I see your point there.

However, the fact remains, there COULD come an election where there was a greater margin than one vote.

The point is, that I SHOULD have made probably, is that abolishing it would throw everyone into one big constituency. This would magnify the effect one group of people (faction I think James Madison called it?) has. As it stands, any group of people (and this is i admit what I should have said) don't have too much effect, spread out over the entire electorate (what Bueno de Mesquita/Smith call the "nominal selectorate") within 51 different jurisdictions. Whatever group they are, they're all split up. The effects of one single "faction" are lessened somewhat by being divided up into 51 pieces (not totally equally in that sense, but divvied up, nonetheless).

I'm using the military as an example, because that's the largest group I can think of for now, and the one I thought to be significant, especially within the context of a democracy.

OK, that's what I probably should have said.

Ok, that makes a little more sense. It cuts both ways though, and arguably moving to a single constituency would reduce the influence of special interest groups. I can think of a few examples offhand. Cuban-Americans is the most obvious one. As a proportion of the population as a whole they barely register, but they're a very significant sector of the voting population in Florida, and Florida is a key swing state which can determine the outcome of the Presidential election. The existence of the electoral college grants them influence out of all proportion to their numbers. Evangelicals is another good example. There are a lot more of these than there are Cubans, but still they're very much a minority. They just happen to be very well represented in Iowa though, and because Iowa is so important it forces Republican candidates to pander to them far more than they would otherwise. I'm sure we could come up with plenty more examples between us if we put out mind to it.

sass

They just happen to be very well represented in Iowa though, and because Iowa is so important it forces Republican candidates to pander to them far more than they would otherwise

An argument more against the primary system than anything.
If there were an end to the electoral college, and only the national gross vote totals counted...the primary system would probably change drastically as well. And the political clout of Iowa would dissolve. Perhaps bringing an end to ethanol subsidies? (One thing that Ted Cruz IS right about).

hacker

Oh really? I'm sure maybe there is some truth to that, but you make that statement as if it is an absolute

Its a recognition of the voting behavior in the last few elections...
could it change? I suppose there's always a chance...
. To quote Lloyd Christmas when told that there's a billion to one change that a girl would marry him...
"So your saying there's a chance..."

Its a recognition of the voting behavior in the last few elections...
could it change? I suppose there's always a chance...
. To quote Lloyd Christmas when told that there's a billion to one change that a girl would marry him...
"So your saying there's a chance..."

No offense, but what the hell are you talking about? lol

Dumb and Dumber. Jim Carrey's character

Hacker, there are about 5 or 6 million overseas voters, and the majority of them are not serving military.

hacker

No offense, but what the hell are you talking about? lol

Have you no knowledge of the classics?

you're saying, in your own way, that there's a snowball's chance in hell of the military attempting to vote in its interests, and swaying the vote, should the electoral college be abolished?

hacker
[quote]you're saying, in your own way, that there's a snowball's chance in hell of the military attempting to vote in its interests, and swaying the vote/quote]

because the members of the military do not have only one set of interests, they will not vote enbloc.

perhaps you're correct in that assessment, yes.

But my point was that it's possible that they could, one day, decide the election if everyone's thrown into the mix in one, massive, democratic pool.

Personally I think it would make it EASIER---not HARDER---for special interests and factions to penetrate the process of electing the president. I think Jimmy Madison and Mr Hamilton were right about that.

hacker

Personally I think it would make it EASIER---not HARDER---for special interests and factions to penetrate the process of electing the president. I think Jimmy Madison and Mr Hamilton were right about that

The election in the US today is being waged by formidable candidates who claim that the electoral process is already largely controlled by monied interests. . And that governance is already controlled by a small elite group. Indeed that is the rallying cry of both Trump and Sanders, and you don't hear any candidate contradicting them.
The problems inherent in even a multi billionaire (Bloomberg) running as a third candidate further demonstrate this...
In part, the unliklihoodof a third party iss because there are 51 different elections, with 51 different controlling bodies setting the conditions for a candidacy.
One national ballot for President, where the voter in New York's vote is worth the same as the Wyomian...would change this. What ever the hurdle placed on ballot inclusion it would be One hurdle - not 51. (Complexity is a tool to discourage competition.)

Moreover this may affect voter turnout and represent a truer picture of support. Where a Democratic voter in Texas or republican voter in Hawaii might be discouraged from exercising their franchise in a state wide contest .... their vote would matter more in a national contest.

JimHackerMP wrote:perhaps you're correct in that assessment, yes.

But my point was that it's possible that they could, one day, decide the election if everyone's thrown into the mix in one, massive, democratic pool.

Personally I think it would make it EASIER---not HARDER---for special interests and factions to penetrate the process of electing the president. I think Jimmy Madison and Mr Hamilton were right about that.

Really? With the College, most states are decided already, so it comes down to the swing states in most years.

And in those swing states, because they are close, a small number of voters in each can be decisive.

So if you wanted to penetrate the process, it is logistically easier to target a few hundred thousand voters in a handful of states, than it is to target people across the country. Also, interests in those states would have particular local issues to hang on to.

Currently, each vote in the Presidential election has a different weight depending on which state it was cast in. Partly due to the ratio of voters to EC places, and partly due to the likely margin.

Elections are, as they say, won in the margins. What the EC essentially changes is the composition of the "winning coalition" of a particular candidate. The only thing abolishing it would change is the size and composition of the winning coalition. People make too big a deal about the smaller states "overrepresentation" in it. It's true--but to a point. There are enough larger states with a lot more weight in the EC that balance out the smaller states by far.

I think the point (which I actually made several days ago but you never replied to) is that the EC arguably makes it much easier for sectional interest groups to influence the election than a single constituency would do. The examples I used were Cuban Americans and their huge influence out of all proportion to their numbers due to being in the key swing state of Florida and evangelicals, who exercise massive power thanks to their concentration in Iowa. In both cases these groups are courted and deferred to far more than their numbers would otherwise dictate because of an accident of geography and the vagaries of the electoral college.

This is not necessarily an argument against the EC of course, there may well be perfectly valid reasons to retain it in spite of this. I do think it somewhat undermines your key point here though. You haven't really given any evidence to support your claim other than the rather dubious proposition that there's a military bloc vote which would be enhanced if the EC is abolished. The facts don't seem to support that hypothesis, whereas Cuban Americans and evangelicals have been bloc voting for years.

so have liberal groups. And they control California (55 electoral votes).

Ohio, I'm told (i haven't substantiated this but I'm sure we could find it somewhere) has 80% unaffiliated voters. And it's the state that you don't win the presidency without winning. I wonder why.

It's not just swing states, but states that vote solidly one way or another, as well.

I must at this point expand my argument to put forth a related one: one-person/one-vote is more democratic, yes, but it won't work for the presidency of the United States. For example, let's use my own state, because no state has an electoral college for governor: they're all directly elected, first past the post.

This pits Prince's George's County, Montgomery County and the City--the triumvirate of population centers in Maryland--against the rest of the state. The interests of the rest of the state are neglected in some respects because they aren't "where the votes are" so to speak. Electoral strategists in Maryland will often ignore the rest of the state, and focus on where the population is most concentrated.

These population centers are vastly Democrats. Apparently, the population centers of Maryland have ALWAYS been Democratic. How do I know this? Out of the 29 governors between No. 33, Thomas Swann (1866-1869) and No. 61, Martin O'Malley (2007-2015), a whopping six were Republicans and only ONE of them got re-elected (No. 53, Theodore P. McKeldin, 1951-59). Twenty-six years (out of 149 total) of Republican rule.

What is my point? Throw the EC out of the window and you've got the same problem. Yeah, sure, it's "democratic" but it's not fair. You're ignoring a lot of people's interests. Geographical interests are still important, even in a democracy. Pure democracy is not necessarily "more fair".

And like I was saying about the military, throw everyone in the same cauldron and have the witches mix the pot and you've got geographical competition. Yes, you have it already TO SOME EXTENT but the effects of it are at least minimized. Within many states are great diversity, even the most populous states. Not all of the biggest states in the EC are all urban, and not all the smallest states are all rural. They don't all represent the same interests, even if they appear to be voting together sometimes (like the "solid south" which by the way doesn't always vote solidly since FL & others are swing states and, contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of southern Democrats and they're not all conservative anymore).

Is it a bit Byzantine? Yes. Is it a bit antiquated? Yes. But unless it's replaced with something equally Byzantine and equally clever, a direct, national, popular vote is a bad idea for some very good reasons.