Electoral College

I do not know the answer to my question and am quite frankly to lazy to look for an answer, so I bring the question here knowing I will get a correct answer in a few hours.

Hypothetical question as what I am about to ask is so unlikely to happen it really is not worth the effort to think about it, but please bear with me.

Only one person casts a vote for president in California and same thing happens in New York state. Both those persons vote for the same candidate. Are the state delegates bound by rules or by law to pledge their votes based on that one vote?

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Originally Posted by dan_bgblue

I do not know the answer to my question and am quite frankly to lazy to look for an answer, so I bring the question here knowing I will get a correct answer in a few hours.

Hypothetical question as what I am about to ask is so unlikely to happen it really is not worth the effort to think about it, but please bear with me.

Only one person casts a vote for president in California and same thing happens in New York state. Both those persons vote for the same candidate. Are the state delegates bound by rules or by law to pledge their votes based on that one vote?

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So, are Electoral College delegates bound? Yes and no. It varies by state law.

Here is a link to a list of states with bound delegates.

http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=967

Personally I wish we would DUMP the electoral college and just go by straight popular vote.

Not me. The Electoral College is designed to prevent a few high population centers from dominating rule of the nation. It has worked well for over 230 years.

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Originally Posted by KeithKSR

Not me. The Electoral College is designed to prevent a few high population centers from dominating rule of the nation. It has worked well for over 230 years.

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Same. I read a very good article the other day on why it would be a nightmare to go by popular vote, and it wasn't "just" that type of concentration (although--side note--if we had that this year, Hillary Clinton would likely be our President-Elect, as she is currently leading in popular vote with 98% of the country reporting).

It had to do more with the impact it would have on campaigning and media, along with citizen participation. It would lead to a national media campaign inflicted upon all 50 states, rather than just battleground states. Grass-roots activity would dry up in favor of national advertising. Turnout would be reduced because grass roots activity spur it.

Now let's go back to Bush - Gore, and possibilities of recount. It's a nightmare for it to occur in a state. Can you imagine a horrific national recount and all that would entail? It would create uncertainty for long periods of time (it was more than a month with one state and their rules).

There were other elements as well.

If we don't think the Electoral College properly reflects what we want to do as a nation, there are alternatives that would work. Maine and Nebraska have elements that could be adopted in all states, where all but two electors are chosen by congressional district, and the other two go to the statewide winner. It would keep the incentive for grass roots activity and coalition building that would dissipate with a national popular vote election.

Watch for a strong movement be made for national popular vote with Hillary winning it.

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Originally Posted by KeithKSR

Not me. The Electoral College is designed to prevent a few high population centers from dominating rule of the nation. It has worked well for over 230 years.

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Exactly. It forces candidates to pay attention to a lot of different areas, and areas that change. The balance was put there just like the districting for Congress specifically to balance urban and rural influence, so a few big states couldn't dictate to the rest of the states, and it's worked great.

It worked here IMO better than it has in a long time, really showing its worth. Trump and Clinton had to really battle in a dozen states all over the country that were close rather than just focusing on getting as many votes in their core support states as possible. It forces candidates to address the voters at the margin and pay attention to much more of the country.

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Originally Posted by Darrell KSR

Watch for a strong movement be made for national popular vote with Hillary winning it.

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A strong yelp by the media who all voted for her and think the world's ending today, but thanks to the GOP controlling the Congress and most state legislatures it won't go anywhere.

but yes there will be cries for it. The existing system is a masterpiece of balance and turning process against process, exactly what the FOunders wanted. It pushes the process down to each county, each state, and gives voice to people far better than a single big national campaign.

It forces candidates to deal with local issues, like the water in Flint or the immigrants in Arizona. Without it you'd have billion dollar campaigns where candidates stayed put and just spent on TV and radio, never engaging in local issues and trying to run on anything but things facing a particular group.

"Bound" is a complicated word. The Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal for states to punish faithless electors, or remove those that refuse to pledge for their bound candidate. But once those votes are cast and sent to Washington they are legit.

If enough electors got together and said "Hillary won the popular vote and we should honor that regardless of what we're told to do" then that is their prerogative. Some of them would be thrown in jail for it depending on the state but they couldn't be stopped pre facto nor would their votes be invalidated. I highly doubt that will happen but there's nothing stopping it.

I have to imagine this will be an impetus to push more states to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

It's no coincidence that most of the states who support it are big states, who want to swing influence away from the balance set up by the Founders where each state gets those 2 electors no matter what.

The Founders were probably the single brightest assembly of humans in our history not involved in a scientific pursuit. We need to tread exceptionally cautiously when changing their work. Each time we've done it so far in our history all it has done is further expand the role of government and concentrate its power in Washington, both bad outcomes.

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Originally Posted by SalsaKat

"Bound" is a complicated word. The Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal for states to punish faithless electors, or remove those that refuse to pledge for their bound candidate. But once those votes are cast and sent to Washington they are legit.

If enough electors got together and said "Hillary won the popular vote and we should honor that regardless of what we're told to do" then that is their prerogative. Some of them would be thrown in jail for it depending on the state but they couldn't be stopped pre facto nor would their votes be invalidated. I highly doubt that will happen but there's nothing stopping it.

I have to imagine this will be an impetus to push more states to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

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A good example of state punishments is the $1000 fine I saw cited in a recent article about the state of Washington delegate who said he would not vote for Hillary. That is not a heavy punishment.

Changing to a popular vote would alter the strategy. Living in a swing state, I'm bombarded with ads every 4 years while a large segment of the country is ignored. Folks in the plains and midwestern states which are not high electoral vote states get little attention while democrat strongholds of CA and NY give the left a HUGE advantage. Of course the GOP values TX for its homefield advantage. But those given states resemble the "superdelegates" that are the fix that the democratic primary uses to predetermine their their candidate. You have predetermined votes.

I can live with the electoral system as it has its advantages, especially for me since I live in a state that matters. IMO my vote matter more than others. Were I a republican in CA, I'd not bother voting because I know my vote would be of no consequence..... or a voter in a state like HI that has basically no value since its electoral value is so small that candidates don't care that they don't waste time pandering to garner my vote

I aM for the college. We can't allow a few large states to decide elections, each state must have a voice. And with just a popular vote, what stops a few states from printing "votes" with a popular vote we have Gore and Hillary. California tilts the whole thing

And even with California it's still within 200,000 votes

Keep in mind that the states that are ripe for rampant vote fraud would have enough fraud to more easily swing a close election in a popular vote system.

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Originally Posted by KeithKSR

Keep in mind that the states that are ripe for rampant vote fraud would have enough fraud to more easily swing a close election in a popular vote system.

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Excellent post. No interest in fairness, the ends justifies the means.

IMO it would be more difficult to fraudulently influence a popular vote over an electoral one. If you are able to sway one state like FL, you get all those electoral votes. Each fake vote has greater influence because it's not diluted out as much. To significantly affect 130 million votes (the total number of votes nationwide) is far more difficult than one of the megastates like FL who had 9 million votes. 40,000 fake votes in FL could sway that states 29 votes and flip an election whereas 40,000 in 130,000,000 has a much smaller influence percentagewise and less likely to switch

Outgoing California Sen. Boxer introduces bill to scrap Electoral College

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Originally Posted by dan_bgblue

Outgoing California Sen. Boxer introduces bill to scrap Electoral College

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A bit of political posturing, she just wants to say she tried to do something. She would need a constitutional ammendmant to overturn the EC and she knows it.

Also, here is my post from another site about the Electoral College:

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Because Tyranny of the Majority is a thing and it can be just as dangerous as Tyranny of the Executive. Tyranny of the majority is how lynch mobs occur (often times against the wrong person), why racial segregation laws lasted as long as they did, why it took so long to get gay marriage legal, why strange public pandering policies get nominated, etc. Just because the majority believes in something, doesn't make it right. Humans are very apt at group think and tribe think even if it is wrong, especially if they are closely connected. The fact that you must consider the small states serves as a sort of check on some aspects of tyranny of the majority.

It also serves as a means from trying to limit the stratification of wealth and influence within this country. By their very nature, the areas with the majority of the population already have the most influence and money. If you have to pander to the smaller areas, you can't just vote to concentrate ALL of the wealth and power in the most populated areas and ignore everything and everyone else. If you hate the current system and how wealth is being stratified, it will be dramatically WORSE in a system where not only do you have two parties, but those parties only answer to a chosen limited set of locations.

If you want a system that evolves and adapts with the times. You almost must have a system that respects the "little guy". Because any movement initially starts as a select few and changes things over time grow to become a dominant force. If the system only respects the majority, you will never see any true change as the little guy will always get "nipped in the bud".

There are very good reasons to implement this system the way it was done, even as imperfect as it is. Whether it is the BEST system to accomplish the best outcome is certainly debatable. But without a doubt transitioning to a majority rules system would have some VERY unintended consequences and possibly counterinuitively exacerbate some of the same things you are trying to do away with depending on your political leanings.

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The best part of that: "OUTGOING" Senator Boxer. She's not as big a hypocrite or ass as Harry Reid, but she's in the running. Also one of the most ardently anti-gun members of Congress. Said outright she would round them all up and confiscate them if she could.

Great post btw Pedro, I agree 100%.


The Founders feared tyranny of the majority as much as they feared tyranny by a despot, maybe even more. In fact they had options from Parliament to join and have representation, but they knew the colonies would have so little voice that their effective representation would still be zero. They would have subjugated themselves to tyranny of the majority.

The ENTIRE SYSTEM is in fact a rejection of the "majority rules" approach. If they liked that they'd have just implemented a British parliamentary system. They certainly were familiar with it, it would have been easy.

But instead they spent many months in a sweltering sweatbox arguing over the minutiae of a far more complex system of checks and balances designed to among other things protect the minority.

If you are for scrapping the EC why not propose scrapping the bicameral legislature and proportioned representation? Or get rid of the states themselves ( even though we largely have in many ways)?

I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent, but I absolutely am not as smart as Adams and Madison and Jefferson and Franklin. I think we have to give HUGE presumption to the Founders as to how they designed things, and only change from their system in the face of overwhelming need. When in doubt, stick with the system that has gotten us here for 240 years.

The EC, like the Congress, is actually a brilliant scheme that balances the influence of the population centers of the nation against the rest of the country. This is not some new and fancy situation, rather the pattern we see in this election is EXACTLY what the Founders were dealing with in their time and the deal was done to insure that New York and Virginia couldn't drag Delaware and Vermont along for the ride.

LIkewise today it insures that the a couple of dozen urban centers can't drag the rest of the nation where it wants to go. It protects the regional views and cultures of the nation. It's a good system implemented by some very smart men who at every turn tried to diffuse and neuter power so it couldn't be accumulated.

This is just another way to insure the diffusing of political power.