I don’t know about you, but I found the following graphic from FiveThirtyEight appalling and infuriating:
Imagine a scenario where Biden wins the popular vote by four points and still loses the election. There is a nearly one in four chance of this happening?
There are principled reasons why we should do away with the Electoral College, but here we see a purely partisan reason. We are not fighting on an even playing field. The Republican candidate has nearly a 50 percent shot of winning an election even if they lose the popular vote by three points. In a narrow popular vote victory of one point or less, Biden has an eleven percent chance of being elected. Correspondingly, if Trump wins the popular vote by one point, Biden has almost no chance. In fact, he’d be in the same place as Trump if Trump were to lose by seven points.
These are outrageous odds, and it puts one party at far too much of a disadvantage. If a sports team wins the championship but doesn’t cover the betting spread, we don’t crown the losers. The Democrats would be insane to let this situation stand without putting up a fight.
Aren’t we close to a popular vote election once enough states pass the law that states electors will respect popular vote winner? Seems that is logical to do until the EC itself can be abolished. Ezra has been on fire recently with documenting the degree to which the system as a whole is incredibly biased , not just for the presidential race but also Senate and to a lesser extent house seats. Structural reform has to happen lest democratic legitimacy is out the window (though it already is).
The electoral college sucks. But it’s not even the worst when it comes to unfair advantages:
“The Democrats would be insane to let this situation stand without putting up a fight.”
What are the chances they put up a fight? If they don’t roll over by treating it as perfectly normal, it will be unprecedented. So much so, it will be a fucking shock.
This is a problem, but isn’t it a bigger problem that Republican-controlled legislatures in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are planning to challenge the results and install their own electors, among other shananigans?
There’s about 6 or 7 major fires burning this country down.
The Electoral College and the Senate are probably the biggest two that are structural and could be fixed…if the Republican Party didn’t have a massive advantage because of them. So, we’re kind of stuck. The Electoral College is going to continue being a shit show for awhile. And so is the Senate. Both should be abolished tomorrow.
What needs to happen is Biden winning, the Democrats taking the Senate, and then getting rid of the Filibuster. See if Puerto Rico, Guam and other territories want to become states and if so, add ’em in. And then work on flipping state legislatures so we can start unfucking the state-level gerrymandering that helps Republicans in the Federal-level gerrymandering.
Lots of fires. But first, Biden has to win.
Vote early, in person.
Yep thems the problems. But I doubt we will be able to add states or change the electoral college. But we most def have to work on state legislatures and governors, and the filibuster needs to go.