Why can't Dems presidential hopefuls pull this much people for any of their rallys? <20,000+

[Bofferbrauer2]

Shadow1980 said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

The Electoral College is meant to be broadly representative to the population in each state, and without it, the smaller, less populated states loose all their influence and fall into obscurity.

Did you read my whole post? Why should the vote of someone in Wyoming or Vermont matter three times more than someone living in Texas or California? Furthermore, while the EC does greatly amplify the voting power of voters in low-population states, it doesn't make them politically relevant. As I mentioned, only three of the 25 least-populated states get any attention from presidential candidates in the general election, and that's because they're the only ones that are competitive. The only thing the EC succeeds in doing is distorting the rightful outcome of an election, which should always be based on the principle of "one person, one vote." It should be about individual citizens, not polygons on a map. The president uniquely represents the whole of the American people, and should do so equally.

I didn't say the distribution was correct, especially that 2 plus X proportion should go away. And you have glossed or not realized the difference when there's no winner takes all anymore: suddenly all states become battleground states, as there's no safe seat anymore. All those third parties which couldn't hope for anything? They now not only have a shot, they need to be taken into account and coalitions need to be formed with them to get enough votes together, resulting in more nuanced and less black-and-white laws and rulings.

The Electoral College is meant to be broadly representative to the population in each state, and without it, the smaller, less populated states loose all their influence and fall into obscurity.

Several countries have similar mechanics to the electoral college, and it's working well there. Why? Because they don't have winner takes all! Abolish Winner takes all/make it unconstitutional, and you'll see that every vote will count. Even better, votes to third parties wouldn't be lost votes anymore, making way to more nuanced politics as these also finally would get their weight and say in the US.

As I mentioned, none of those countries have executive presidents. They have parliamentary systems where the president is a ceremonial officer. The U.S. is the only nation with a full or semi-presidential system that elects its president indirectly.

Well, they are not always called president. Maybe try other titles, like prime minister, for instance. Presidents indeed tend to be more of a ceremonial office, hence why more and more they don't even get elected by the people anymore, but appointed.

I would say that I could maybe, maybe deal with the EC being a thing if WTA were abolished. And I don't mean moving to the Nebraska-Maine Rule where the statewide vote winner gets two votes, with the rest determined by who wins the most votes in each congressional district, because that's still exceedingly unrepresentative as well because of geographical flukes in how population is distributed, plus it would be susceptible to gerrymandering. EC votes should be awarded proportionally, so if a candidate gets x% of the state's popular vote then it should get approximately x% of its electoral votes. That would mean that Hillary Clinton would have gotten 15-16 of Texas' 36 EC votes while Trump would have gotten 17 of California's 55 EC votes.

I would still also insist that electoral votes be allocated proportionally by population among the states as well, instead of each state getting two electors with the remaining 438 being allocated by population. Of course, at this point you might as well ditch the whole system and go with a popular vote.

@italic: That's how it goes mostly outside of the US, though they might use a highest-average or largest remainder calculation method to calculate the seats for each party. I certainly wouldn't have advocated for EC and against WTA without a proportional representation of the votes.

Speaking of Gerrymandering, that should also get abolished while we're at it. What good can come from constantly redrawing the lines, after all? That's almost literally moving the goalposts.