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[brianstl]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

we in southern illinois already feel the complete state control of chicago.   and deleting the electoral college would only take that to the next level as well.

I got to disagree with you a bit Roy.  Southern Illinois is an example of the tyranny of the majority really hurting the minority, but I don't include the St. Louis area of IL in the part of the state that is really paying the price.  Also, both political parties are to blame for what has and is happening to Southern IL.  You get 50 miles south/southeast  of the St Louis Metro in IL and it is just sad what condition that place is in.  Cairo is one of the most depressing places in this country.  Both political parties in IL for years have neglected Southern IL outside of the St. Louis region.  One huge example is SIUC.  SIUC should be an economic and cultural engine for that part of the state.  It should be used to have a similar impact to what MO St and SEMO have had on their regions, but scarce funding and other resources for the school have been diverted to Edwardsville over the decades.  SIUE has seen booming enrollment while SIUC has shed a third of it's enrollment.  

[Zink]

52 minutes ago, slufan13 said:

I could google this but is there any research out there on how elections would have been impacted if every state split their electoral votes and actually cast their vote based on the results of their district?

Here’s an article published in Time that hits three “myths” (I’m personally not a fan of the slightly combative nature of that word in the title) about arguments for keeping the electoral college: http://time.com/4571626/electoral-college-wrong-arguments/

One of the frequent complaints in this thread centers around “Myth 2” in the article, namely that you could exclusively campaign in the 10/20/30 whatever biggest cities and win a popular vote... presidential candidates already nearly exclusively focus their campaign events in swing states. And within these states, they pretty much only ever go to the largest cities! Do Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, and Miami deserve more attention than St. Louis, Chicago, Houston, and New Orleans? Also, the current system still fails to get candidates to visit small cities and truly rural voters, except for odd photo opp!

 

Also, see this article from NPR (argue with their math, not the source): https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-presidency-with-27-percent-of-the-popular-vote

A presidential candidate could win 51% of the vote in as few as 11 states and become president while not receiving a single vote anywhere else in the country. If that sounds ridiculous, here’s a list of 14 states that a candidate could win and become president without campaigning in a single other state: California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Minnesota. 

Note that this combination requires a candidate to only ever visit the coasts and a few states in the Great Lakes, and is actually a fairly plausible map for a current democratic candidate. How is this better than having a candidate only go to the 14 biggest cities? And in the popular vote case, at least they’d need to be sure of getting closer to 90% of the vote to make such a strategy viable. In the NPR article, they also describe a scenario in which a president could be elected with 23% of the popular vote by exclusively winning small states by a one-vote margin. 

So, even when looking only at the ways the electoral college incentivizes candidates to spend their time focused on the needs of rural vs urban, or coastal vs heartland voters, we see that the current system doesn’t actually force candidates to care more about denizens of non-urban centers. Candidates can always focus on one kind of voter to the exclusion of others, and the math of the electoral college suggests that they should probably aim even narrower than they already do in order to increase their likelihood of winning within the current system. A truly representative election would at least shift the calculus away from an emphasis on the two biggest cities in each of the small handful of swing states and back in favor of Joe Public.

TL;DR - The electoral college offers candidates at least as many ways to exclude cities/citizens/states as a nationwide popular vote. 

 

Edit: Didn’t even get to the reason I replied to you (slufan13), as this became a novel just replying to the thread in general... Basically, the House districts we would use have been way too gerrymandered to use for such a purpose. 

[Box and Won]

This is the kind of high-quality discussion you'll never find on Tigerboard.

I mean you literally won't be able to find it because that site is such a cluster.

[Bills_06]

4 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

This is the kind of high-quality discussion you'll never find on Tigerboard.

I mean you literally won't be able to find it because that site is such a cluster.

You are correct there.  That site is terrible.  The best use for it would be to put it in a trash can for Knollmeyer to dunk over.  

[Billiken Rich]

4 minutes ago, Bills_06 said:

You are correct there.  That site is terrible.  The best use for it would be to put it in a trash can for Knollmeyer to dunk over.  

Or to light a dumpster fire to provide the light for the gleam in Brett Jolly's eyes as he misses a three, wide left.... 

[Bills_06]

1 hour ago, slufan13 said:

I could google this but is there any research out there on how elections would have been impacted if every state split their electoral votes and actually cast their vote based on the results of their district?

I found this article because I was curious in your post.  It says Bush would've won by more in 2000 when he lost the popular vote.  

https://www.bustle.com/articles/190343-what-is-the-district-plan-this-electoral-college-reform-proposal-is-actually-controversial

[WUH]

1 hour ago, Old guy said:

My apologies to everyone, I knew Hillary had used a word during the campaign that made a lot of people mad. I wrote the  word "undesirable" in my prior posts and this was erroneous. The word she used was "deplorable." Same kind of meaning, wrong word, very sorry my bad, my apologies to everyone.

Basket of deplorables.

Hillary would have won the election had it not been for this one remark.

[Billiken Rich]

4 minutes ago, WUH said:

Basket of deplorables.

Hillary would have won the election had it not been for this one remark.

Or She'd not had her personal email server.....

Or if She'd have stepped foot in Wisconsin or Michigan.....

Or  if She'd had more charisma than a box turtle.....

 

[Slu let the dogs out?]

Anyone remember this video:

 

[billikenfan05]

6 minutes ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

Anyone remember this video:

 

 

[hoppybeer]

12 hours ago, Old guy said:

My dear Lord, how long did it take you to figure this out? How long do you estimate this has been going on? Forever is a close approximation as far as can see. Very insightful on your part to bring this to our attention.

Let me give you another topic both of you should spend some time pondering about: Confusion between morality and effectiveness in office. Jimmy Carter was one of the most moral presidents in US history, he was also a ripping disaster as a president. JFK and Bill Clinton liked their nookie wherever they could get it, but this did not interfere with their actual achievements as presidents. Finally are you aware of this quote from LBJ: "When you got them by the balls, their hearts and minds shall follow." Did that make LBJ a bad president?, think about what he was able to achieve after JFK's assassination. Politics is dirty business, I agree. 

 

Did someone pee in your Ensure last night?

[WUH]

1 hour ago, Billiken Rich said:

Or She'd not had her personal email server.....

Or if She'd have stepped foot in Wisconsin or Michigan.....

Or  if She'd had more charisma than a box turtle.....

 

There are MANY, MANY things that the worst candidate ever to run for the office (arguably) could have done to defeat the worst candidate ever to run for the office (arguably), but arguably that one line made the difference.  Just one line in a speech.

 

[Pistol]

8 minutes ago, WUH said:

There are MANY, MANY things that the worst candidate ever to run for the office (arguably) could have done to defeat the worst candidate ever to run for the office (arguably), but arguably that one line made the difference.  Just one line in a speech.

I mean, there are a lot of other things that happened that could've been "the one thing", as well. Take any one of them out individually and it might've been just enough to hang on to a win. Altogether it was too much.

[ACE]

2 hours ago, Billiken Rich said:

Or She'd not had her personal email server.....

Or if She'd have stepped foot in Wisconsin or Michigan.....

Or  if She'd had more charisma than a box turtle.....

 

All certainly factors, but the biggest tipping point was the Comey letter just days before the election. With that kind of help, not sure why the POTUS now has turned on Comey. 

[billiken_roy]

17 minutes ago, WUH said:

There are MANY, MANY things that the worst candidate ever to run for the office (arguably) could have done to defeat the worst candidate ever to run for the office (arguably), but arguably that one line made the difference.  Just one line in a speech.

 

• Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court

• Stock Market reached an all-time high

• Consumer confidence at 17-year high

• More than 2 million jobs created

• Mortgage applications for new homes rise to a 7-year high

• Unemployment rate at 17-year low

• Signed the Promoting Women In Entrepreneurship Act

• Gutted Obama-era regulations

• Ended war on coal

• Weakened Dodd-Frank regulations

• Promoted buying and hiring American

• Investment from major businesses (FoxConn, Toyota, Ford and others)

• Reduced illegal immigration

• Bids for Border Wall underway

• Fighting back against sanctuary cities

• Created Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office

• Changed rules of engagement against ISIS

• Drafted plans to defeat ISIS

• Worked to reduce F-35 cost

• 5-year lobbying ban

• Sanctioned Iran over missile program

• Responded to Syria's use of chemical weapons

• Introduced tax reform plan

• Renegotiating NAFTA

• Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

• Removed The United States out of The Paris Accord

• Created task force to reduce crime

• DOJ targeting MS-13

• Signed an Executive Order to promote energy independence and economic growth

• Signed Executive Order to protect police officers

• Signed Executive Order to target drug cartels

• Signed Executive Order for religious freedom

• Sending education back to The States

• Fixing the Department of Veterans Affairs

• SCOTUS upheld parts of President Trump's temporary travel ban Executive Order

• Authorized the construction of The Keystone Pipeline

• Created commission on opioid addiction

• Combating human trafficking (both EO and action)

• Rollback of Obama's Cuba policy

• Food Stamp use lowest level in 7 years

• Reduced White House payroll

• Donating Presidential Salary

• Executive Order on Obamacare subsidies

• Would not certify the Iran Nuclear Deal

• Successful trip to Asia

• Signed trade deal with China

• Designated North Korea a terrorist state

• ISIS lost virtually all of its territory

• Recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital

• Passage of Tax Reform Bill

• Signed 130 bills into law

• Made 136 Presidential Proclamations

• Signed 64 Executive Orders

winning big time!     

its a great time for americans, MAGA!

the above list was copied from conservative sean hannity web site.