Should the Electoral College be abolished?

[Vassenor]

The electoral college was established to provide and protect the voice of all states and the people within them in the national presidential election process. Left to just the popular vote it would only take five or six of the largest states to dictate to every other state as to who would be our next president. California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois currently would have more say and Wyoming, Vermont, Idaho, etc would have no voice. The EC provides equality among states in having political say in that process. As a historian, I find those that support the removal of the EC either have a political agenda in controlling that process and are willing to deny people in smaller populated states a voice, or are just ignorant in why it exists.

The whole idea of a national popular vote is that the people would have the voice, not any states. Where those people live is irrelevant, their votes would all count the same.

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So what other countries use an EC system?

The Vatican.

The Vatican also doesn't practice universal suffrage.

[Ifreann]

The whole idea of a national popular vote is that the people would have the voice, not any states. Where those people live is irrelevant, their votes would all count the same.

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The Vatican.

The Vatican also doesn't practice universal suffrage.

There was also the Holy Roman Empire. A few other countries use electoral colleges, or something like one, for other parts of their government, one house of the legislature or the like. But I don't think any others use one to pick their President/Pope/Emperor.

[Thermodolia]

the college shouldn't be abolished, but it should be revised. There are rules that every state must have 2 votes, and thanks to that, Wyoming has 3 votes..? Places like in California have less voting power than Wyoming, and they are the opposites in population. Is it really unfair and undemocratic? Yes, but what the americas did in terms of government structure is done in alot of places, and it works over there. So why abolish something that helped other countries grow because it was written in 1776?

So what other countries use an EC system?

France uses one for electing its senators and before 1962 the president. Germany, France, Burundi, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu, Vatican City, USA, and Ireland use an electoral college system.

Though for some the EC exists to elect the non-executive head of state, Germany and Pakistan, others use it to elect senators, France and Ireland, while others use it to elect the head of state and government, USA and Burundi, the Vatican is all by itself in the using an EC to elect a monarch category

[Forsher]

As promised...

The question:

do people live in counties? Are counties are relevant and meaningful part of their lived experience? Does it matter that Jo lives in one county and Joe in another?

The answer:

Yes, it matters that Jo and Joe live in different counties, and in countries, and in cities, and in CDPs. However, the latter would provide a better count of rural economy vs urban economy than the former, irrespective of what San Lumen says.

If it matters that they live in different counties, why should we use measures that ignore that?

Note, again, that I am not contrasting rural versus urban economy. For two reasons... one, this doesn't say anything remotely like that:

Everywhere that isn't green? That's rural as defined by its economy. (due to having insufficient links to a largely population density, county based definition of the urban)

Notice how almost all of the US is, in fact, part of the urban economy?

Two, there is no meaningful separation between the rural and urban economy because they're not mutually exclusive. Who do you think buys the carrots the farmers grow? Why do you think farmers sell their land?

The whole point, as you so incredulously put it, is:

Once again Forsher, counties vary widely, and provide a poorer example of urban/rural divide and urban/rural economy than cities and CDPs. I think everyone else on NSG got this point by now

.

Yes, Shof, I am literally using counties to critique the concept of a urban/rural divide. That you seem to be using my point as a criticism of what I'm saying is... odd.

I am not and never have been making a claim that either Jo or Joe live in an urban economy. I am claiming they can live in counties that are part of the urban economy and that this is an important thing to remember whenever anyone tries to claim there is a rural/urban divide. I am not trying to measure how many Americans live in the urban economy... indeed have explicitly stated otherwise far too many times... because that is not what I'm interested in.

But here's where your logic would fall apart even if you were representing my claims accurately:

Suppose people need electricity. If so, then I do not neglect the needs of people because I give them free electricity just because I don't also look after their psychological wellbeing. And if I do neglect peoples' needs in this electrical analogy, so does someone who only looks after their psychological wellbeing and not their electricity needs. Unless Joe's being in one county and Jo's in another is irrelevant, the same logic holds with my argument.

You're trying to claim that my position is bad because it neglects that people can live in urbanised counties and be part of rural economies. Okay, cool. Not sure how the Electoral College does anything to help them. But more to the point look at your argument:

What I am saying there is that the people who live in a rural economy in an urbanized county are already under-represented, and counting them as they're part of the urban economic model further hides their representation, and is therefore erroneous.

You want to hide that people are living in counties that are part of the urban economy but live rurally. You're arguing that representing people who live in counties that are part of the urban economy but which look geographically rural (e.g. through low population densities, I believe your example is Nye County) is something that should not be done. Why do some representations matter more Shof when you agree that it matters that Joe lives there and Jo lives here? Why should those facts be completely ignored?

You're making a massive error of fact, Shofercia. The rural/urban divide is a well accepted and well established notion. That's why I'm trying to criticise it. The rural people don't need any more ideological representation... they're a miniscule part of the US economy (unlike the NZ economy) as measured by GDP anyway... and they certainly don't need any more political representation. No-one should get extra representation. Not whites. Not blacks. Not ruralites. Not urbanites. Not men. Not women. Not straights. Not LGBT+'s. No-one. But rural Americans, in theory, do have it.*

*In practice the only people who are represented in American presidential elections are those who live in the, iirc, six swing states plus a handful of other states that were "battlegrounds" in that particular cycle.

More detailed answer in spoiler.

[New haven america]

The whole idea of a national popular vote is that the people would have the voice, not any states. Where those people live is irrelevant, their votes would all count the same.

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The Vatican.

The Vatican also doesn't practice universal suffrage.

In order to do that it needs to have a female population.

It does not.