[EM] The Electoral College could lead to civil war.

[⸘Ŭalabio‽]

	Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2016 02:50:46 -0500
	From: "robert bristow-johnson" <rbj at audioimagination.com>
	To: "EM" <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
	Subject: Re: [EM] The Electoral College could lead to civil war.
	Message-ID:
	<65812a8a83b991cb95d7a36824c8cd4d.squirrel at webmail04.register.com>
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>> 	This time around, the 6 3-electoral-vote states and the District of Columbia were either in-the-bag or out-of-reach, so were all ignored. A little state could be a swing state, but so could a big state.

> 	New Hampshire was a swing state and it had only 4 electoral votes. ?And both major-party presidential candidates spent a lot of time in New Hampshire. ?In fact, Cap'n Combover's final rally was in New Hampshire.

	And so was Florida with 7 times as many Electoral Votes than New Hampshire.  Unless a state is a swing state, it is merely FlyOverCountry.  The population of a state has little to do with whether or not it is a swing state or not.  1 of the selling points of the Electoral College is that it makes Presidential Candidates pay attention to small states.  Sometimes it does, but usually not.  This time around the 6 3-Electoral-Vote States and DC received no attention while the swing states received all of the attention.

>> 	The loser pays 1 thousand registered voters who did not plan to vote 1 thousand dollars to vote for him and confirm the vote by taking a selfy with the completed ballot —— ?this is why BallotSelfies should be illegal, as they are in many places! The Looser now caries California and wins the Electoral College 270 to 268.

>>>> ?The Cheater just used the Electoral College as an huge ForceMultiplier!:

> Only if California is close. ?And it wasn't. ?1000 bought votes won't change much in California.  Now in Florida it *would* have made a difference in the year 2000.  ?but not in 2016.  The candidates (or their surrogates buying votes) just don't know which state will be the closest. ?Even with the help of 538.com .

	This is what is known as a hypothetical situation  We are not currently in a long bloody civil war.  The hypothetical example has precedent:

	the elections of 1888, 1960, 2000, and 2004 were very close in keystates.  It would not have taken much to use the Electoral College as a forceMultiplier and flip these elections by changing mere thousands of votes in a keystate, with an effect which would require the changing of millions of votes, if we would simply use the total of popular votes.

>> 	It would take changing 3 million popular votes under that scenario to achieve the same effect without the Electoral College. ?That is a 3 thousand-to-1 multiplier!

> 	what if the popular vote is very very close, yet the electoral vote is not close and the state popular votes are not close? ?then, all of the problems you claim to be due to the electoral college is visited upon your popular vote. ?and if the popular vote comes out very close (like less than 0.1%), then the recounts have to happen over the whole country, not just in any particular state.

	That could happen, but it is 51 times less likely to happen than if we use the Electoral College:

	Every state has its own race for the plurality-winner.  This increases the odds of a near tie 51 times (the 50 states and the DC).

> 	There is a *very* good reason (that of majority-rule democracy) for ditching the Electoral College (or making it moot with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact), but this "cheater" thing is not the very good reason. ?And that is because it does not specifically apply to the case of electing with electors. ?It **could** apply to the case of electing with the popular vote.  The reason that the Electoral College should be ditched is that Either the E.C. is ineffective (i.e. the E.C. vote agrees with the popular vote), or when the E.C. **is** effective, it **never** brings legitimacy to the election. ?Only assholes are saying now "Thank God for the Electoral College that saved our nation from the decision of the majority of its voters.". ?When the E.C. is effective (i.e. it negates and nullifies the popular vote), it *never* makes the election more legitimate. ?It *always* makes it less legit. ?That's the real reason.

	This is certainly true.  I did not bother to directly state this but implied it with 51% of the popular vote to 48%.