The President is not the President of the people. It is the President of the States. Only the States have a vote. In fact, for most of its history, the State governments voted directly and there was no popular vote for President. In modern times, they allowed people to have a say in who their State government votes for but it is still only people controlling the vote of their State. They have no say in how people in other States choose to vote for President.

When people complain about the Electoral College, what they are really saying is that they want to eliminate the concept of States voting for President. For better or worse, the idea of the President being the Executive of the States is so foundational to the US Constitution that you'd basically have to throw out the US Constitution and start over. The only representative in Federal government people were supposed to have is their Representative; in recent decades people vote for other Federal positions as well but it is only to decide how their State will apportion its votes rather than voting for the Federal position directly.

If I don't vote for President, why is the President allowed to shoot my dog on suspicious of marijuana possession?

And no the electoral college does not exist to avoid deadlock. Do you know what the chances of deadlock are in a popular vote of about 100 million people?

Oh and can you show me any documented case where someone gives homeless people cigarettes to make them vote for someone? How would that even work? You know you usually have to register before hand.

Um, not quite; you've misstated the conclusion of the news organizations' study of the uncounted ballots. In a much-expanded recount, according to the Times wrap-up piece in November 2001 [1], Gore might have won in a few possible scenarios, but only by a teeny, tiny margin at best (smaller than the margin Bush ended up with). Even that possibility depended on the different counties' election officials recounting the disputed ballots in the same way that the news organizations' independent auditors did.

The Times had endorsed Gore --- as it has every other Democratic presidential candidate starting in 1960 [2]. Yet the lead grafs of the Times piece were commendably explicit: "A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore."

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE.html

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/28/opinion/presid...

"But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. "

So I am right.

Absolutely --- if by "Gore won" you mean that Gore might have pulled ahead, by around 115 votes, and been declared the winner, if all of the following had occurred:

(i) Gore had asked the courts for a full statewide recount, instead of the more-limited recount that he did ask for; * and

(ii) the courts had found sufficient cause to order such an expansive (and expensive) recount, instead of limiting the recount to specific areas where good reason had been affirmatively demonstrated; AND

(iii) in such a statewide recount, the various voting officials in Florida's 67 counties had (x) tagged the same specific 175,010 ballots as problematic as did the news organizations' independent observers, and then (y) reached the same conclusions about those ballots as did the independent observers. *

* As explained in the Times article

We can never know whether (ii) and, especially, (iii) would have occurred.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec...

That's the funniest comment in this thread. I love the idea of history or truth as something established by consensus between newspapers. I don't mean to say that your conclusion is wrong but your method is somewhat lacking.

It might not be the intention to avoid deadlock (I have no idea). But it could definitely happen. You don't need an even split for this to occur, just enough to require a recount, which in a popular vote might mean recounting every single vote in the country which would be a nightmare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrows_impossibility_theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard%E2%80%93Satterthwaite_t...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_runoff_vo...

Preference between condorcet and range voting is a lot more murky.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_sel...

http://rangevoting.org/rangeVcond.html

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting

[3] http://rangevoting.org

edit: I forgot to mention that all voting systems are subject to tactical voting, except for ones which are dictatorial or non-deterministic (and those are generally considered nonviable systems).

For ranked ballot voting systems, there's a difference in what kinds of tactical voting are possible, and in how likely it is for tactical voting to improve your perception of the outcome (baysian regret comparison of honest vs tactical voting). Ranked voting systems are not all equivalently bad simply because they're each subject to some kinds of tactical voting.

I think Condorcet is promising (among all the ranked-ballot methods) because the Condorcet principle is easy to agree with. The choice of cycle-breaking method is where the fault lines appear, but new cycle-breaking methods could attract a consensus.

You appear to be writing this off as a minor issue. It is not. If Mitt Romney wins 49.999% of the vote in any state, and Obama wins the rest, Obama is awarded ALL of that state's electoral votes. That hardly reflects the will of the people in the context of a national election.

IMO the solution, assuming there is a reason to keep the electoral college at all, is for each state to award to each candidate a percentage of its electoral votes commensurate with the percentage of votes that each candidate received in that state.

Another bonus of getting rid of FPTP is that there would be no "swing states" that get 90% of the campaign activity, all states would suddenly be roughly equally important.

The solution downandout is proposing is not at all like the solution cletus is proposing; the two did not arrive at "the same conclusion" and the difference between them is not only one of words.

Federal.

This is good because it means that each state's interest is represented (though the fact that only swing states get the focus is something that should be addressed). I live in Rhode Island and I like that we get some consideration. Large low-population states are another consideration.

...and on posting my reply I see this was already addressed very well in an earlier reply to a parent comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4737359

National Basketball Association and Federal Bureau of Investigation obviously make sense. National Security Agency is a federal agency charged with security of the nation.

Plenty of other countries use a straight popular vote and they somehow manage to avoid all of the problems that EC proponents say the popular vote would cause. It seems obvious that if we were building the country from scratch today, the EC would never even be considered, let alone enacted.

What do you mean? Tight popular votes at most require a runoff between the two most popular candidates. If anything, this [1] 2004 NYT article gives the traditional reason:

"The Electoral College's supporters argue that it plays an important role in balancing relations among the states, and protecting the interests of small states."

But it goes on to convincingly counter:

"A few years ago, this page was moved by these concerns to support the Electoral College. But we were wrong. The small states are already significantly overrepresented in the Senate, which more than looks out for their interests. And there is no interest higher than making every vote count."

For the record, I'm not American either, but if I were I'd feel much better and meaningful during presidential campaigns living in, say, Ohio or Florida, instead of New York or Texas.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/opinion/making-votes-count...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_Sta...

In any case, as I read this, you have the top comment on this thread. It'd look better in that spot without the obsession about how people vote on it.

The Constitution doesn't mandate how electoral votes are allocated. Maine and Nebraska, for example, distribute the electoral college votes by congressional district. So the winner take all policy of most states isn't due to the electoral college itself, but how the states choose to implement it.

I'd argue that passionate people are more likely to vote. Arguably, they deserve to be heard, since they care so much about politics. On the other hand, they may be brainwashed idiots.

It also creates a lot more divisive candidates. Obama is a far-left (by US standards, in Australia or Europe he'd be center-right). Bush was far-right. You need to be extreme to win the primaries, and need to stay extreme to get your base excited enough to vote. Polarising candidates encourages debate (which is good), but also encourages group-think.

> As for (2) the problem is that this reinforces a two-party system. A vote for a minor party is often a vote for the other side (eg voting for the Greens is a vote that would probably otherwise go to a Democrat so is effectively a vote for the Republicans).

Once again, this makes it hard for a compromise candidate to win, and makes it hard for extreme groups to win anything more than a small percent. It's the worst of both worlds - less debate, and more extreme Presidents.

Supporting gay marriage and abortion rights are increasingly moderate positions, held by people who swing further left and right on a host of other issues. For example, Obama has been overwhelmingly willing to compromise with business to move other policy agendas (e.g., health care) forward—the far-left is quite unlikely to do this. There are plenty of other counterexamples to an unfounded claim that he is far-left. Drone strikes come to mind, to name but one other.

If he holds views and suggestions for policies that are actually far-left, please enlighten us.

Even if you have a federal electoral commission, the "foot soldiers" who will be working in the election booths will be the same people who is doing it now. (Based on what I know about the system in India, there it a election commission, who provides the administration and drafts Central/State government employees to carry out the elections). I agree that the net effect of such a measure will be positive, if there is more uniformity in the voting rules.

Having election day be a federal holiday wouldn't hurt.

Wait this doesn't happen now?!?!! WTF?

It is always the states near the middle that matter. This is because if you are going to lose the election anyway, losing by a smaller electoral college margin doesn't help, and conversely, if you are going to win anyway, winning by a larger electoral college margin doesn't help. Candidates campaign to maximize the probability that they reach 270 electoral votes. That is why Obama and Romney are campaigning a more in Ohio than they are in Florida even though the polls are closer in Florida than they are in Ohio. Florida is a toss-up, but if Obama wins Florida, he probably also wins enough slightly bluer states like Ohio to win without Florida.

Also, California or Texas flipping would require an absolutely massive popular vote landslide. Probably at least a 15% margin.

When people have to vote, they will vote for things they are undecided on and it is likely that stupid things will play into the decision, like what the name looks like and whether it seems familiar. It doesn't make them any more likely to be informed about the candidates.

And if they have been "informed" about the candidates, the most likely corruptive force is our news media, which is biased (on both sides). Each radio and television station provides a "range of views" that on average lean toward their candidate or are carefully edited. If you can't trust the media to be unbiased (not that they ever were), who can you trust to give you the "real" scoop on the candidates? No one that I know of.

If people don't care enough to vote, they don't have a strong enough opinion on how things are going, then leave them alone. I don't want them choosing pretty names, and it is already bad enough that our views are so manipulated.

At least those that choose to vote are probably somewhat swayed by how well the government is doing, and how it is treating them and those they care about. Those that would be forced to vote aren't, or it is an even draw.

All of that said, I admit that I am an "undecided voter". I lean conservative, but I don't know who to vote for because I disagree strongly to some of the views of the conservatives. So, I might not vote this election, and I still care about the outcome.

But even with mandatory voting you could argue that it is a fairer representation even if it forces people who don't care to choose a side. Democracy is about trying to capture what te people want, and "the people" means everyone, not just those who care. Idiots have equal voice to nobel prize winners, that's the democratic way.

FPTP is the real problem though. You could keep optional voting but just switch to pretty much any other vote tallying system and get better leaders. FPTP is mathematically guaranteed to bring out the worst in politicians.

If you don't vote in Brazil a lot of the things you normally do involving the government become complicated until your pay a fine and fix your status. Anything involving government issued IDs to social security and unemployment benefits are cut off until you "regularize" your status by paying the fine for not voting.

My biggest complaint is that the system forces even Brazilians living abroad to vote, which is a big pain in the ass when you are abroad since you aren't aware of elections (it's easy to forget) and you need to find the nearest consulate and figure out how to vote. Every time I've returned to Brazil I've had to go and fix my status by paying the fine for not voting in the elections that occurred while I was out of the country.

The main problem I see with the electoral college is that it forces the candidates to focus on winning the votes of just a few swing states, instead of the entire country. If the president is supposed to represent the needs/wants of the whole country, shouldn't everyone's vote count equally to decide who takes office?

Translation:

> It's unfair that I don't get my way even though I'm in the minority.

Nonsense!

The least you should have done is actually reply to my post rather than do a drive-by with your own imaginary conclusions. Here it is:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4736105

This --and the statement you refer to and mangle-- has nothing to do with me (or proponents of an alternative approach) getting their way. You almost make it sound like a childish whine to which I take offense.

This is about having fair and intelligent elections. Elections today feel like you are watching five-year-olds blame each other for who broke Mom's flowers. It's idiotic at best.

Candidates should not be allowed to engage in stupidity. Talk about your platform, ideas and approach. Leave the other guys alone. Let me decide based on who you are and what you say you are going to do.

This is also about making it possible for anyone to run for office. I said in another reply that someone like Stephen Hawking has zero chance to run for office today. In this media-driven election system we seem to have looking good, speaking well, being able to crack a joke, sing and dance seems to be a requirement. Do you know how many super-smart people have the personality of a brick? Maybe not that extreme, but I hope you get the point.

And, how about money. If you don't have or can't raise a billion dollars, forget it. Again, tons of incredibly gifted people don't stand a chance. They wouldn't even get off the line. That is wrong.

The electoral college also means that Independent candidates have an almost zero chance of winning the presidential election. Zero. States like California have a significant number of independent voters. I was talking to one the other day and he said something akin to "My vote really doesn't count. In order to feel like it counts I have to choose to vote for either a Republican or Democratic candidate.". How fair is that system.

A popular vote, devoid of state lines and with rules aimed at reducing the bullshit factor would allow the very real possibility of having more than two choices. It should allow almost anyone to run and be heard.

There's no reason why it couldn't start on a website where candidates --hundreds of them, thousands of them-- stated their platform and start being filtered two years in advance of the election. Don't have a computer? Want to participate in the process? Go to a library and use on of the computers there. I find it funny to note that some of these purportedly disenfranchised voters are walking around with iPhones, driving SUV's and watching satellite television on their 50 inch LCD TV's.

I agree with you on the point about mandatory voting. I lived in Argentina for a number of years and watched how mandatory voting is twisted and turned there for candidates' benefits. They'd literally buy votes through all sorts of giveaways. What's worst is that the people being manipulated are the poor and uneducated. The ugly truth is that they just follow the carrot.

The opposite of this is that absolute morons are allowed to vote in either system. Voluntary voting does not guarantee that informed people will vote any more than it guarantees that votes are not being bought. I've had conversations with people who absolutely floored me. One guy was in absolute awe of the government because, as he put it, "they are so smart that they can predict eclipses and shit like that. Anybody that can do that is incredible". Another person, who happens to be the daughter of a friend of mine who has a PhD in Physics didn't understand and couldn't get her head around what the national debt means to her. She obviously didn't follow in her fathers footsteps, at least in the math department.

How do you fix this? I don't know. I know it isn't popular to say that not everyone should vote. If people are required to pass a test to obtain a driver's license, why shouldn't they be required to pass a test every year in order to be able to vote? They can actually kill more people with their vote than by not knowing how to drive a car. Not so? How about the religious morons who vote across hard religious beliefs and against issues of health, science and progress that could save millions of lives? Before anyone goes off for this comment, I am not a Democrat or Republican. I hate aspects of both parties and like aspects of both.

The electoral college is just not good any more. The same is true of the way we allow these campaigns to be run and funded.

I don't understand this line of thinking. Do you believe Steve Wozniak would make a better president than Steve Jobs? Leadership often requires a strong dose of charisma and moxie. Those geniuses without people skills make great advisors.

You might want to go back and research presidents before television and the internet. Some of the most effective ones had pretty shitty personalities and habits. Today they'd never make it.

My only argument is that we are probably keeping a lot of really good candidates from participating in the process because the focus is on whether or not you look great and do well in a talk show and give it to the other guy in a debate rather than what really matters.

Here's an imperfect analogy. I've been sailing since, well, forever. I'll go out in almost any weather because I have confidence in my abilities. As long as the boat is in good shape and can handle it, I can. I am also pretty good at sailing when there's almost no wind, when you really have to optimize things to generate propulsion with almost no power available.

I see lots of people at the marina who come out with the latest gear. They look good. No, they look great. Beautiful shirts, and marine coats and boots and brand new lines on the boat, perfect new sails and all the gear sparkles. But they can't sail worth a damn. They motor out of the marina, put up the sails, go around and around a few times and motor back in. All show and no go. Don't even ask them to go sailing at night. They'll piss in their Gucci pants.

These people show well, talk the talk and seem to walk the walk but are worthless as far as sailing is concerned. I know this all too well, I did an island crossing one time with one of these folks and it nearly cost me my life as I was hanging on to the boom while reefing in a storm 'cause the idiot didn't know how to keep the thing into the wind.

My point is that the system we have in place today gives zero room to those with real expertise. Look at Obama as one example: Not one company would have hired him to even run a cookie baking operation in 2008. Yet, he got the country to run. Are we morons or what? And how about little-Bush? Do I even need to get into how moronic it was for someone like that to be on a ticket? And, Sarah Palin? Really? Are we all a bunch of lobotomized robots or is it the system?

My admittedly flawed ideas straight from utopia seek to change things up so that other people, those who can really sail, might have a chance to get the helm. It should not cost a billion dollars to run for president. We should use the Internet to allow lots of people to participate in the contest and let voters engage in a fact-based search that takes a whole year. It's almost like these dating services that don't let you meet in person or see pictures of each other until successful and valuable interaction has taken place over a period of time.

Anyhow, it will never happen. Politicians have too much invested in keeping their sweet rides going. I swear that some of these people would be selling used cars if they didn't have an opening into politics.