Democrats Win Enough Seats Nationwide to End Electoral College
By: Hafiz Rashid (The New Republic)
Jen Psaki sent me down the youtube rabbit hole with something she said last night and this is where I ended up ...
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
With Democratic victories in state legislatures and governorships across the country Tuesday, the Electoral College could now be in jeopardy—even without a near-impossible constitutional amendment.
If passed by enough states, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would effectively nullify the Electoral College and, with it, the possibility of a candidate being elected president without winning the popular vote. Since the compact was introduced in 2006, 19 states have passed it, agreeing to assign their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. That amounts to 222 of the 270 electoral votes that a candidate needs to win the presidential election.
On Tuesday, Democrats took control of state legislatures and governorships in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada, all states that haven't agreed to the compact. If all five vote to join, then the total number of electoral votes apportioned based on the national popular vote jumps to 283.
That all depends on whether Democrats in these states think that the compact is a priority. Democrats in Michigan failed to pass the compact when they held a trifecta from 2023 to 2024, and Nevada's Democratic governor vetoed the compact in 2019, saying that it would hurt the state's role in presidential elections.
There are also potential constitutional issues. In Article 2, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3, the Constitution says that states can appoint electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." But in Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3, it also prohibits interstate compacts without the consent of Congress.
The Democratic takeover of Congress would seemingly make this moot, and in theory, if the compact comes to a vote in the House and Senate, it wouldn't even need the president's signature. But Democrats still don't have a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes in the Senate, and with their dwindling national popularity, Republicans would undoubtedly try to block nullifying the Electoral College. After all, four of the five presidents who have won the presidency while losing the popular vote were Republicans, including President Donald Trump in 2016.
Trolling, taunting, spamming, and off topic comments may be removed at the discretion of group mods. NT members that are known plagiarists, repeat comments, or continue to disrupt/deflect the conversation risk having all of their comments deleted. Please remember to quote the person(s) to whom you are replying to preserve continuity of this seed. Any use of the phrase "Trump Derangement Syndrome" or the TDS acronym in a comment will be deleted. Any use of the term "Brandon", "Traitor Joe", or any variations thereof, when referring to President Biden, will be deleted. Right wing trolls can expect to have their irrelevant questions and comments deleted. Posting debunked lies will be subject to deletion. Use of the terms "leftist" or "lefty" will also be subject to deletion. ©
Tags
Who is online
86 visitors
wooden stake or silver bullet, if the NPVIC is used next year, combined with the repeal of citizens united, the end of republican oligarchy ...
Eliminating the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment requires approval from 38 states, meaning at least 38 governors would need to sign ratification bills.
Detailed Explanation
Constitutional Amendment Route
To formally abolish the Electoral College, the U.S. Constitution must be amended. Under Article V, an amendment must be:
Because state ratification typically requires gubernatorial approval (depending on state procedures), this implies at least 38 governors would need to support and sign the ratification measures.
Why This Threshold Matters
Workaround: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC)
If the goal is to effectively eliminate the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment, governors play a different role.
Joining the compact requires state legislative approval and usually gubernatorial signature, but there is no fixed number of governors required—only enough states to reach 270 electoral votes .
Summary
The constitutional amendment route sets the definitive threshold: 38 governors .
It will never happen but the idea of "one person one vote" is appealing. The repubs would never win another election, that's for sure.
They think the ballots should be weighted by additional factors:
+1 if you're white
+1 if you're Christian
+1 if you're conservative
+1 if you were born in and grew up in a former confederate State
+1 if you're cis/straight
+1 if you like country music
That's how many on the right think the weight of their votes should be, that only those they deem "American" enough, who look like them, think like them, pray like them, love like them, should get to have a say in America. They just rarely admit it because doing so means admitting they're not really Americans at all, they're rightwing Anglo Christo-fascist traitors trying to take over our constitutional Republic and replace it like their ancestors tried to do 166 years ago.
Add:
+1 If you're male
+1 If you have children, unless match all of the other qualifications. Then it's OK.
we ended up with the 2A because goobers were so afraid of the slaves they abused and that had escaped were coming back to justifiably kill them ...
And right now, the electoral college gives their vote essentially a 4 to 1 advantage.
Perhaps those in the low population red States think their votes should weigh as much as they do. Looks like the bible belt had to undo its buckle.
it needs to happen, or we'll keep fighting the collateral damage from the civil war for another 100 years ...
I'm not sure about eliminating the electoral college without a constitutional amendment. It sounds like a mess in the making.
It would be a mistake to piss off the people who grow our food. The same people who would be most affected by the loss of the electoral college.
winner take all states have hamstrung the concept and function of the electoral college. it needs to be modernized or eliminated ...
besides, there probably won't be that many family farms left in a couple years, thanks to trump ...
Exactly! It has taken all the granularity out of it, and made it a popularity contest instead tilted toward one of the two major parties. The electoral college was originally never meant to become a winner take all situation in nearly every state. That developed over many decades primarily due to partisan pressures of the two party system. Maine and Nebraska allocate their electoral votes using a congressional district method, which I think is closer to what the original concept of the electoral college was meant to be.
If we could return to that congressional district concept in every state and not a winner take all scenario, I think it would be far superior to a National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The latter sounds like an expansion of winner take all on steroids by having States "assign their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote". How is that any better than the current system as far having people and their votes better represented in a more granular or localized level?
Which would you prefer?
those answers are in the text and the video ...
it's time to rid america of the dated cut-outs and compromises that were enacted to placate racist scum to keep them in the union.
This seed is not about eliminating the electoral college, it's about changing how states who have signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact changing how they allocate their electoral college votes. Most states allocate based on which presidential candidate has won the vote in that state, this change would have those states award their votes based on which candidate won the most votes nationally. It's a simple end-around to avoid losing an election even thought their candidate won the popular vote.
I would expect numerous court challenges to this if they actually attempt it. It's also IMO as long-lasting as human nature makes it. All it would take would be one state in that compact to decide it didn't like the winner of the popular vote and decide they were not going to play along. And as states can change their political party alignment at each election cycle, how long this compact would survive is the question.
that is basically the kind of thing i was alluding to
it stays enacted until republicans have enough state governors/electoral votes to overturn it ...
winning the popular vote is the will of the majority ...
Also known as mob rule.
The federal government already has a group set up to act for the majority, it's the House of Representatives which holds members based on the population of each state. If members of the House actually vote according to the wishes of their respective voters then they are already providing the will of the majority.
The Senate was set up to acknowledge states rights and to insure that "fly-over" states are not completely ignored.
The President is a separate co-equal branch of the federal government. The President is there to represent ALL the people, not just the majority of them.
The political parties and partisan politics have screwed up the federal government enough, I don't believe we really need to expand that to the Oval Office.
But there is a process to amend the Constitution and eliminate the Electoral College, you can always reach out to your congressperson to get the process started.
And for the record, I don't think getting rid of the Electoral College is the correct approach.
... like we've experienced in the last 22 months?
... looks like the house misinterpreted the will of the majority last tuesday.
... seems they also failed and suffered the consequences of their actions last tuesday.
... care to identify where the current president has fulfilled that in the last 22 months?
... that train left the station in trumps last term.
it's antiquated and defective. it was a solution based upon a mostly rural population, without the luxury of modern and instant communications, and a handicapped subsidy for slave states that wanted the benefit of a population that warranted more representation in congress, without freeing a large part of that population from slavery. the electoral college was designed to be in sync with the popular vote. that advent of winner take all EC votes legislation enacted in some states has disabled that. it deserves to be debated, and fixed or eliminated ...
By your logic every vote for everything other than the vote for POTUS, including votes for leaders of all other countries, is “mob rule”.
And we were discussing the popular vote but you need to pivot in this direction because you don't have a valid response.
... and here I thought you were becoming almost cordial. meh, I'm ready to revert back to our status quo whenever you are ...
To me, a reasonable system is to keep the basic structure of the EC but modernize it:
No human electors are needed. Let each district decide where its single electoral vote goes. This turns into a tally based on normal election results.
The two state electoral votes go to the candidate with the most votes state-wide.
Done.
This would be trivial to implement and would make votes much more representative than the winner-take-all approach in 48 of the 50 states.
We will almost certainly NOT be able to get a constitutional amendment to do this, but IMO we should.
After a short but meaningful conversation with chatGPT:
Which the Founding Fathers did not trust.
Voting was limited to land owning (white) males.
They feared the will of the people as much as they feared British interference.
they feared the undiscovered loyalists to the crown that still remained in the US. democrats will face the same problem in '29 when the maga scum will need to be exorcised from the federal gov't ...
The Electoral College is NOT the problem. The real problem has been vesting much too much power in the Presidency. The true original purpose of the Electoral College was to make Congress the most powerful branch of government.
Making the Presidency an all powerful position filled by popular vote will only make matters worse. If you think Trump is bad just wait till a popularly elected President begins using their 'mandate' to bypass Congress and the courts. The popular vote will become a cudgel used against the legislature and judiciary. And kiss goodbye to any sort of 'states rights'.
And that has come about how? By a battle of one-upmanship between two parties in which we have vested WAY too much power, IMHO. Each administration trying to grab more power that favors or benefits their party, rather than working for those who they convinced to elect them, and certainly instead of working for those who voted against them.
Quite possibly, especially if the partisan power grab mentality continues to trump (no pun intended) the actual will of the people.
The Electoral College was devised as a preferred method of electing the Executive in such a way as to not overpower an elected Congress and the Federalism that formed the basis of States rights. From that standpoint many framers distrusted a pure democracy in electing the President, fearing that an uninformed public could be easily swayed by populist demagogues. Many folks here have insisted that Trump and his MAGA followers serve as a prime example of that sort of sway, but yet in this discussion discount that fear as baseless. I think it is still a concern that should be considered.
The only issue I have with the Electoral College is the partisan decline over the decades into a winner take all situation in all but 2 of the states. Maine and Nebraska still allocate their electoral votes using a congressional district method, which I really think would work well across the board as long as we clamp down on the partisan power grabbers who feel that gerrymandering to gain/maintain party power is consistent with free and fair elections. That is just another problem rooted in the two-party battle for power being held to a higher priority than the job of representing the people, IMHO.
Already happening.
Then why make it a permanent part of government by eliminating the Electoral College?
A rogue PotuS with too much power is an entirely separate notion from the electoral college.
Trump was elected (twice) with the existing Electoral College. So clearly the EC did not prevent this.
And, if you recall, if a popular vote were in place (which I have not recommended; see @4.1.5), Trump would NOT have been elected in 2016.
I find it incredibly amusing when defeated trumpsters are now claiming that america could get so much worse than it is now, because of the midterm election results. of course they're probably right, but only about how much worse it will get for his gullible and delusional sycophants, but it's probably going to get real bad for trump's billionaire pals ...
Why institutionalize Trump? Trump is rogue because he behaves like a popularly elected President with authority to impose a mandate on the country.
That's like looking for lost keys under the street lamp because the light is better. The popular vote under the Electoral College doesn't directly translate to the same outcome under different election rules. If 2016 had been a popular-vote election then their might have been spoiler candidates on the ballot. Remember that Bernie Sanders was quite popular with Democrats at the time. There's no guarantee that Hillary Clinton would have won a popular-vote Presidential election.
Trump received only 45% of the vote during the 2016 Republican primaries. The 3 other candidates divided the majority of the vote. If Rubio and Kasich had dropped out, everyone could be complaining about a President Ted Cruz.
Trump was an unmitigated disaster for the Republican Party IMHO. His nomination in 2016 caused me to part ways with the party and finally realize what a disaster the two party system has become for the Country. Only a concerted effort to break that two party stranglehold, and elect candidates who's primary goal is to represent the people and not the party can save us now in my opinion.
Trump was a disaster not just because he is temperamentally and emotionally unfit for such an important leadership position, but because that sort of temperament leads to the inability to think clearly and be rational and reasonable about debate, negotiation, and policy-making. And that shit is contagious, even among his most vehement opponents!
The party needed to reject the extremes and present a calm, well reasoned and rational alternative, and instead it doubled down on crazy for the last 10 years. Maybe it can recover after Trump leaves office but between him and those who hate him in the other party, the trenches have been dug deep. It won't be easy to dig our way out, but it has to be done!
Thinking that my proposal @4.1.5 institutionalizes Trump is so bizarre, I have no idea what to say to you.
No, Nerm, it is a fact. Trump did NOT win the popular vote in 2016. If we had a popular vote in place for the PotUS (albeit I do not support this), then Trump would NOT have been elected PotUS in 2016.
I didn't vote for Trump in 2016. My opinion at the time was the Republican Party needed a good groin kick. But Trump gave me the impression he was too rich, too elite, and too TEA Party to lead Republicans toward a different course. Trump's 1st term was NOT an unmitigated disaster which surprised me.
Trump is no different than anyone else from the elite class. Trump's personality isn't that different from Anthony Fauci's personality. Or Barack Obama's personality, for that matter. Why the MAGA grassroots base thought a penthouse billionaire from New York would represent their concerns and political expectations baffled me then. But not now. Trump is TEA Party and so is his base. The MAGA movement really doesn't have that much in common with Jesse Ventura.
No. Flat no. The party needed to return to its progressive roots. The calm, well reasoned, rational neoliberal Republican alternative has robbed the country of its industrial heritage. It's not possible for people to 'pick themselves up by their bootstraps' in a country that has dedicated itself to financial scams, flimflams, and outright theft to make the rich richer. The party of Reagan had to die before it destroyed all hope in the country.
Trump did not win the popular vote under the Electoral College system of electing Presidents. And that's as far as that factoid can travel.
You are trying to redefine the term 'popular vote'! The term 'popular vote' has a very well-established meaning.
Where did I redefine the term 'popular vote'? Is my statement ("Trump did not win the popular vote under the Electoral College system of electing Presidents") inaccurate?
I'm not the one trying to warp reality to fit a subjective bias.
keep moving if you want an argument about semantics, it won't be happening on my article ...
How do you figure that? He blasted the norms and decorum of what a president was to hell.
I see Trump's first term as a lesser evil, but an evil all the same. His continual calling out of the mass media as "fake news" when they were presenting the factual information of what had occurred was just the start. It started from the beginning and got worse from there.
Trump's second term passes from disastrous to the realm of treasonous. I have never seen a President bow to the Russians, North Korea, China.... He is like an inferior Mob Boss meeting with the Big Cahone.. Look at what he says about Iran: If they had a nuke, I'd be soooo lovey-dovey. What a joke of a president we have.
Let's just throw words together and stick them to whatever.
Popular vote means people voting for a candidate. Electoral college means the aggregated districts voting for the candidate. There is a difference. Your statement, while not inaccurate, is incorrect for the popular vote.
You speak of the popular vote "under the Electoral College system". There is no popular vote under the EC. These are two distinct systems.
I stated, factually, that Trump would not have been elected PotUS in 2016 if we were operating under the popular vote. I do not buy that you did not understand that, especially when your retort speaks of a "popular vote under the Electoral College system". There is no such thing.
Stop playing games.
But he is different in that he wears his disdain for others and overblown ego on his sleeve. A non-starter for a job that requires decorum and at least the appearance of one who cares about the development of mutually beneficial relationships and benevolent leadership. One could argue that this is better than hiding one's true nature and also being a terrible leader or hypocrite favoring disastrously self-serving policy. But in the end it is all just terrible leadership, which is the primary problem we need to resolve.
Indeed, and both the major parties in recent decades have demonstrated their own brand of scams, flimflams, and fraud, and have largely shielded themselves (and each other) from the consequences. It is high time we be honest about that, and do what we can to put an end to that charade.
I don't mean to butt in here TiG, and I might be wrong, but I interpreted Nerm's comment to mean that had that election been strictly run as a popular vote election, and not as one subject to the current EC rules, the entire process may have been different, and potentially the result as well. For one thing the campaign strategies would have been completely different in terms of where the candidates campaigned and the markets they targeted. That alone could have changed the popular vote final tally.
So while they still track the popular vote under the EC system, that popular vote could have been different had the EC not been the system in place that everyone knows finally dictates the outcome. Does that make sense?
You mean Trump was unconventional? Or is the complaint that Trump was not a predictable Reagan Republican? Much of the complaint about Trump's 1st term seems to be about upsetting the status quo of globalization and an overhyped liberal world order established to make the rich richer.
Yeah, Trump has gone TEA Party. The TEA Party has always been a petulant, lazy caricature of Reagan Republicans. During Trump's 2nd term, Reagan has returned to the Oval Office is grand style.
I did NOT just throw words together. I pointed out that Clinton winning the popular vote under the Electoral College system cannot be extrapolated to winning the popular vote under a Direct Election system.
The Electoral College system of election is not the same thing as a Direct Election. In 2016 the primaries of both parties followed an Electoral vote system to nominate party candidates. Clinton won the nomination by capturing delegates -- not by a direct popular vote. That same is true of Trump. If 2016 had been a Direct Election determined by popular vote, we can't be certain who the nominees would have been or who would have been on the ballot during the general election. Direct Elections by popular vote for other offices (like Senator) seems to attract more independent, third party, and spoiler candidates for the general election.
If there is no popular vote under the EC then explain why you brought it up? You made the claim that Trump would not have become POTUS under a Direct Election determined by the popular vote. How do you know that?
Direct Elections determined by popular vote seem to attract more independent, third party, and spoiler candidates. Trump could have run shadow candidates in 2016 to split the Democratic vote and still have become POTUS. You can't take a data point from one system and extrapolate to a completely different system. That's not how it works.
You mean Trump is a lot like Michael Bloomberg? The expectation for decorum and appearances seems to suggest that a qualification for the Presidency is membership in the political class. (I remember Lyndon Johnson who would fail the modern 'decorum and appearances' test.)
Both parties embraced neoliberalism, public/private partnerships, globalization, free trade, and a liberal world order that made the US responsible for the costs and sacrifices to make world peace possible. Both parties had dedicated themselves to making the rich richer. Both parties serve a donor base rather than a voter base.
Neither party was interested in rehabilitating and revitalizing the industrial might of the United States. Until Trump came along. Of course Trump, being a member of the petulant entitled elite, doesn't really know what the hell he is doing. We've seen that in finance, business, science, education, law, and the arts. The elites run the country on correlations and ROI. That giant mass of elitist-slop is why we see so much AI-slop. It's a case of Slop-in, Slop-out.
Of course, if the rules were different, the outcome could have been different.
I made a crystal clear statement of fact and get this:
-and-
What?? I interpret that as playing games, and the following responses furthered that perception.
The fact is that more people wanted Clinton (yukk) than Trump (egad) in 2016. The voters could have been influenced by the different rules, and it is also true that Clinton could have won the popular even under different rules.
Now look at the context; this is the actual point I made @5.2.2:
To wit, the EC does not protect us from electing a scumbag. Not only did the EC NOT prevent a rogue PotUS from being elected; the popular vote in this case went the other way. Thus suggesting that there was a real chance that a popular vote would have prevented the Trump era. (And I am NOT arguing for a popular vote, my proposal is @4.1.5)
But that does not mean it could not happen either. The point was NOT that the popular vote under different circumstances would have prevented Trump, it was emphasizing the notion that the EC failed but, hey, look at the popular vote. Not only was it close enough to see how it could have prevented Trump under a popular vote system, the actual popular vote in that election did go to Clinton. To wit, there is a very good chance that if a popular vote system had been in place that we would have never seen Trump.
Further, and importantly, that focuses on a side comment (observation of the popular vote in 2016) and ignores the actual point made (EC system did not prevent Trump from winning in 2016).
Could happen is very different than an assertion of a certain outcome. There could have been a series of major earthquakes that devastated California in which case Clinton might not have received the most votes.
Possibilities always out number the probabilities.
How did the EC fail? Are you suggesting the EC system is rigged? Perhaps the EC system allows election fraud? If the EC system is that flawed then how can the Presidencies of Obama and Biden be legitimate?
Claiming that the EC system works when a preferred candidate wins but the EC system is flawed when a disliked candidate wins doesn't form the basis of a sound, objective argument. Partisan bellyaching does not an argument make.
Why should the EC system prevent a candidate from winning? I viewed Clinton and Trump as equally flawed in 2016. The EC system would not have prevented a rogue President. Using your logic, a Direct Election decided by popular vote in 2016 would not have prevented a rogue President, either. There were two rogue candidates competing with each other to be the most obnoxious toward the opposing side. 2016 was not a forward looking, feel-good, aspirational election. We had two candidates promising to dominate and crush the other side.
When our political parties nominate disastrous candidates then we'll get a disastrous President. Trying to manipulate vote counting won't overcome the failures of a political system controlled by the wealthy, entitled elite.
Yeah, no kidding. I never even hinted at certainty. You keep dwelling on a passing note, not the point, but just a note that Trump did not win the 2016 popular. The point, Nerm, is that the EC did not prevent electing a rogue PotUS.
Your posts are now obnoxious. Go play strawman games with someone else.
Well at least we can agree on that. I don’t see how Trump did anything but make that scenario even worse. Do you agree that we should be seeking leaders who will reverse those trends rather than doubling down on them?
I agree Donald Trump is a sorry excuse for a human being. I agree that Trump hasn't a clue about how to effectively utilize power. I agree that Trump is more corrupt than most past Presidents.
But Trump has changed the direction of governmental policy in a good way. Recognizing that Trump's ineptness has resulted in a ham-fisted implementation of policy doesn't change the fact that the direction of that policy is still an improvement.
name one more corrupt than Trump and we can look into it.
Andrew Jackson. Andrew Johnson. And while Ulysses S. Grant wasn't considered to be personally corrupt, his administration was one of the most corrupt. Warren G. Harding's administration was also considered to be corrupt because of the Teapot Dome scandal.
copilot
Core Argument: Unprecedented Personal Enrichment
Pay‑to‑Play Systems
Use of Presidential Powers for Private Benefit
Machine‑Style Loyalty Networks
Why Critics Call It “Most Corrupt”
Not even remotely close to the level of corruption by Trump.
OK.
Allright. I can accept your explanation. However, while it might not be prudent to assume that every instance of the campaigns would be the same in a popular vote election, there is no question that the 2016 election had Mrs. Clinton with more votes than Mr. Trump. So no matter how many hypothetical situations you throw together to say that the outcome may have been different, the fact remains that Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote and lost due to the electoral college. The millions of voters who were disenfranchised in 2016 are why we need to reform the Electoral College.
I consider the EC to have two fundamental problems:
Its strength is that it mirrors Congress's representation: one rep per district and two senators per state.
I have not contested that Hillary Clinton received more votes in the 2016 election. But using that factoid to claim Clinton would have won a Direct Election based on popular vote is misleading. Using that misleading claim to do away with the Electoral College would very likely result in unintended consequences that would be irrevocable.
No one was disenfranchised for the 2016 election. That misleading claim only creates more doubts about down-ballot elections.
How would a Direct Election to select a President by popular vote address the issue of a 'rogue' President? Does the popular vote take authority away from the President - or - vest more authority in the President? How would a popular vote election strengthen Congressional oversight of the Presidency?
Likely MIGHT have, not WOULD have.
The fact that she won the popular vote suggests she might have won it under any system. Since we have no other facts other than votes cast by individuals, if one were to bet, the logical bet would be for Clinton to win.
Regardless, this NEVER was the point I made. The point was that the EC clearly does NOT prevent the electorate from putting an abysmal candidate in the White House. So clinging to this old system based on one of its key original intents is faulty thinking.
It would seem like changing the rules after a game has been played and coming to the conclusion the score would have been the same playing the game by the new rules.
.
heaven forbid the democrats encroach upon the previously well established post political territory of maga republicans ...
Depends on what policies you are talking about I suppose. I know this will likely open a can of worms, but which policies, specifically, in your mind have resulted in improvement?
Clinton likely MIGHT have won the Electoral College votes if she had run a better campaign. If Bernie Sanders could force concessions on the Democratic platform then Clinton really wasn't that strong a candidate.
Direct Elections by popular vote won't prevent abysmal candidates winning elections, either. George Santos was elected by popular vote. John Fetterman was elected by popular vote and he's gone rogue.
The general election is too late in the process to try to prevent abysmal candidates being elected. The abysmal candidates are given a platform and chance at the White House through the party primary elections. Winning a primary election requires a different campaign than the general election. The problems begin with the primaries and how the two parties use the primary elections to lock out independent and third party competition. Clearly the party primary elections are the source of abysmal candidates.
Clearly given she lost to Trump.
And I never suggested otherwise, Nerm!
Which is why I have stated that the primary system being controlled by the parties limits the choices for the electorate. We can only choose from the candidates that, for the most part, are loyal to the party and are electable, when what we want are candidates loyal to their constituents.
There has to be a better system than the EC. But I think the whole election process needs to be redone. Not sure one person - one vote will work.
Take the money out of campaigns - stop paying elected officials (give them a stipend for housing & food while in the capital - the rest of it on them). Elected officials should not come out more wealthy than they went in - it is called "public service". If they need to be paid - pay them like we pay our noncoms. No healthcare for life, no immunity for crimes.
This is my opinion - ridicule by people who think that taking out the EC will produce a President that overstep their powers while supporting a President that overstepped his power numerous times will never change my mind.