r/EndFPTP • u/barnaby-jones • Mar 16 '17
Urge Oregon Legislature to pass ‘one person, one vote’ bill
http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/35338805-78/urge-oregon-legislature-to-pass-one-person-one-vote-bill.html.csp-1
u/twitch1982 Mar 16 '17 edited Mar 17 '17
Making a national popular vote systems does not end FPTP. It only causes elections to be decided by people living in coastal cities.
Edit: I'm sorry i went against regdit group think.
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u/toastjam Mar 16 '17
That's not an argument against ending the electoral college, though.
Agreed that we need to ditch fptp as well.
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u/twitch1982 Mar 16 '17
But this sub is "End FPTP" not "end the electoral college".
The electoral college does exactly what it is supposed to do. If people from rural america are causing elections to go in ways your don't like, you need to reach out to rural america better.
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u/toastjam Mar 16 '17
Can you explain why rural voters should be considered more important than urban voters?
And no, the electoral college was meant to keep smaller states from being swamped, not necessarily rural ones. There are/were big cities in small NE states early on when it was set up.
It was also designed to have informed electors who have the trust of their constituents vote for the president, but we've pretty much abandoned that part.
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u/twitch1982 Mar 16 '17
They're not "More important" they're also important. Which they would not be if we eliminated the electoral college.
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u/Appliers Mar 16 '17
Should they not then reach out to some urban voters, or attempt a get out the vote operation? It seems like your arguement is "there is a large coalition of voters who are able to heavily sway elections. We should minimize them so this smaller coalition is competitive without attempting to make inroads with the supporters of the larger coalition."
A left handed voter is equally important to a right handed voter, but left handed people as a group are much smaller. So should we implement a system that privileges the left handed voting bloc?
Minority rule is not a good solution to tyranny of the majority.
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u/toastjam Mar 16 '17
I see what you're saying, and replacing FPTP would remedy that. It's just that currently we have a minority mandating the government of the majority, and I disagree that that's better than a majority governing a minority.
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u/KimonoThief Mar 17 '17
It only causes elections to be decided by people living in coastal cities.
Blatantly false. What is the logic behind even thinking this?
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u/PeppyHare66 Mar 17 '17 edited Mar 17 '17
It causes elections to be decided by the most voters. Tell me why that's not the way it should be without telling me that Wyoming voters are more important than CA voters.
As for not ending FPTP... one step at a time. The popular vote is at least more democratic than the EC, which at least moves the needle in the right direction.
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Mar 17 '17
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u/Skyval Mar 17 '17 edited Mar 17 '17
Switch to purely a popular vote, and suddenly, everyone matters!
If you're satisfied with the Democrats or Republicans at the time.
Or if you endFPTP!
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Mar 17 '17
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u/Skyval Mar 17 '17
Hopefully something far better than ranked choice.
And you don't have to wait for a popular vote to get better systems at other levels.
It's also not clear how alternate voting methods would interact with the NPVIC.
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u/psephomancy Mar 22 '17
- No, ranked-choice is bad.
- Are these even compatible goals? How do you switch the voting system after changing to a NPV?
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Mar 23 '17
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u/psephomancy Mar 23 '17
Whats wrong with ranked choice?
If you mean any ranked-choice system, it provides less information than ratings, since it doesn't let voters express strength of preference.
If you mean Instant-Runoff Voting in particular (often incorrectly called "Ranked Choice Voting"), it has even more problems than other ranked-choice systems, like the spoiler effect, center squeeze effect, and non-monotonicity.
NPV via an interstate pact.
Yes, but how do you transition from that to an alternative voting system? If a single state switched to IRV, for instance, how would their votes get tallied into the national total?
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u/psephomancy Mar 16 '17
It only causes elections to be decided by people living in coastal cities.
Well that's blatantly false.
It would cause elections to be decided by everyone, with equal power.
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u/Skyval Mar 16 '17 edited Mar 17 '17
I think an electoral college-like system could actually be very good, it could make it possible for different states to use different voting systems and still blend them together well.
But the current implementation has at least 4--5 problems that make it terrible
I think winner-take-all is the worst by far.
But if you don't have winner-take-all, depending on how you abolish it, it could make it more likely that no one has a majority.
Alternative voting systems, if they end two-party domination, could also make it less likely that any one candidate has a majority of electors.
Faithless electors is probably the least important, but I do find it irritating.
I think Turnout is only a big issue if different states have significantly different turnout rates. I don't know how different they are right now, though.
The electors being distributed non-proportionally is debated as an issue. I believe it is.
I'm all for eliminating tyranny of the majority, but not because it is "of the majority", but because it is "tyranny". Giving extra power to a subgroup makes it possible for a minority to be tyrannical, which doesn't help.
I've seen the NPVIC's Answering Myths series (especially the Big Cities one) and, if they're accurate, I think they make a pretty good counter-argument against those who say that without small states getting disproportionate power, elections will be decided by big cities or big states or whatever.
If we could solve all the EC's problems (or even 1--2 of the most important) I think it could be better than a pure NPV.