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Donald Trump has received more votes than Obama did in 2008, the largest number any candidate had received until now. Republicans are perfectly capable of winning the popular vote and the Electoral College artificially creates close races. https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1324725681155166209
Artificially close races:
-Incentivize voter suppression because after 2000 it was clear that a few hundred votes fewer in the right places could swing a whole presidential election
-Call results into question as margins fall below basic human margins of error.
-Incentivize voter suppression because after 2000 it was clear that a few hundred votes fewer in the right places could swing a whole presidential election
-Call results into question as margins fall below basic human margins of error.
Meanwhile, whatever the percentage differences, the popular vote is likely to have margins of over a million, or more; this increases confidence in the results.
Basically no one ever tried to defend the EC on its merits through its long history, until the 2000 election. It persisted because it was hard to get all the way to the supermajority necessary to agree on what to replace it *with*. The embrace of it by R's post-2000 is toxic.
Even if we kept the electoral votes, we could:
-Got rid of electors and state discretion in how they are selected in favor of distributing EVs by district
-Allowed victory w/a plurality of EVs (so no going to the House) or went to runoff instead of going to the House
-Got rid of electors and state discretion in how they are selected in favor of distributing EVs by district
-Allowed victory w/a plurality of EVs (so no going to the House) or went to runoff instead of going to the House
(Alternatively, you could do instant runoff/ranked choice to avoid the cost and low turnout associated with runoff voting)
These changes would get rid of most of what's dysfunctional about the EC. Would I prefer a direct national popular vote? Of course I would. But seems to me there's room to negotiate that would lead to major improvements.
