The Surprising Reason To Keep The Electoral College | Intellections

Many people believe we should abolish the Electoral College, but it serves important purposes. The Electoral College system requires candidates to broaden their national appeal and discourages extreme policy positions. Abolishing the Electoral College would worsen political polarization and partisanship.

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[connorconforti]

But with the electoral college candidates primarily focus on swing states and if I’m a republican in California or a Democrat in Texas my vote doesn’t count

[Pearforce]

Why would you need a national recount when the states and subsequent counties would still be in charge of totaling their own population’s votes.

[daytoncoates]

Well because of the winner-take all system, candidates tend to focus on swing states. If you wanted to really expand appeal, you could have states cast electors roughly proportional to how people voted. So now democrats in Texas matter to a democratic candidate. And vise versa with a republican in California

[t.k.]

Dear PolicyEd, You'd have a point if the Electoral College votes were more proportionately distributed. Right now the distribution of Electoral College votes is FUBAR. California gets 55 votes for it's population of 39, 510, 000. That's 718, 363 people per Electoral College vote. Wyoming gets 3 votes for its population of 5798, 545. That's 243, 848 people per Electoral College vote. 718, 363/243, 848 = 2.95. *A vote in Wyoming is worth almost 3X more than a vote in California because of the Electoral College* THIS IS ANTITHETICAL TO THE IDEA OF "ONE PERSON ONE VOTE." This ratio will never be exactly 1:1, but 3:1 is utterly ridiculous. A fairer distribution would give Wyoming 1 Electoral College vote, not 3. Because of the fixed total number of votes and it's relation to congressional representatives, there's not much room to change it. If we're not going to make the vote distribution fairer, then it's time to ask if the institution is antiquated.

[crazyoncoffee]

Actually most studies find the premise of this video is false, it doesn’t force candidates to campaign in a broader array of states, it narrows their campaigning to a small set of influential swing states. This video also doesn’t mention the national popular vote interstate compact, which would avoid national recounts and keep the electoral college in a de jure sense while de facto eliminating it

[boy]

It's bad, because everyone is not really being counted equally!!!🤨🤔✌

[chimeratriplett]

We don’t want candidates focusing on a small handful of states with big populations like Texas or California! Let’s instead focus on swing states like Florida or Pennsylvania! That’s definitely not just the same problem but with different states!

[rubberbaby]

This is a joke. Candidates should win over people not states. Elected officials should represent the choice of the people not the land.

[beagleboi]

0:44 the problem with that argument is that candidates only visit swing states and how the 11 biggest states can deliver one candidate the Presidency so you don't even need a majority of states to win.

[Jamicaman]

A 100% disagree with you guys on the idea that the electoral college makes candidates spread their message in order to get more voters. The system forces candidates to focus on a few key states and ignore every other state, except as piggy banks for money. California, Texas and New York hold roughly 80 million Americans in their borders, and yet no candidate on the national state ever campaigns in these states because their electoral votes are not in play. That leaves millions of democratic and republican voters who essential don't count when it comes to picking a new president. But a voter in Iowa, Virginia, Florida or a few other states, they are courted for almost an entire year before they cast their ballot. Why should our country have its leadership be decided by a few people these smaller states?

[alpharius]

Point 1, no it does not. You only focus on swing states not the whole country. Popular vote means you literally have to win the majority of people’s votes which is more representative of the nation.

Point 2, … it would be more polarized? Why? We already see people polarizing without removing this system.

Point 3, making it a national majority does not mean states would have 0 responsibility. They would still be required to count and handle disputes

Whoever wrote this was talking out of their ass.

[nathanpellerito]

"broaden their national appeal"

Didn't know Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona were an entire nation.

[dg]

So if I understand this correctly, the entire argument here is based on the assumption that the more states an individual wins, the more mainstream and moderate that individual must be to have won them. I would have to say that this premise is flawed given that most of the party line divisions are within not between states. Specifically, there is a division between urban and rural areas not between red states and blue states. Also, this doesn’t even address the actual criticisms of the electoral college. An interesting short, but ultimately one that I find unconvincing. Thank you nonetheless

[baito]

if you wanted to incentivize candidates to win over voters, you would have an electoral college with proportional division of electors, like in maine. having a system where 70% of the population decides for the other 30% makes both the 70% and the 30% less likely to vote cuz their votes won't matter.

[danielvasquez]

Ah yes may I say that the incentive of winning New York, Texas, Florida, and California are much higher than winning Missouri or name another state. You showed the intentions not the result.

[kevinmahoney]

I'm pretty sure the country is already polarized, and it's one of the most polarized countries in terms of politics in the world. This was WITH the electoral college.

[afgor]

anti-democratic lunatics: "broaden their national appeal"

campaigns: "ok so if we win these 4 swing states we can ignore the other 46"

[CoolLava]

Ranked Choice Voting. Our only hope. Check it out. Keep in mind Big Business and politicians don’t want it. Guess why?

[gwho]

1 person 1 vote is also a horrible crime.
At the very least, each person should be able to submit a ranked preference list instead, like GCP Grey explains on his channel.

This way you don't get "don't waste your vote" effect, propping up incumbent parties just because you want to vote against another party - the party or candidate you really really dislike can simply be at the bottom of your preference list, while you still are able to express how much you like a separate minority party, and specifying your 2nd preference backup party/candidate... all without risking boosting your worst choice simply because you dared to vote for your truly favorite party.

And you'd get ACTUAL diversity of parties and viewpoints having a shot - which you should care about if you believe in democracy at all.

[zanvoy]

This video has it completely backwards. The electoral collage makes it so that presidential candidates only campaign in a handful of battleground states. Getting rid of the electoral college would make it so that campaigning in deep red or blue states is actually worth while.