly my point, every vote in every ward of every county of every state would have to get recounted in every close election.
Here's data to illustrate the point:
2018 presidential:
Hillary: 65,853,514
Trump: 62,984,828
Difference: 2,868,686

Within just California:
Hillary: 8,753,788
Trump: 4,483,810
Difference: 4,269,978, in other words, Hillary almost doubled Trump's popular vote totals within the state. There was no point in recounting California, because there was no way Trump was going to make up a 4.3 million vote difference in a state with 13 million votes. On the other hand, gaining a 2.9 million vote difference spread over 128 million votes is a statistical possibility. And since this is America, we would have battalions of lawyers descend on every ward of Aroostook County Maine, Yoknapatawpha County Mississippi, and Lake of the Woods County Minnesota looking for every single hanging chad that might put their candidate one vote closer to victory.
With the current system, the discovery of a box of ballots not counted in, say, Mississippi, while reprehensible, is not going to change the results in Mississippi, so it has no direct effect on the presidential election (Mississippi's EC votes are going to go to pretty much any Republican nominee). Adopt a popular vote total system and that would matter in the national popular vote totals.

Tidewater · Oct 21, 2019

TIDE-HSV said:
While recognizing your point, I'd also submit that other first world countries seem to manage it.

True, but there countries do not have the degree of federalism the United States have. France, on the other hand, is a unified centralized political system. I would bet that the ballot in Haute Savoie looks pretty much like the one in Finistère does. And the system counting ballots cast and reporting vote totals is probably uniform throughout all the départements.
As President Obama said, we do not have one election system, we have fifty-some systems. A different type of ballot in each state, a different system for counting the ballots cast, reporting the vote totals, etc. I guess that is the cost of vestigial federalism.

TIDE-HSV · Oct 22, 2019

Tidewater said:
True, but there countries do not have the degree of federalism the United States have. France, on the other hand, is a unified centralized political system. I would bet that the ballot in Haute Savoie looks pretty much like the one in Finistère does. And the system counting ballots cast and reporting vote totals is probably uniform throughout all the départements.
As President Obama said, we do not have one election system, we have fifty-some systems. A different type of ballot in each state, a different system for counting the ballots cast, reporting the vote totals, etc. I guess that is the cost of vestigial federalism.

I used to believe that. Then I found out that whether you got a green card or not was decided by the equivalent of the county commission. There are many other matters handled federally here which are handled on a very low, local level there. BTW, Rachel really lives in "Savoie," not "Haut Sovoie."

I don't think there's a real difference. The Prefecture conducts the elections there, just like here...

uafanataum · Oct 22, 2019

Tidewater said:
That is exactly my point, every vote in every ward of every county of every state would have to get recounted in every close election.
Here's data to illustrate the point:
2018 presidential:
Hillary: 65,853,514
Trump: 62,984,828
Difference: 2,868,686

Within just California:
Hillary: 8,753,788
Trump: 4,483,810
Difference: 4,269,978, in other words, Hillary almost doubled Trump's popular vote totals within the state. There was no point in recounting California, because there was no way Trump was going to make up a 4.3 million vote difference in a state with 13 million votes. On the other hand, gaining a 2.9 million vote difference spread over 128 million votes is a statistical possibility. And since this is America, we would have battalions of lawyers descend on every ward of Aroostook County Maine, Yoknapatawpha County Mississippi, and Lake of the Woods County Minnesota looking for every single hanging chad that might put their candidate one vote closer to victory.
With the current system, the discovery of a box of ballots not counted in, say, Mississippi, while reprehensible, is not going to change the results in Mississippi, so it has no direct effect on the presidential election (Mississippi's EC votes are going to go to pretty much any Republican nominee). Adopt a popular vote total system and that would matter in the national popular vote totals.

Alabama's population grants us 7 votes plus 2 votes just because we are a state. While a state like North Dakota has 1 vote by population plus 2 more just because it's a state. We could make the electoral college much closer to popular vote determinning the outcome if we made it completely based upon population rather than including votes because of statehood.

Bamaro · Oct 22, 2019

Tidewater said:
True, but there countries do not have the degree of federalism the United States have. France, on the other hand, is a unified centralized political system. I would bet that the ballot in Haute Savoie looks pretty much like the one in Finistère does. And the system counting ballots cast and reporting vote totals is probably uniform throughout all the départements.
As President Obama said, we do not have one election system, we have fifty-some systems. A different type of ballot in each state, a different system for counting the ballots cast, reporting the vote totals, etc. I guess that is the cost of vestigial federalism.

Again you are looking at states. Without the EC presidents will be elected by the country/people, not the states. It wouldn't matter one bit how close (or far apart) a state voted.

Go Bama · Oct 25, 2019

Do you guys who feel we need to do away with the EC also feel it is unfair for the people of Wyoming (pop. 577,737) to be represented by two senators while California (pop. 37,253,956) also has only two senators? I’m just asking and trying to remain open minded.

Here is an interesting article that looks at five possible alternatives to how the electoral votes are counted. Personally, I don’t envision a constitutional amendment ever happening. SIAP

https://www.270towin.com/alternative-electoral-college-allocation-methods/

This guy looks at how the 2012 and 2016 elections would have changed based upon if how the delegates are allowed to vote were different.

Methodologies
Winner Take All (WTA) awards all electoral votes to the popular vote winner of the state. This is the current methodology in all but Maine and Nebraska.
Congressional District - Popular (CDP) awards two electoral votes to the popular vote winner of the state, with one each allocated to the popular vote winner in each individual Congressional District (CD). This approach is used by Maine and Nebraska.
Congressional District - Majority (CDM) awards two electoral votes to the party winning the popular vote in a majority of the CD, with one each allocated to the popular vote winner in each individual CD.
Proportional Popular - Popular (PPV) awards two electoral votes to the popular vote winner, with the remainder allocated based on the percentage of popular vote earned.
Popular Vote by State (PVS) is the same as PPV, except all a state’s electoral votes are allocated by popular vote.

TrueCrimson7 · Feb 1, 2020

If congress passes a law, the president has 10 days, excluding Sundays, to sign it or veto it. That makes sense.

There need to be timelines on all other actions between the branches of government. So I would propose there be a mandatory time set on when the Senate must act for a president's nominated supreme court justice. Formal discussions must begin within 1 month of nomination and confirmation or rejection votes must be cast within 3 months of nomination. I wish for what happened to Merrick Garland to be an isolated footnote in history to remind us of the dangers of when one branch can subvert the other through lack of established timelines.

B1GTide · Feb 1, 2020

TrueCrimson7 said:
I wish for what happened to Merrick Garland to be an isolated footnote in history to remind us of the dangers of when one branch can subvert the other through lack of established timelines.

Too late - the executive branch is now established as having near dictatorial powers.

What change(s) would you make to our political process, were you granted the power?

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