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Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by adsljfl3 on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @12:54AM (#24563116)
Check out the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which is kind of what you are describing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUX-frlNBJY
Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by aaronbrethorst on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:03AM (#24563168)
Washington and California are already signatories. Naturally, it's the red states that are dragging their heels, as they feel like they have the most to lose.

If Texas manages to finally flip during this presidential election, though, I'd say all bets are off and the NPVIC might finally become law of the land.

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by kmonsen on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:21AM (#24563264)
I don't think it is meaningful if Texas flips, only if it becomes a swing state. If Trump looses Texas he will already have lost the election a long time ago so it doesn't really matter.

Note that some states with almost similar number of electoral votes are going in the other direction. Florida is becoming more safe red all the time, and PA is a swing state and might become safe red at some point.

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by aaronbrethorst on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:33AM (#24563329)
only if it becomes a swing state

That's what it flipping would mean. TX was purple. Then it became red. Its demographic trends[0] show it coming into play again.

The good news is that under a national popular vote, a Republican could probably survive a narrow popular vote loss in Texas or Florida and still win the presidency, because every GOP vote in those states would still count toward a national popular vote majority.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/28/gop-natio...

[0] At least as long as the Republican Party is adamantly anti-immigrant. https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/20/texas-hispanic-popul...

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by kmonsen on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:25PM (#24574687)
Swing state and flipping is (or can be thought of as) different things. The democrats can possibly win Texas this year, and Beto was fairly close. But if Biden wins Texas the election is already long over, he will have won more than 270 delegates for sure. If you look at the snake chart here: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ you can see Texas if 6/7 states away from being the swing state for this election. Currently if Texas goes democratic there is realistically no path for republicans to win a presidential election.

To say it a different way, at some point if the democrats gets popular enough they win every state. That doesn't mean that every state is a swing state, just that people are fed up with that party.

Long term the demographics are not looking good for Texas GOP, based on current voting trends. Most likely the party will adept and come up with new policies to attract different voters. Or you know suppress the vote and rig the elections.

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by austincheney on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:26AM (#24563299)
It’s great video and it seems a fair and honest explanation of the electoral college. I completely disagree with the idea of a national popular vote subverting the interests of an electorate. Just as the video explained the concept of US government is republican, representative, and based upon compromise opposed to purely popularity which is a democracy. The fear is that a collective mob will dictate priorities to a disenfranchised minority without a balanced recourse, which sounds like something close to separate yet equal.
Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by xref on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @02:02AM (#24563495)
“Collective mob”, aka the majority of the population? Remember the government was setup as a republic to ensure a minority of the population, landowning white males, retained power regardless of demographics. By-and-large people of color, the poor, and women were not allowed to vote.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_...

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by austincheney on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @06:07AM (#24565142)
That isn't historically accurate. The constitution intentionally imposed representational government to ensure dual-federalism as a necessary means to supersede the prior government, Articles of Confederation.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_federalism#Constitutional...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by vkou on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @03:10AM (#24563915)
> I completely disagree with the idea of a national popular vote subverting the interests of an electorate.

Citation needed. The electoral college does not represent the interests of the electorate more than a popular vote does.

We don't go ask, say, Catholics which presidential candidate they prefer, and then award the winner the entire Catholic vote (including those who have been disenfranchised from voting, or who didn't vote). Yet we do that with states.

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by austincheney on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @06:11AM (#24565167)
Please review the definition of electorate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_district

As a case in point look at the state of Washington. Two counties comprise all aspects of the state's politics, due to their population size and density relative to the rest of the state, often in stark contrast to the rest of the state. The majority of the states residents are thus represented, but the majority of districts and communities comprising that state are not.

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by vkou on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:18PM (#24569436)
I don't care about the feelings of districts. Districts don't have feelings, or wants or interests. I care about people. People have feelings, wants, and interests.

A district, like a religious orientation, is not a hive mind, where a minority of people who vote for the most popular candidate should be able to co-opt the voting power of the rest.

Under a popular vote, counties besides King and Snohomish would have representation, instead of being ammunition used by those two.

Re:Ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s presidential... by austincheney on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @01:46PM (#24569804)
> I don't care about the feelings of districts. Districts don't have feelings, or wants or interests.

I disagree. A rural agricultural community has very real security and economic concerns very different from a high density urban community. Those feelings are very real. Under a purely popular vote those concerns are instantly and conveniently discarded. That concern is the principle benefit of representational government and that concern is essential.