Right Wingers, is there ANY level of popular vote/Electoral College disparity that would make you call for abolishing the EC?

Wasn't actually the question. Having a tough time reading questions at this hour? This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at November 25, 2016 2:51 AM MST

nah,making stuff up

but u know its all about wtf happened ?

The question might be inspired by what happened, doesn't make your initial reply any more right, or to the point of what actually was asked for. 

@JR -- Americans often sneer at elections in other countries where Dearest Leader wins "reelection" with 85% of the votes cast. We question whether such allegedly democratic processes are truly democratic, and those doubts are often justified.

But the scenarios I've outlined are similar. Our current President-elect was elected by a MINORITY OF THE VOTERS. In NO OTHER ELECTION in the US would such a result be allowed to stand (based on the "one person, one vote" principle). How is that legitimately democratic?

@Glis -- You misunderstood the question, although I think the Electoral College is fundamentally a right-wing concept ("The people cannot be trusted with the vote. We need Special People to intercede between their wishes and actual governance").

I agree there must be mechanisms to prevent tyranny of the majority. The argument the EC is such a mechanism falls apart because WE DO NOT PERMIT similar mechanisms at ANY OTHER LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT. Unless you present a compelling reason why the presidential election is different from all other elected offices, you are committing the logical fallacy of Special Pleading.

The US had a popular vote/EC vote split three times prior to 2016. We survived it. But I don't think you can argue ANY election where one candidate wins 70,000,000 to 40, and the candidate with 40 votes wins the office is fundamentally fair or democratic. So the question stands: at what point does the distorting effect of the EC fundamentally undermine the legitimacy of the election?

That doesn't make it right wing.   The left can be equally undemocratic and authoritarian as the right.   Not all concepts are left wing or right wing binary ideas.  the EC is based on the original idea that we are a nation made up of independent states and one state doesn't have any authority over the other.  it was designed so no state could reign over another.  it's intention was to keep each state equal and independent on some level.  The Founding Fathers didn't even really expect people to be too concerned with voting for President in all reality and for a long part of our history it was that way.
The fact it doesn't exist in other elected positions doesn't make it a logical fallacy at all.  It's a means of checks and balances for the position.  What makes that position different is that it is a one person position.  Our Congress has it's own checks and balances by having it's powers divided between two houses.   The Senate to give equal voice to each state and the House to give voice to the majority of the population.   Since the President is one man there needed to be a system of balance.  There is no logical fallacy since the positions aren't relative to each other and it's comparing apples and oranges.  States' government doesn't apply since they are independent states who are free to choose their own forms of internal governing.  The fact that the President is one man leading a whole branch of Federal government is the compelling reason not to allow a purely democratic election of the position.   The other branches have more than one voice to argue since they are made up of more than one person.


Your hypothetical scenario is so unlikely it is for all practical purposes impossible. Especially when factored in with certain states rules for their EC.

@Glis -- You raise some good points (which, unfortunately, only lead to broader questions that I don't necessarily want to address here).

I will correct you on one point: States ARE NOT allowed to choose their own forms of internal governing. There is NO state in the USA which has a geography-based (as opposed to a population-based) legislative branch analagous to the US Senate. There is NO state election that is decided by anything but the "one person, one vote" principle. The SCOTUS has been very consistent on this principle for many decades.

Meanwhile, I note that you still have not answered the fundamental question. I concede a 70,000,000 to 40 result is almost impossible. But many skewed results which are less dramatic ARE possible. WHAT is your threshold? If Trump lost the popular vote 70 million to 60 million, is he still legitimate? How about 70 million to 50 million? How about 70 million to 40 million? At what point does the EC "break" and become unjustly undemocratic. If you can't pick a number then, in principle, you are saying 70 million to 40 is still OK.

Yes the States do write their own Constitutions and decide on their own internal government.  That's why each State's government is different.   So there elections are moot to the question of the EC.


Please SKOS, don't put words in my mouth as you know clearly I'm not saying it would be okay if 70mil. to 40, as I said it's not really possible.    I agree with your premise that it isn't perfect ( the original framers even knew their systems weren't perfect and gave mechanisms to change them in the future) but pure democracy would be worse and lead to tyranny and bedlam much more quickly and result in greater oppression.  Democracy needs bounds or the majority becomes totalitarian and one party arises.

@Glis -- Once again, you misunderstood what I said and/or missed the point.

Let me say it again: While states can choose the practical structure of their governments, such as the size of their legislatures, unicameral versus bicameral, how often they meet, and so forth, they CANNOT VIOLATE  THE ONE PERSON ONE VOTE RULE.

There is NO state legislature which has a body where elected official are chose one per county or subdistrict...unless those subdistricts have effectively EQUAL population. One person, one vote.

There is NO state where the state governor is elected by a slate of electors wherein rural districts of the state have disproportional influence relative to urban ones. One person, one vote.

The ONLY exceptions to the principle are the US Senate and the Electoral College (because they'd require a Constitutional Amendment to modify, not just a court decree).

So, yes, we could eliminate the Electoral College and substitute something else if there was enough popular support. Right now, I believe because it tends to favor the interests of the political right (e.g. Trump is President though he lost by 2,000,000+ votes), there is no broad-based consensus the EC should be replaced. Hence, my question: at what point would right-wingers put aside their partisan interests and say "No, Trump winning despite losing by [X million popular votes] is fundamentally unfair."

That's why I'm trying to pin people down (including you). What's YOUR NUMBER? At what point does the distortion effect become unfair?

Well for any winger ( left or right ) the number would depend on how it favors them.   Take this election for instance,   the numbers is whatever the difference is between Hillary and Trump.  the sides would be reversed if it was the other way around.

As for me,  I don't know what the number would be until it happens and even still there would have to be a better solution on the table first.

Again, States' rule doesn't apply or have any bearing when discussing Federal government.  They are separate.  Just as local government elections have no bearing on the argument.  In fact my home state (NYS) is  a perfect example of the problem of a purely democratic leader election since it's why NYC gets to push the rest of the state around. In NYS you don't get heard if Downstate doesn't agree with ya' and their interest are mostly opposite what's good for the rest of us here.


( 17th Amendment BTW)

Your argument seems to be "Vote fraud is rampant, but Trump won anyway!" Given essentially the same number of people voted for Trump as voted for Romney in 2012, how was the fraud machine of TEH STOOPID EBIL LIBRUHL COMMIE DEMOCRAPS able to "engineer" an Obama victory in 2012, but not engineer a Clinton victory in 2016?

As for the rest of your post, it was incoherent sloganeering, so I really don't have a reply. This post was edited by Just Asking at November 25, 2016 8:05 PM MST

I never said Obama's victory was rigged. Obama is man of great charisma who generated a real following. Besides Romney is an establishment RINO anyway so the establishment probably didn't care who won. They only need to rig elections when there is risk of a establishment outsider f***ing up the agenda. 

Hillary is a **** and hardly anyone has any enthusiasm for her. She fought a purely negative campaign based on smear attacks.

Rigging an election is not an easy thing to do. They can only push it a few points. They can't guarantee victory. They can't beat a landslide in the critical swing states. This post was edited by Zeitgeist at November 25, 2016 3:36 PM MST

In other words, you've got nothing.

Somehow, the VAST STOOPID EBIL LIBRUHL COMMIE DEMOCRAP vote-stealing machine both rose from whole cloth in the last 4 years and somehow couldn't move less than 400,000 votes (out of 125 million cast) in certain key states to reverse the EC outcome.



This post was edited by Just Asking at November 25, 2016 8:06 PM MST

Of course there are limits to how far they can push it! For example in a particular swing the state they might have needed to push it 11 points but could only push it 10. So they lost by 1 point. 

It's not that they couldn't push it 1 point. It's that they couldn't push it 11 points! 

It's not about the number of votes. It's about percentages. They can't have exit poll data be too far different from the results etc etc. They don't have enough operatives to have their people everywhere. They have to rig certain key areas and hope that's enough. 

VoteFraud.org is taking legal action and more detailed information will be released soon.


This post was edited by Just Asking at November 25, 2016 8:07 PM MST

Old School, tell JA to PB him.  LOL

That's an amusing theory you have there. Somehow, fixing millions of votes went undetected (except by Intrepid Internet Warriors), but fixing an additional 400,000 spread over 3-5 states would have raised the alarm and given up the game. In other words, the Conspiracy was ***just*** incompetent enough to produce your ideologically-preferrred outcome. Funny how that worked out....;-D...

But, I suppose if you believe in a "Trump landslide" (for which there is no evidence, as I noted previously, he received about the same number of votes as Romney in 2012), you can fantasize just about anything else.

As for the VoteFraud.org "legal action", I wish them luck. No, really, I do!

If, on the one hand, they show genuine evidence of voter fraud, I would welcome it. I hope such evidence leads to a genuine national discussion about how to create uniform secure voting procedures. I don't THINK this will happen, but if it does, I welcome it.

On the other hand, if they get into court and have their asses handed to them the way the Birthers did back in the early Obama administration, it will make them look really stupid, and I hope that stupidity gets MASSIVE media coverage.

This post was edited by Just Asking at November 25, 2016 8:09 PM MST

As you might expect, there is no evidence to be found for the claim that 3 millions "illegals" voted.

The "dead" voters thing has been shouted from many rooftops, but I've yet to see any evidence of any substantial number of fraudulent votes being cast in this way.