The Electoral College in the US: modify, keep, or discard it?

What if the votes were split in each state by vote? Would this have allowed Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 Presidential Election?

I will do the math and math analysis, later, to see how it would turn out. My initial guess is that Trump still wins the election if you divided up votes proportionally.

But is this the solution people want in the US? If not, how do you balance giving a voice to each state with trying to accommodate more of a popular vote election?

What are your ideas? I want to read them.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Keep it. I already posted about this in another thread discussing what the popular vote means realistically in a large diverse nation vs ec.

I'm between keeping it as is and modifying it to make the votes proportional.

Originally posted by cdtm
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It seems pretty simple to me, go to straight popular vote.

👇 Then the candidates would have to campaign in every state. It would be a mess.

Plus, in close elections, the popular vote can be swayed by voter fraud and miscounts.

Originally posted by ares834
It seems pretty simple to me, go to straight popular vote.

I'd like to see the stats if it was proportional votes.

Don't think there should be any decimals of course. Like if you only get 20% of a 3 EC vote state, you would get nothing as that's less than 1.

Originally posted by DarthAnt66
👇 Then the candidates would have to campaign in every state. It would be a mess.

I fail to see how that's a problem.

Originally posted by DarthAnt66
Plus, in close elections, the popular vote can be swayed by voter fraud and miscounts.

And it can do so in elections nowdays. Heck, it has an even bigger impact with most states going winner takes all.

Yeah I don't really see how candidates campaigning in more states, and people in non swing states feeling more like their votes will matter, and maybe getting more interaction from the candidates is necessarily a bad thing.

I'd be fine with just the popular vote, really. But a proportional electoral college would also be an improvement, imo.

Originally posted by CosmicComet
I'd like to see the stats if it was proportional votes.

Don't think there should be any decimals of course. Like if you only get 20% of a 3 EC vote state, you would get nothing as that's less than 1.

Correct. I will do that math, tomorrow, when I'm at work. To be clearer, I'll work up a "proportional vote" based on the popular voting for each state and distribute the votes that way to see what the outcome would be.

Originally posted by DarthAnt66 👇 Then the candidates would have to campaign in every state. It would be a mess.

That's a pretty lame reason, and I think you know it, lmao. So maybe they have to travel a little more?

Plus, in close elections, the popular vote can be swayed by voter fraud and miscounts.

That's more likely to happen in our current system.

There is essentially zero justification for the electoral college system as it exists. Its original purpose was to insulate the republic from the direct popular vote, but here the electors just vote for the popular vote winners anyway, so all it does is take the popular vote and break it into completely arbitrary winner-take-all districts just 'cause. You could say that the states represent different "interests" and you want to balance them, but it makes no sense to have a winner take all system where a state that's 50.5% for one candidate matters just as much for its electoral votes as a state that's 95% for it. It means that some voters literally wield hundreds of times the influence of others.

In a sensible system, Hillary Clinton, the winner of the actual American vote, would be president elect.

Originally posted by DarthAnt66

And many people bitching about it is because it is the reason their candidate lost. It works both ways.

Originally posted by ares834
And many people bitching about it is because it is the reason their candidate lost. It works both ways.

The difference is that the arguments against it actually make sense.

Originally posted by Emperordmb
I wonder why you would say that... is it maybe because the electoral college is the reason your candidate won?

Lol...the narrative switch. The electoral college mapout is where Clinton was supposed to have the clearcut advantage going in.

Regardless, Trump was pretty handily winning the popular vote all night, and was winning it at the time he broke 270 and won overall.

NY and California are outliers to the rest of the states and are densely populated, and as DDM said if you eliminate the top 2 states for BOTH of them, Trump would still be handily winning the popular vote.

So no, the needy moral victory narrative of "The people wanted Hillary more!" is very misleading. Especially since he won 30 out of 50 states.

Oh, and you have to factor out 60,000 votes from Clinton's total, counting for 60,000 felons that were allowed to vote specifically for her in Virginia, which she ended up winning. That, and you have to account for any machines that may have mysteriously switched their vote from Trump to Clinton on the confirmation page---too many people have reported having this happen for it to be dismissed.

Originally posted by CosmicComet
Lol...the narrative switch. The electoral college mapout is where Clinton was supposed to have the clearcut advantage going in.

Regardless, Trump was pretty handily winning the popular vote all night, and was winning it at the time he broke 270 and won overall.

NY and California are outliers to the rest of the states and are densely populated, and as DDM said if you eliminate the top 2 states for BOTH of them, Trump would still be handily winning the popular vote.

So no, the needy moral victory narrative of "The people wanted Hillary more!" is very misleading. Especially since he won 30 out of 50 states.

Oh, and you have to factor out 60,000 votes from Clinton's total, counting for 60,000 felons that were allowed to vote specifically for her in Virginia, which she ended up winning. That, and you have to account for any machines that may have mysteriously switched their vote from Trump to Clinton on the confirmation page---too many people have reported having this happen for it to be dismissed.

If that is so, then fair play to you.

Originally posted by CosmicComet
NY and California are outliers to the rest of the states and are densely populated, and as DDM said if you eliminate the top 2 states for BOTH of them, Trump would still be handily winning the popular vote.

To be the most fair, I only eliminated the most extreme outliers from both sides: