Thank you to everyone who came to our live blog for the US election. We had record traffic.
We also forgot this blogs birthday in October – 17 years!
Anyhow here is a small take… thoughts?
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The Electoral College, the system for electing U.S. presidents, has sparked considerable controversy in recent years due to the possibility that a candidate can be elected president while receiving fewer votes than their opponent. This has happened twice in my lifetime: first in 2000 with George W. Bush and again in 2016 with Donald J. Trump.
Many Americans see this as undemocratic, which led to the launch of the National Popular Vote (NPV) campaign in 2006. The NPV advocate for electors to cast their votes for the candidate who received the most votes nationally, rather than the winner of their individual state.
Seventeen states, along with the District of Columbia, have enacted this approach into law. This group includes states like California, Massachusetts, and Hawaii, collectively representing 209 Electoral College votes. The full list of states is available on the NPV campaign’s website.
Many observers will note that among the states participating in the NPV, only two have voted Republican in the last 20 years, while the others have not done so since the 1980s.
Those of us who supported Donald Trump in this election expected he might lose the popular vote and narrowly win via the Electoral College. To our surprise and delight, he won both decisively—the first time a Republican has done so since before the NPV campaign began.
The Electoral College will vote on December 17th to officially ratify the election results. Will California, a solidly blue state, cast its 54 electoral votes for Donald J. Trump, or will it reconsider the merits of the NPV approach?
But don’t the Left sneer at people who receive the most votes as merely “populists”?
The fact that Labour gained power while being extremely unpopular is deemed a triumph by the Left because they are not at all populist but still got the most votes because everyone else was worse…
“advocates for”: for some reason this is one of those bits of American English I find irksome. Maybe because of the sorts of Americans who are prone to use it even though it’s otherwise a pretty ordinary example of the American pointless preposition (as in “park up”, moor up”, and many more.)
The answers to your excellent concluding questions are “Hell, no” and “they didn’t consider its merits in the first place”.
https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-call-for-abolishing-popular-vote
Well, if the legislation has been enacted at a state level, then those states who “voted” for Kamala (lack of voter ID besides), should stick all of their electoral votes for Donald Trump, winner of the popular vote in the Presidential election.
However, a deep seated gut feeling tells me there will be some excuse given to not do this because…Orange Man Bad or something.
Everybody knows that this rule was only ever designed to apply to Democratic Party nominees.
It will be interesting to see if any states actually honour their NPV commitment, but I suspect it will be largely repudiated.
If you don’t want laws to be used by your opponents, don’t pass them.
@JG, you have to wonder … if Trump did get the popular vote decisively after all the recounting…
( Dems can’t win the election, but they *can* try to gimmick that one..)
Would the R. lawyers actually hold those States to their own laws, and make them vote for Trump? That would be a hoot-and-a-half…
Progressives and Second order Effects…. 😉
Trump may have won the popular vote, but Kamala won the unpopular vote.
The National Popular Vote Compact is one of those sneaky and scammy ways American lefties make a mockery of their own constitution.
The first and second amendments are too popular to repeal? Salami slice them away with malicious regulation and by outsourcing the suppression of people’s rights to private companies. (Try selling guns if you can’t get a payment processor, bigots)
Trump too popular to defeat through democratic votes under the established rules and laws governing US elections? Make a side deal with other bumhurt lefties to rig the electoral college.
If they weren’t constantly lying and crying, they wouldn’t be “liberals”.
I though the states that have passed laws relating NPV laws have a caveat that they will only apply it once all states have passed NPV laws.
Gunker – no, it’s supposed to take effect when they get enough states to decide the winner (270 electoral votes)
I was under the impression that whichever system the yanks decide to use would probably produce the same result, in that, at present where the electoral college system applies Republicans in cast-iron Democrat states (and vice-versa, but probably not as much so, CA’s 54 isn’t in any way balanced by the much smaller R states) just don’t bother to turn out as they can make no difference to the EC result for the state, whereas if it were to be decided upon a national popular vote then their votes would count and the turnout would be different.
Steve is correct, the agreement is they’ll follow this new arrangement once they have enough states signed up that it would flip the election.
Pretty good chance the Supreme Court (as currently constituted) would find it unconstitutional.
A few reasons the popular vote shouldn’t be used:
The states are actually supposed to matter. The country isn’t named “America” or “Columbia”, it’s “the United States of America”. The same reason we have a Senate where Wyoming gets the same # of senators as CA.
As noted above, under the current system a lot of Rs in CA presumably don’t bother to vote, likewise Ds in FL or TX. It’d be like declaring the winner of the Super Bowl based on time of possession or # of first downs after the fact, when the game was played for the most points.
A big problem with the national popular vote would be the disparity in voting laws and enforcement – voters in states with serious election integrity laws and enforcement really don’t want to have their influence even further reduced by no-ID, mass mailing of ballots, anything goes states.
The design of the popular vote compact also shows the shortsightedness of the Democrats. California and New York are likely to lose six electoral votes between them following reappointment after the 2030 census. These would likely go to Texas and Florida.
The plan to turn Texas blue appears to be failing due to Hispanic voters turning Republican. If Trump and whoever follows him can deport large numbers of illegal aliens, those numbers will further skew Republican.
That only works if the deported illegals were also illegally voting for the Democrats. Is there any evidence for that in large scale? I know that a few individuals have been caught voting illegally.
@John Galt: it works because legally domiciled Latinos don’t like illegal immigration any more than other legal residents.
it works because legally domiciled Latinos don’t like illegal immigration any more than other legal residents.
Why wouldn’t that be true? It’s true for Brits here. People get the idea the costas are all caffs serving all-day full English & karaoke bars . A lot of us live here because it’s not the UK. Not just not the weather but not the f***ing Brits. We would prefer rather less of them. Especially the drunken vomiting tourists with their lobsterised tattoos & football shirts. Not to mention the ones don’t learn the language, respect the culture & prefer to go on as if they’re still in the suburban Home Counties. A lot of us quite like the idea of the restrictions on time-in-country if it deters the part time second homers.
MG. I looked at a few electoral college prognostications the other day, and I saw some estimates that the states that made up the Confederacy may gain as many as 15 electoral college votes after the 2030 census, just in time for the 2032 election. Throw in a few more for states like Utah, Idaho and Oklahoma, and the red states may gain close to 20 (which may be partially offset by losses in some northern red states such as PA and OH, but some of those losses might just go to other southern states).
The political center has been shifting south and west for decades (just compare a 1972 electoral map with 2024), but now it appears to be just shifting south.
The mean center of the US population moved almost directly west from 1790 until 1940. Until 1900 that movement was very fast, about 10 miles per year. It started in Maryland, then Virginia (and what’s now West Virginia), Ohio by 1860, Kentucky by 1880, Indiana by 1890. It took until 1950 to cross Indiana and reach Illlinois.
Since WW2 the population centre has moved southwest, reaching Missouri in 1980 and currently has got about halfway to its southern border. It isn’t moving so quickly lately, travelling about a mile a year in the 2010s, but most of its track to the southwest had been about 3-5 miles per year. Depending on whether it arcs round to the south or keeps moving southwest, it will hit the northern edge of either Arkansas or Oklahoma in a few decades.
The median center of the US population is also moving southwest (half of the population lie to the east, half to the west, half to the north and half to the south) but it is still in Indiana. From 1880 to 1950 the median center barely shifted from a point on the Ohio-Indiana border, but since then it’s shifted much more rapidly, about 3 miles per year, and has almost reached the point where Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana meet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_States_population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_center_of_the_United_States_population
The geographic center of electoral college votes almost exactly matches the geographic center of population due to the way they’re apportioned, incidentally. Statehood for PR or some Pacific territories would shift things about a bit, of course.
The Electoral College is *supposed* to be undemocratic. The Founders has a profound unease with the power of mobs, and the EC was explicitly created as a balwalk between the opinions of the people and the selection of the president.
It’s not just the US that feared the mob. There’s not a country on Earth that directly elects the chief executive. There’s always a layer of insulation there: electors, or divided between monarch and Parliament, or President vs. Prime Minister, etc.
Though the College in the US was mostly because the states didn’t want New York, and New York alone, to decide who was President. Today that would be New York and California I guess.
For that matter, US Senators were appointed by the state legislatures until the 20th century. Which is why treaties only have to be approved by the Senate.
Probably another Wilson initiative.
@jgh., Yes, and those were simpler times, with communication lines a hella lot longer/slower, and the Heel of Government further removed.
And afaik most, if not all States have ensured that their electoral college *does* vote according to the state’s law. Either winner takes all, or proportional votes.
So the votes of the electoral college are the direct result of the popular votes in each state. And any of the electorals steps out of line on pain of Pain.
Dunno how much being one gets being one in terms of money/connections/status/career prospects, but it seems to be enough to keep almost all of them in line.
And ultimately… Democracy, in all its incarnations, is a shyte way to run things.
It’s just that any other alternative is worse, sometimes far worse….
@M
The 17th amendment passed in 1913 under Taft. To be fair, the previous system was incredibly corrupt – a lot of would-be senators basically bribed the state legislatures to get themselves appointed – and there had been serious calls for reform for a century. The appointment system also meant that many state legislative elections basically became elections about the senatorial appointments, rather than about issues relevant to the state. In the end, some states ended up running separate elections to decide the senatorial appointments versus to decide state business, just so state affairs got a hearing with the electorate at all. The 17th amendment basically laid down a cleaner version of that system, with the would-be senators running directly for election, and no need for a proxy election of a state legislature that meets only for the purposes of appointing the senators before dissolving again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
NB – the fact that they were unable to cheat Donald Trump out of the presidency again doesn’t mean they’re not cheating.
Wisconsin’s senatorial election has one of those 2020 style magic graphs, showing the Republicans ahead until a sudden late vote dump makes the Dem line go up vertically enough to “win”. Wisconsin is the home of creepy Tim Walz, Kamala’s Smithers for the 2024 ticket.
The best system is obviously Catholic Space Fascism. I assume we would need some sort of Moon Pope.
A Moon Pope? That’s pure Luna See!
Andrew – as luck would have it, there was a Pope Luna, one of the Antipopes. A medieval Spaniard with the gloriously Iberian name of Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor.
The Western Schism was a dangerous time. If an Antipope meets a Pope, the resulting holy explosion would be bigger than Tunguska.
lasting from 20 September 1378 to 11 November 1417, in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, and were eventually joined by a third line of Pisan claimants in 1409.
Imagine having this kind of free market Pope Off. You’d be spoiled for popes. A pot pourri of popery.
“ The Electoral College is *supposed* to be undemocratic. The Founders has a profound unease with the power of mobs, and the EC was explicitly created as a balwalk between the opinions of the people and the selection of the president.”
The Founders really thought it through, Congress with its 2 year cycle is the body that is designed to respond to changes in popular opinion. The Senate, with its 6 year cycle is meant to be more considered. They didn’t really consider the president a big deal, thats a relatively new phenomena caused mostly by Congress giving up powers.
“ During the nineteenth century, presidential power was extremely limited. The view among both the public and the elites was that presidents were mere chief executives who carried out the legislature’s wishes. Healy notes a number of examples of nineteenth-century views of the presidency, and his analysis makes clear that the path to national political prominence in nineteenth-century America was through the U.S. Senate, decidedly not through the presidency.”
https://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?id=745
Just saw it, but as of half an hour ago, even the Decidly Pink dutch media had to admit it.
Trump did the Grand Slam.
Presidency, House, Senate, Popular Vote.
Who’da thunk it. That’s two years of actually having a chance of Getting Things Done…..
27 amendments to the constitution does not suggest to me that the original framers were titans of wisdom for the ages.
@Phillip – You have to lay the foundations before you can build a decent house.
Philip,
It suggests they were wise enough to provide future generations with a way to change the constitution.
philip – constitutions are merely bits of paper, we live amongst men.
The American electorate and establishment of 1789 were better educated, more honest, more productive and more moral, so they could reasonably trust their constitutional settlement not to do things such as kill 50 million babies as a result of judicial decisions or use the federal government to persuade their daughters to cut off their breasts and grow sideburns.
O tempura! O morels!
The Constitution was deliberately amendable because The Founders knew they couldn’t foresee the future, and explicitly set aside what became the Bill of Rights to be debated and contructed by the incoming governments and states as they (the founders) knew they wouldn’t be able to get something agreed by all participants right away.
@John Galt
That only works if the deported illegals were also illegally voting for the Democrats. Is there any evidence for that in large scale?
The problem is that currently illegal aliens are counted in the Census for House and Electoral College purposes. They don’t have to vote to skew elections. This means areas with lots of illegals have outsized influence in elections. It’s not clear if an act of Congress can prevent counting of illegals, or if a constitutional amendment is needed. The last Trump administration tried to prevent counting illegals in the 2020 Census, but was thwarted by the courts.
O tempura! O morels!
Ok Steve. I can’t resist. What does tempura with morels taste like!!!
@Boganboy: temporarily moreish.
philip:
27 amendments over 250 years or so? And 10 of them were in the first decade? That’s not really a lot; it’s a bit more than one per generation (taken as 23 years).
Look at any legislature on Earth. They pass more than one law per year.
I do recommend you read this:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/14/if-lawyers-thwart-trumps-deportation-plan-democracy-is-dead/
His thesis being, that if liberals use the law to thwart a popularly elected Trump from implementing his policies, the electorate might elect a real “Hitler” next time round.
Personally, wouldn’t bother me at all. I think it’s going to end up being the only way to turn the tide. Trump’s failing may be is he’s too much the nice guy.
You have the same problem in the UK. Reform are not going to reverse the Long March. The best they might achieve is slowing it down temporarily. They haven’t got what it would take to do it. UKIP didn’t after the Referendum. They expected democracy to deliver. What makes you believe you live in a democracy?