Instigator / Pro
8
1551
rating
26
debates
57.69%
won
Topic
#1798
The Electoral College should be abolished
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
3
Better sources
2
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
1
2
After 2 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
Christen
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 15,000
- Voting period
- Two months
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
11
1526
rating
5
debates
70.0%
won
Description
Definitions:
ELECTORAL COLLEGE: The Electoral College is a body of electors established by the United States Constitution, which forms every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the United States
ABOLISHED: Formally put an end to.
Burden of Proof: Shared
PRO must prove why it should be abolished.
CON must prove why the system should stay.
Round 1
Pro
#1
I look forward to this debate and I thank my opponent for accepting.
Preamble
Motion
The Electoral College should be abolished. Adapted from previous debate.
Burdon of Proof
PRO (PoliceSheep) has the burden of proof to provide evidence that abolishing the Electoral College would be good for America and to argue against the evidence to the contry provided by CON.
CON (Christen) has the burden to either disprove my evidence and claims and to give evidence and reason often as to why abolishing the Electoral College would be bad or both.
Definitions
Electoral College - "The Electoral College is a body of electors established by the United States Constitution, constituted every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the United States. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, and an absolute majority of 270 electoral votes is required to win an election." [1]
Faithless voter - An elector of the U.S. Electoral College voted or attempted to vote for a candidate different from whom they were pledged.
Abolish - formally put an end to [6]
Arguments
Faithless Electors
The electors are selected by state leaders of political parties, making the whole system undemocratic and non-transparent which are two things nobody should want in a Presidential election. [3] The key issue here is there is "no constitutional provision or federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states" and even under state law, "no elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged." [3] In 24 states, there isn't even a state law prohibiting it. [7]
There has been 217 instances of faithless voting since the implementation of the electoral college. [4] This has also had an effect on the result of elections. In the 1836 Presidential election, the 23 electors from Virginia were pledged to vote for Democratic candidates Martin Van Buren for President) and Richard M. Johnson for Vice President. However, they abstained from voting for Johnson. This left Johnson with one fewer than a majority of electoral votes forcing the Senate to have to vote for the Vice-President. [5] From this dreadful constitutional clause, the entire presidency is decided by unaccountable people.
Misrepresentation
What many supporters see as its key benefit is actually a key flaw. The mismatch between population and the number of electoral votes is harmful to American democracy. The method used to determine electoral votes gives one Wyoming's vote the power of 3 Californians. [7] [8] This leaves a mismatch in representation which can lead to an inherent bias which gives preference to smaller states (measured by population).
Benefit to the Republican Party
The Electoral College results versus the popular vote has given us three elections where the President is someone who the majority of people voted for another candidate, a Democrat. This system has an inherent and systematic bias giving preferential treatment to one party over the other. This has huge implications. It has happened four times in Presidential history, each one a member of the Republican Party. This is beyond coincidence.
1) 1876 - Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) [9]
2) 1888 - Benjamin Harrison (Republican) [10]
3) 2000 - George W. Bush (Republican) [10]
4) 2016 - Donald Trump (Republican) [11]
Sources
Con
#2
Ever since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, more and more democrats, including Hillary Clinton herself, have called for the removal of the electoral college, blaming it for her loss. They were okay with the electoral college when it was working in their favor, back when Barack Obama was the one winning the elections, but now that it has not worked in their favor, they want it gone.
The fact of the matter is...
Many people say the Electoral College ruins American Democracy, but the fact that the Electoral College is undemocratic is exactly the point. It's not supposed to democratic. All your arguments only work if you assume America's president is supposed to be elected democratically, but America's president is not supposed to be. You can find a quote from pretty much every member of the Continental Congress that clearly shows our founders didn't like democracy. Ben Franklin famously said, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch." The thing is, the Electoral College was created so our president wouldn't be elected democratically. Most of the founders believed most Americans were incapable of voting for the right person, which was true then. and is even true today.
A famous example is a candy-man versus a doctor.
A candy-man and doctor run for leader of their country.
The candy-man says:
"Look, I give you so much pleasure selling you delicious candies and sweets. You absolutely love them and they taste great. So why vote for the doctor. He sticks strange painful instruments in your body, gives you vile and repulsive tasting medicines, and tells you not to eat my delicious candies and alcohol and all good-tasting pleasure-inducing things."
In this scenario, there is practically nothing the doctor can say that could defeat the candy-man's argument. While the doctor is actually the good candidate, curing you (while surgery and medicine might be painful and repulsive), and recommending a good diet so you won't have health problems in the future, nobody will like the doctor. This is simply because very few realize that all of the time, the more painful (literally and figuratively) and hard route is more beneficial in the end. People tend to like happiness and pleasure over hard work, sweat, and tears.
The founders greatly feared a candy-man ever running for president so they created a system that makes it much harder for a candy-man to win. Imagine a candidate saying they would guarantee all Americans literally free everything. (Food, housing, medical care, vacations, etc.). This candidate, if he ran for a major party, would probably do very will attracting the poor and middle-class Americans.
So in short, the Electoral College is undemocratic, and that's fine because we are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic.
Now, according to my opponent...
The Electoral College should be abolished. Adapted from previous debate.
My opponent has linked directly to this debate, instead of the correct and actual "previous debate" about this topic between my opponent and AKmath: https://www.debateart.com/debates/1676/the-electoral-college-should-be-abolished
The key issue here is there is "no constitutional provision or federal law that requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states" and even under state law
I don't see how this is an actual "issue". In fact, forcing electors to vote based on the popular vote would eliminate the whole purpose of the electoral college, and essentially be the same thing as getting rid of the electoral college.
In the 1836 Presidential election, the 23 electors from Virginia were pledged to vote for Democratic candidates Martin Van Buren for President) and Richard M. Johnson for Vice President. However, they abstained from voting for Johnson. This left Johnson with one fewer than a majority of electoral votes forcing the Senate to have to vote for the Vice-President.
I don't think this is the fault of the electoral college. In fact, when I did a quick google search on "why did richard m johnson lose," the top 2 results that came up were this wikipedia article and this millercenter article that both clarified why this person lost.
The Wikipedia article states that:
Campaigning with the slogan "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh", Johnson fell one short of the electoral votes needed to secure his election. Virginia's delegation to the Electoral College refused to endorse Johnson, abstaining instead. He was elected to the office by the US Senate. Johnson proved such a liability for the Democrats in the 1836 election that they refused to renominate him for vice-president in 1840.
The millercenter article states that:
Johnson lost his reelection to the Senate in part due to his personal life. He had never married but had a common-law wife, a slave whom he inherited from his father. They lived together as a family when he was in Kentucky and had two daughters. When she died in 1833, he had two subsequent mistresses, who were also black or mixed race. Many people knew about Johnson's personal life, and it was not a major issue when he served in the House. However, it became a liability for him in statewide Senate campaigns and national elections. During his campaign for vice president, some Virginian politicians refused to support Johnson in part because of his personal life. While serving in the House from 1829 to 1837, Johnson was a supporter and friend of President Andrew Jackson and became strongly allied with the Democratic Party. He had considerable power in the House due to his long congressional career. In the election of 1836, Jackson promoted Johnson as Martin Van Buren's vice president to balance the ticket. Johnson had strong military experience and was seen as a war hero, whereas Van Buren had not fought in the War of 1812. Although Van Buren won the presidential election, Johnson fell one vote short of the majority he needed. Thus the race was put to the Senate, which voted for Johnson. He is the only vice president to be elected by the Senate. As vice president, Johnson did not have a close relationship with Van Buren and had little influence in the administration. He presided over the Senate, assigned Senators to committees, and cast tie-breaking votes. He was considered a competent but unremarkable vice president. In the election of 1840, Johnson was considered a liability to Van Buren but instead of nominating someone else, the Democratic Party chose not to nominate anyone nationally but to allow state party organizations to select their vice presidents. In the end, Johnson had little effect on the election, and William Henry Harrison defeated Van Buren for the presidency.
In other words, that man lost not necessarily because the electoral college failed him, but most likely because he failed himself. People didn't like him as a person. He turned out to be too controversial at the time due to owning slaves. He wasn't as popular as his other opponents.
The method used to determine electoral votes gives one Wyoming's vote the power of 3 Californians. [7] [8] This leaves a mismatch in representation which can lead to an inherent bias which gives preference to smaller states (measured by population).
This is actually a good thing, since candidates will be forced to appeal to the majority of the states to win elections instead of only concentrating on the small handful of largely populated states like New York and California.
This system has an inherent and systematic bias giving preferential treatment to one party over the other. This has huge implications. It has happened four times in Presidential history, each one a member of the Republican Party.
Out of all the previous 45 presidents we've had so far, up to Donald Trump in 2016, you pick just 4 examples where the electoral college allegedly gave "preferential treatment to one party over the other," and you only use examples of Republicans winning through the electoral college to justify removing the electoral college, and no examples of Democrats winning through the electoral college to justify removing it, which supports my theory that Democrats only want the electoral college gone because it hasn't worked in their favor this time. Not only that, but what about all the other 41 cases? Where was the so-called "inherent and systemic bias" in those cases where those other presidents won those elections. Why and how was the inherent and systemic bias only existing in those 4 specific cases and not in any of the other 41 cases, or in any cases where a Democrat like Barack Obama won through the electoral college?
On top of all that, in one of your examples, the one involving Rutherford Birchard Hayes, you link to an article that says:
Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes uncounted. These 20 electoral votes were in dispute: in three states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina), each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon one elector was declared illegal (as an "elected or appointed official") and replaced. The 20 disputed electoral votes were ultimately awarded to Hayes after a bitter legal and political battle, giving him the victory.
Many historians believe that an informal deal was struck to resolve the dispute: the Compromise of 1877. In return for the Democrats' acquiescence in Hayes' election, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.
This has very little, if anything, to do with the electoral college itself. All that happened was that one person started off with more votes than another, and then someone or something messed up an addition 20 votes, so they ultimately made a deal to resolve the issue.
As for your example of Donald Trump winning due to the electoral college, this also does not show how or why the electoral college is bad. If anything, it only shows that the electoral college is doing what it was meant to do, by making it easier for a metaphorical doctor like Donald Trump to win elections, and harder for a candy-man to win elections.
Now I will address some of what my opponent said in the previous debate.
The fact that the Electoral College is undemocratic is exactly the point, it's not supposed to democratic.The Electoral College is indeed undemocratic by design as you have conceded, that is not a reason to keep it. The Founding Fathers are a fallacious appeal to authority. Just because they created something, does not mean it is fit for the 21st century.
But I would argue that the electoral college is fit for the 21st century. As stated earlier, the electoral college makes it harder for a metaphorical candy-man to win elections over a metaphorical doctor.
In the case of our upcoming 2020 election, the "candy-man" in this case would be someone like Bernie Sanders, who promises to give everyone free public college tuition, make all colleges tuition free, provide free student loan debt forgiveness, provide free "Medicare for All," a free minimum wage increase to 15 dollars per hour, and all sorts of other "free" stuff for everyone, even for immigrants who enter this country illegally.
Unfortunately, while none of these things can truly be free, a lot of people aren't going to care. They will just think to themselves "yay, Bernie gonna gimme free things!" and will vote for Bernie.
As for the metaphorical doctor, Donald Trump, many of them will think "no! orange man bad! he not givin me free stuff! he building a big old wall! he deportin people! he talk bad bout mexico! he ending DACA! he hurt muh feelings! he tweet bad things! he grab women! he band muzlimz! he bomb da iranian general! he need to be impeeched!! why he not impeeeched!!??"
These people who don't understand the benefits, the context, and/or the reasoning behind many of Trump's words and/or actions will automatically vote for Bernie because, to them, Bernie sounds like the ideal man simply because of his promises to give everyone all this free stuff without realizing how much it would actually cost.
People will also vote for Bernie the candy-man if they're desperate and want all this free stuff that badly.
Without the electoral college, candidates for example could easily win more votes simply by promising more free stuff, and then future elections would likely turn into just that - a senseless popularity contest to see who can promise and offer the most "free" stuff.
You can find a quote from pretty much every member of the Continental Congress that clearly shows our founders didn't like democracy. Ben Franklin famously said, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch."You are mistaken here between the different types of democracy. The Founding Fathers didn't like pure democracy, due to the tyranny of the majority which is a genuine argument against forms of pure democracy such as in Switzerland.
It's also a genuine argument against getting rid of the electoral college, since, if people who want the free stuff that people promise so much can't have a pure democracy where they vote for that free stuff, they will seek out the next best thing which is a representative democracy where they can vote for a candidate like Bernie Sanders who will give them free stuff.
The thing is, the Electoral College was created so our president wouldn't be elected democratically. Most of the founders believed most Americans were incapable of voting for the right person, which was true then. and is even true today.You have provided no evidence of this and how do you define the "right person".
The right person would be the person who would most help improve this country overall, like Donald Trump, due to this many accomplishments so far, as opposed to a democratic socialist candy-man like Bernie Sanders, who wants to turn America into another Venezuela/Cuba, under the guise of his promises to provide "free" stuff to everyone "for all".
Round 2
Pro
#3
Thank you for your argument. I will now start with rebuttals.
Calls for Abolition
Ever since Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, more and more democrats, including Hillary Clinton herself, have called for the removal of the electoral college, blaming it for her loss. They were okay with the electoral college when it was working in their favor, back when Barack Obama was the one winning the elections, but now that it has not worked in their favor, they want it gone.
This is factually incorrect. Many senior Democrats, including President Obama and Secretary Clinton, called for its removal before the 2016 Presidential Election. For example, in 2004, President Obama stated that he supports abolishing the electoral college in a debate with Republican Alan Keyes. (Trujillo, 2012)
In 2000, Hilary Clinton stated: “We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago. I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.” (Trujillo, 2012) Her views are consistent with those stated after the 2016 Presidential election as outlined in the source provided by my opponent. (Merica, 2017)
In 2000, Hilary Clinton stated: “We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago. I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.” (Trujillo, 2012) Her views are consistent with those stated after the 2016 Presidential election as outlined in the source provided by my opponent. (Merica, 2017)
In addition, President Trump himself in 2012 called the Electoral College "a disaster for a democracy". (Trump, 2012)
Democracy and the Electoral College
Democracy and the Electoral College
[T]he Electoral College is undemocratic is exactly the point. It's not supposed to democratic. All your arguments only work if you assume America's president is supposed to be elected democratically, but America's president is not supposed to be.
The point of this debate is I am arguing that the Founding Fathers were wrong to set up this undemocratic system. The Founding Fathers, including Ben Franklin who my opponent quotes, is a fallacious appeal to authority and their opinions are not worth more or less than any other scholars analysing the effect of the Electoral College on contemporary politics. (Greenburg, 2011) If anything, modern scholars are more suited to see the impact today, with more states making the inequality of larger proportions.
Candy-Man versus a Doctor Analogy
Through their analogy, my opponent is outlining the issue of populism. Although difficult and controversial to define, it is widely agreed that the concept discussed in this analogy is the problem of populism. (Baker, 2019) This is a real problem, however, the electoral college does not solve this issue. A populist presidential candidate can still become President by way of promising things that are popular, but are bad for the nation.
There is also a strong argument that the Electoral College makes this problem worse. Populist candidates throughout the world make this promises of 'candy' to those that are economically deprived, victims of income inequality and victims of geographical disparities in wealth. They exploit the anger felt by these people to fight against 'the establishment'. They can use the very fact that our previously held belief that a majority gives a President a mandate to implement their manifesto pledges is simply a vaguely-defined establishment attempting to prevent them from doing the job of President. (West, 2020) The current President often refers to this as 'the Swamp' (Harrington, 2016).
American Democracy
We are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic.
I shall take these one at a time.
- I agree the supreme law of the USA is the Constitution. (Wickersham, 1929)
- I agree that the United States is a republic.(Karlsson, 2009)
- The United States is a Democracy
A nation can be both a democracy and a constitutional republic, as long as democracy is in the constitution which the republic is based on. (Bouie, 2019)
"I often hear people argue that the United States is a republic, not a democracy. But that’s a false dichotomy. A common definition of “republic” is, to quote the American Heritage Dictionary "A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them” — we are that. A common definition of “democracy” is, “Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives” — we are that, too. The United States is not a direct democracy, in the sense of a country in which laws (and other government decisions) are made predominantly by majority vote. Some lawmaking is done this way, on the state and local levels, but it’s only a tiny fraction of all lawmaking. But we are a representative democracy, which is a form of democracy." (Volokh, 2015)
I will now respond to the rebuttals given by my opponent. They have also responded to some of the points I made in a previous debate on this issue.
Faithless Electors
I don't see how this is an actual "issue". In fact, forcing electors to vote based on the popular vote would eliminate the whole purpose of the electoral college, and essentially be the same thing as getting rid of the electoral college.
I would like to make the distinction. The goal of the Electoral College is to devalue the national popular vote (Guelzo, 2018). The issue I outline here is electors that are appointed from states to vote for a particular candidate and then they vote for someone that their state did not vote for. (Bernstein, 2019)
On the issue of the 1836 Presidential election, I was making the point that the Democratic Buren-Johnson ticket gained 50.8% of the popular vote in the election. However, aristocrats and party officials - who are unaccountable to the public - decided that he shouldn't be that Johnson shouldn't be the Vice President. (Hatfield, 1997) It should be the role of the electorate to take into account his personal life and politicial views and then make a judgement.
On the issue of the 1836 Presidential election, I was making the point that the Democratic Buren-Johnson ticket gained 50.8% of the popular vote in the election. However, aristocrats and party officials - who are unaccountable to the public - decided that he shouldn't be that Johnson shouldn't be the Vice President. (Hatfield, 1997) It should be the role of the electorate to take into account his personal life and politicial views and then make a judgement.
In the 2016 Presidential election, Secretary Clinton, Senator Tim Kaine, President Trump and Vice-President Pence had many scandals. (Revesz) By my opponents logic, the electors should have been able to decide that they are too controversial to become President. I would like to make it very clear, I am not defending nor endorsing the personal life or political views of Richard M. Johnson.
Disproportionate Allocation of Votes
This is actually a good thing, since candidates will be forced to appeal to the majority of the states to win elections instead of only concentrating on the small handful of largely populated states like New York and California.
There is a strong argument from protecting small states from the tyranny of the majority, but the electoral college doesn't do this. (Hermens, 1958) In the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump won seven of the 10 largest states, and Hillary Clinton won seven of the 12 smallest states. (Cohen, 2019) The balance of the states are not even proportionally given out by population. If this was the case, there would be a stronger argument for keeping it.
Bias in Favour of the Republican Party
Out of all the previous 45 presidents we've had so far, up to Donald Trump in 2016, you pick just 4 examples where the electoral college allegedly gave "preferential treatment to one party over the other," and you only use examples of Republicans winning through the electoral college to justify removing the electoral college, and no examples of Democrats winning through the electoral college to justify removing it, which supports my theory that Democrats only want the electoral college gone because it hasn't worked in their favor this time.
I did give four examples. This is because there has only been four cases in history where the person who won the popular vote did not win the presidency because of the electoral college. In every single one of these cases, the advantage went to the Republican Party. The Democrats have to get a resounding victory (as happened in the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections where Democrat President Obama won) - as any close race will more than likely go Republican.
Where was the so-called "inherent and systemic bias" in those cases where those other presidents won those elections.
An academic study by the National Bureau of Economic Research with the University of Texas found that “Republicans should be expected to win 65% of Presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.” (Geruso et. al., 2019) This means whenever the popular vote is very close, the Republicans are very likely to be handed the Presidency over the Democrats.
Throughout the history of the Electoral College, has "at various times, given an advantage to Democrats, Republicans, and the now-defunct Whig Party." and changes over time due to population changes, demographic changes throughout states and even the addition of new states. However, at this point in history, "it gives a clear advantage to Republicans." (Millhiser, 2019)
On top of all that, in one of your examples, the one involving Rutherford Birchard Hayes, you link to an article that says:Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes uncounted. These 20 electoral votes were in dispute: in three states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina), each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon one elector was declared illegal (as an "elected or appointed official") and replaced. The 20 disputed electoral votes were ultimately awarded to Hayes after a bitter legal and political battle, giving him the victory.[...]This has very little, if anything, to do with the electoral college itself. All that happened was that one person started off with more votes than another, and then someone or something messed up an addition 20 votes, so they ultimately made a deal to resolve the issue.
This is to do with Electoral College due to how all the other states had added up to make it that deadlock - creating what we now call 'Swing States'. Whenever there is questions over who won, the Republicans seem to come out on top. This happened similarly 123 years later in Bush v. Gore. (Gumbell, 2016)
As for your example of Donald Trump winning due to the electoral college, this also does not show how or why the electoral college is bad. If anything, it only shows that the electoral college is doing what it was meant to do, by making it easier for a metaphorical doctor like Donald Trump to win elections, and harder for a candy-man to win elections.
President Trump is not a 'Doctor' in this analogy - he would very much be the 'candyman' from his promises to "make Mexico reimburse the United States for the full cost of the border wall" or "expand the economy 4 percent a year" (Kessler, 2020) These sound really good to his base but in fact would harm America's diplomatic relationship with it's neighbours and in the case of the economy, it's something he as President only has a certain amount of control on. He promised the simply not deliverable - and these promises were broken. However, again, the Electoral College does not stop a populist.
In the case of our upcoming 2020 election, the "candy-man" in this case would be someone like Bernie Sanders.
I disagree with your analogy, but in this case, if Senator Sanders was to win the Democratic nomination, both him and Trump would be the 'candy-man'. There are very few politicians of any party that are 'doctors'. However, Sanders would be a much better President than Trump any day. This, however, isn't pertinent to the debate at hand.
Trump Impeachment
As for the metaphorical doctor, Donald Trump, many of them will think "no! orange man bad! he not givin me free stuff! he building a big old wall! he deportin people! he talk bad bout mexico! he ending DACA! he hurt muh feelings! he tweet bad things! he grab women! he band muzlimz! he bomb da iranian general! he need to be impeeched!! why he not impeeeched!!??"
Bit off topic, but Trump should be impeached and removed from office for the crimes he committed.
I have run out of characters so must leave it there for this round unfortunately.
Thanks,
PoliceSheep
Hermens, F. A. (1958) https://www.jstor.org/stable/40982538
Hatfield, M. O. (1997) shorturl.at/xIJR7
Karlsson, I. (2009) https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep07700
Greenburg, S (2011) https://pennpoliticalreview.org/2011/03/the-founding-fathers-fallacy/
Trump, D. J. (2012) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/266038556504494082?s=20
Gumbell, A. (2016) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/25/donald-trump-rigged-election-bush-gore-florida-voter-fraud
Harrington, R. (2016) https://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-drain-the-swamp-mean-was-dc-built-on-a-swamp-2016-11?r=US&IR=T
Bernstein, J. (2019) https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-29/faithless-electors-are-still-a-problem
Geruso, M., Spears, D. and Talesara, I. (2019) https://www.nber.org/papers/w26247
Millhiser, I. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/17/20868790/republicans-lose-popular-vote-win-electoral-college
Kessler, G. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/17/trump-has-broken-more-promises-than-hes-kept/
Note: Three of my sources are from the academic database JSTOR, of which I have a paid-for account to access, however, I believe that these sources in particular are open access so should be accessible through the URL I have provided. If this is not the case, please mention it in the comments of this debate.
Con
#4
I'm starting to think that it's better to cite source next to or near the appropriate text/argument(s) instead of at the bottom. That way, I don't have to read your arguments, scroll all the way down to find your source to look at it, then scroll all the way back up to your argument to examine them, and keep doing this over and over every time you cite something. Plus, you save character space.
On top of that, your sources were disorganized and out of order. You had some sources that you linked to first towards the bottom, and vice versa.
With that said...
in 2004, President Obama stated that he supports abolishing the electoral college in a debate with Republican Alan Keyes. (Trujillo, 2012)
This was back when George Bush, a republican, was winning the elections, so once again, you've shown that when republicans are winning, that's usually when you, along with those other democrats, want that electoral college gone.
In 2000, Hilary Clinton stated: “We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago. I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College
This too was right after George Bush, the aforementioned republican, won that election that year against Al Gore, his democratic opponent. In fact, the very Trujillo 2012 article that you linked to literally starts off with "After Bush v. Gore"!
So far, you have not shown any of these democrats calling for the removal of the electoral college when it worked in their favor. It's only when it works in the republicans' favor that they seem to dislike it the most. That's what you've done. You went all the way back to the early 2000s when a republican won, to show clips of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama calling for the removal of the electoral college, and then you skipped ahead all the way to 2017, when Donald Trump, another republican, won this election, and then tried to use my own source against me, when all you've done so far is nothing but support my case!
In addition, President Trump himself in 2012 called the Electoral College "a disaster for a democracy".
That's correct. That's exactly what the electoral college is supposed to be - a disaster for a democracy, because it not supposed to be democratic, and it makes it so that you have to focus on the majority of the states instead of just the small handful of stages holding the majority of the population.
Donald Trump himself never even called for it to get removed on twitter like those other democrats did. In fact, later on, he tweeted that:
So he shows that he actually understands how the electoral college changes things for the better, and makes it more challenging and exciting to win elections, since you must focus on the majority of the states, even the smaller ones.
the Founding Fathers were wrong to set up this undemocratic system.
No they weren't. They set up the system to make it harder for a metaphorical candy-man like Bernie Sanders to win elections, and easier for a metaphorical doctor like Donald Trump to win elections.
A populist presidential candidate can still become President by way of promising things that are popular, but are bad for the nation.
Yes, but the key thing here is that it will be harder for that to happen, not impossible.
There is also a strong argument that the Electoral College makes this problem worse. Populist candidates throughout the world make this promises of 'candy' to those that are economically deprived, victims of income inequality and victims of geographical disparities in wealth.
The "candy" in this case would be all of the free stuff that Bernie Sanders and the other democratic presidential candidates promise to provide this upcoming election, like the free college tuition, free debt forgiveness, free minimum wage increase, free medicare for all, free this, free that, and so on.
The electoral college does not "make this problem worse". People in America who come from socialist countries, like Venezuela and Cuba, won't vote for socialism since they know how it has destroyed and/or ruined their homelands. They won't vote for a socialist candy-man like Bernie Sanders.
Without the electoral college, Bernie Sanders can simply focus on the most populated states like New York and California and try to appeal to those people with his socialism and his promises of all this free stuff "for all". With the electoral college, Bernie Sanders won't be able to win that easily, and will have to convince many other states who are against socialism that they should support him and vote for him too.
Other people who won't vote for Bernie include people who know how harmful it is to raise the minimum wage so much and make all of these things "free" by declaring them human rights, both of which Bernie promises to do, if elected. These people who are against these things may be living in the smaller states. The electoral college ensures that these states cannot be ignored that easily.
A nation can be both a democracy and a constitutional republic, as long as democracy is in the constitution which the republic is based on.
That doesn't mean our elections and electoral college have to be democratic. Also, like I said earlier, "if people who want the free stuff that people promise so much can't have a pure democracy where they vote for that free stuff, they will seek out the next best thing which is a representative democracy where they can vote for a candidate like Bernie Sanders who will give them free stuff."
Without the electoral college, it will be easier to acquire exactly that - a representative democracy where they, the majority in the small handful of states who outnumber the minority in the larger amount of states, can easily vote themselves someone who will promise them all this free stuff, and that someone, Bernie Sanders, can focus on them while ignoring the other states.
On the issue of the 1836 Presidential election, I was making the point that the Democratic Buren-Johnson ticket gained 50.8% of the popular vote in the election. However, aristocrats and party officials - who are unaccountable to the public - decided that he shouldn't be that Johnson shouldn't be the Vice President. (Hatfield, 1997)Hatfield, M. O. (1997) shorturl.at/xIJR7
This source redirected me straight to https://www.shorturl.at/ when I clicked it. I recommend either linking directly to the source itself instead of using shorturl, or archiving the source you wanted to cite using either http://archive.today/ or http://web.archive.org/save.
By my opponents logic, the electors should have been able to decide that they are too controversial to become President.
Wait, did any of the electors actually decide that any of them were too controversial to be president? If so, was there anyone else they could have voted for? If so, did they vote for them instead, or were they not allowed to let their votes go to waste, and voted for someone anyways?
There is a strong argument from protecting small states from the tyranny of the majority, but the electoral college doesn't do this. (Hermens, 1958)
I don't know what this is you cited, but it's telling me I need to register an account and pay money to access it. https://i.imgur.com/P3Y5G9I.png
The "Read Online (Free)" button doesn't work. It just takes me to a registration page.
If you can access it, just download it and upload it to anonfile or scribd or something, or copy the necessary text in it and paste it to pastebin or justpaste.it please.
In the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump won seven of the 10 largest states, and Hillary Clinton won seven of the 12 smallest states. (Cohen, 2019)
This one wasn't properly cited. I could not find it in your list of works cited.
Allow me to cite the 2016 election map: http://archive.ph/K3OnX
The electoral college did exactly what you were saying it "doesn't do". It protected the minority of states from the majority of the population that was in the small handful of highly populated states.
This is because there has only been four cases in history where the person who won the popular vote did not win the presidency because of the electoral college. In every single one of these cases, the advantage went to the Republican Party. The Democrats have to get a resounding victory (as happened in the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections where Democrat President Obama won) - as any close race will more than likely go Republican.
This still does not explain the so-called "preferential treatment" caused by the electoral college. Remember that democrats also won through the electoral college in many instances, so technically, they too would be getting their fair share of "preferential treatment," and yet they only want that preferential treatment to exist for themselves, and not any republicans, which is why they want to remove the electoral college, as it has not worked in their favor.
An academic study by the National Bureau of Economic Research with the University of Texas found that “Republicans should be expected to win 65% of Presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.” (Geruso et. al., 2019)
This too says I need to pay 5 dollars to access it. https://i.imgur.com/YeojaZB.png
This means whenever the popular vote is very close, the Republicans are very likely to be handed the Presidency over the Democrats.
That may be because those republicans who won the electoral college but lost the popular vote were metaphorical doctors, and their opponents were candy-men, or at least controversial to the point where a lot of people were not supporting them.
Throughout the history of the Electoral College, has "at various times, given an advantage to Democrats, Republicans, and the now-defunct Whig Party." and changes over time due to population changes, demographic changes throughout states and even the addition of new states. However, at this point in history, "it gives a clear advantage to Republicans." (Millhiser, 2019)
Yes, and that's why you people now want it gone, because it favored Donald Trump, the metaphorical doctor, instead of Hillary Clinton, and you know that if you don't get rid of it soon, Donald Trump will likely win again instead of that billionaire-hating socialist metaphorical candy-man, Bernie Sanders.
Whenever there is questions over who won, the Republicans seem to come out on top.
In this case, the republicans "came out on top" because they made a deal where they had to sacrifice something to come out on top. The article that you linked to where Rutherford Birchard Hayes was awarded the victory says that "an informal deal was struck to resolve the dispute: the Compromise of 1877. In return for the Democrats' acquiescence in Hayes' election, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction. The Compromise effectively ceded power in the Southern states to the Democratic Redeemers."
It's a strange and interesting case, yes, but that's what ultimately happened.
This happened similarly 123 years later in Bush v. Gore.
After doing another google search on "why did al gore lose," I came across this: http://archive.ph/MYYYg
It reads:
Because Gore ran a very poor campaign (and Bush ran a very good campaign).
Bizarre, disrespectful & disturbing behavior particularly during the debates. Gore's sighing during the first debate, and walking right up to Bush in the third debate are two well known examples.
Lack of any memorable and broadly appealing platform or theme. In contrast I still remember the platform Bush was running on (tax cuts, the no child left behind reforms & increased defense spending). Even though I mostly disagreed with this platform, I remember that it was well communicated and appealing to most voters. The theme of Gore's campaign seemed to be constantly changing. Late in the campaign he adopted an angry populist tone, which was memorable only because it was so ridiculous. The joke was "you've never had it so good & I'm mad as hell about it".
When someone runs a campaign so poorly, it raises serious doubts about their ability to run the country.
In other words, like Richard Mentor Johnson (the other guy whose loss you blamed on the electoral college), Al Gore lost mostly because he failed himself, and not necessarily because of the electoral college. He ran a poor campaign, he couldn't really appeal to anyone, he was inconsistent with his plans, he couldn't get across what he actually wanted to do, he was disrespectful during his debates, and he came across as being creepy and ridiculous to many people.
he would very much be the 'candyman' from his promises to "make Mexico reimburse the United States for the full cost of the border wall" or "expand the economy 4 percent a year" (Kessler, 2020)
This source is also charging me a dollar to access it: https://i.imgur.com/5uo6tTo.png
He promised the simply not deliverable - and these promises were broken.
No. He himself stated that Mexico was helping pay for the wall through what is known as "the new USMCA Trade Deal."
Plus, this website documents the progress of the border wall: https://www.trumpwall.construction/
He has given this country what it needs - better security, and overall improvement.
if Senator Sanders was to win the Democratic nomination, both him and Trump would be the 'candy-man'.
Bernie Sanders focuses mainly on promising free stuff to as many people as he can, in a attempt to win elections that way. Donald Trump is focusing on trying to bring back jobs and improve our border security, which is what this country needs.
Sanders would be a much better President than Trump
If this is true, why is there such a need to remove the electoral college? Just keep it, and Sanders will still win since he is "much better".
Trump should be impeached and removed from office for the crimes he committed.
Anyways, the far left is trying everything they can to get rid of Donald Trump. First they wasted all this time trying to impeach him, and now, because that didn't work, they are looking to get rid of our electoral college.
Round 3
Pro
#5
Thank you for your response. I will take your advise on sourcing and apologise for the inconvenience. My sources were in chronological order of publishing, however I note how that is not useful for this debate. I hope this new method is more satisfactory.
Calls for Abolition
I think my opponent is missing the point. Most politicians do what is in their own self-interest. The electoral college overwhelmingly benefits the Republican Party at the moment. [1] Not only Democrats support its abolition, so does a majority of the American people with around 58% of US adults supporting constitutional change to abolish the electoral college. [2]
Among them, 81% of Democrats support the abolition and around 33% of Republicans back the change. "However, in 2011, about half of Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party (51%) said the Constitution should be amended. Today, nearly two-thirds prefer to keep the current system, a figure that is essentially unchanged [since Trump's victory]." [2] This shows that when President Obama was in power in 2011, Republicans wanted change. Now the system benefits them, they want to keep it. Both Democrats and Republicans are self-serving on this matter.
As I pointed out in the last round, President Trump has insulted the electoral college in 2012 when President Obama was in power. [4] His later tweets
which you referenced are dated after he won the electoral college and lost the popular vote. It was in his political interest to defend the electoral college at this point.
Smaller States
So he shows that he actually understands how the electoral college changes things for the better, and makes it more challenging and exciting to win elections, since you must focus on the majority of the states, even the smaller ones.
The electoral college does not ensure that smaller states are focused on in Presidential Elections - just that swing states get attention. "The 2016 candidates spent almost all their time in a handful of states, most of them medium or large. Two-thirds of campaign events happened in just six states — Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan. If we include Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Arizona, then those 12 states account for 96 percent of campaign events. The nine smallest states (including D.C.), meanwhile, got precisely zero attention." [3]
Democracy and the Electoral College
PoliceSheep: A populist presidential candidate can still become President by way of promising things that are popular, but are bad for the nation.Christen: Yes, but the key thing here is that it will be harder for that to happen, not impossible.
The electoral college actually makes it easier, as candidates can focus on just Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan to have a successful shot at the presidency.[3] Small states like Wyoming, Rhode Island, D.C., New Jersey, Montana and Vermont received not a single campaign event from Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016. [5]
The electoral college means Presidential candidates are ignoring large safe states with lots of the population such as Texas and California as well as ignoring the smallest states in the Union.
That doesn't mean our elections and electoral college have to be democratic.
Yes it does. The first words of the US constitution is "We the people" - indicating that sovereignty comes from the people. Throughout the following articles, it sets out how the people delegate this power to elected representatives. This is what happens in the USA.
Bernie Sanders
My opponent consistently refers to Senator Bernie Sanders who has very little to do with this debate. I will adress some of the points made about him.
The electoral college does not "make this problem worse". People in America who come from socialist countries, like Venezuela and Cuba, won't vote for socialism since they know how it has destroyed and/or ruined their homelands. They won't vote for a socialist candy-man like Bernie Sanders.
The policies implemented by Fidel Castro in Cuba including central planning of the economy, dictatorship and a complete removal of the markets led Cuba to economic disaster. [6] Sen. Sanders does not support any of these policies.
Presidents Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela took actions that include removing democracy and corruption. [7] Sen. Sanders has always said he supports democratic socialism, not a socialist dictatorship. [8] His policies are not even that socialist. They are more in line with those implemented in Nordic countries like Denmark and Norway. [9]
Other people who won't vote for Bernie include people who know how harmful it is to raise the minimum wage so much and make all of these things "free" by declaring them human rights, both of which Bernie promises to do, if elected. These people who are against these things may be living in the smaller states. The electoral college ensures that these states cannot be ignored that easily.
Sen. Sanders has promised healthcare and education as human rights - which they already are under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. [10] Countries like the United Kingdom, Sweden, New Zealand, Georgia, Trinidad and Tobago and the Seychelles already run the type of system for healthcare that Sen. Sanders is suggesting and they work much better than the United State's insurance model.
Faithless Electors
Wait, did any of the electors actually decide that any of them were too controversial to be president? If so, was there anyone else they could have voted for? If so, did they vote for them instead, or were they not allowed to let their votes go to waste, and voted for someone anyways?
To answer these in turn, yes. An elector from Texas named Stephen C. Suprun Jr., a 9/11 first responder, refused to cast his vote for Trump due to his views and instead voted for John Kasich. [11] Another elector named Bill Greene from Texas instead voted for Ron Paul. On the Democrat side, some electors voted for Bernie Sanders, Colin Powell and one vote even went to a native american political activist named Faith Spotted Eagle. A few were ruled invalid, but the majority went through such as the examples given.
This one wasn't properly cited. I could not find it in your list of works cited.
Here is this source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/upshot/electoral-college-votes-states.html It was in the source list in the previous debate.
My opponent proves my point that President Trump won the election by switching Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. By population, 2/3 of these states are in the top 10 states by population. (Pennsylvania is the 6th largest state and Michigan is the 8th largest state [12]) This is another example of the electoral college favouring swing states, not small states.
Bias in Favour of the Republican Party
The preferential treatment comes with the fact that when the popular vote is close, the electoral college votes will favour republicans due to geographic locations.
That may be because those republicans who won the electoral college but lost the popular vote were metaphorical doctors, and their opponents were candy-men, or at least controversial to the point where a lot of people were not supporting them.
A full description of the election case studies I brought up is available on this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote#1824:_John_Quincy_Adams.
Yes, and that's why you people now want it gone, because it favored Donald Trump
I disagree with Trump very strongly, but my disapproval of him and disapproval of electoral collage are separate things.
Bush v. Gore
After doing another google search on "why did al gore lose," I came across this: http://archive.ph/MYYYg
I note this source is an anonymous user on Quora which is not a reliable source by any means.
Because Gore ran a very poor campaign (and Bush ran a very good campaign).
The point is not who ran the better campaign - it's who most Americans wanted as their President. More people wanted Al Gore, but because of this undemocratic system, George Bush became President.
I will take this opportunity to make my point very clear: Having an undemocratic system is unacceptable - any person who suggests it is good to remove democracy from a political system looses all credibility and should not be taken seriously. It is not a legitimate view to hold.
Trump's Promises.
This source is also charging me a dollar to access it: https://i.imgur.com/5uo6tTo.png
It is attempting to charge my opponent as they have an ad-blocker enabled. Here is an archived version for their convenience: https://web.archive.org/web/20200314020310/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/17/trump-has-broken-more-promises-than-hes-kept/
No. He himself stated that Mexico was helping pay for the wall through what is known as "the new USMCA Trade Deal."Plus, this website documents the progress of the border wall: https://www.trumpwall.construction/He has given this country what it needs - better security, and overall improvement.
In a phone conversation with Mexico’s president on the 27th January 2017, a transcript of which was provided to The Washington Post and published Aug. 3, Trump indicated that he would not fulfill this promise but would not say so publicly, because it would hurt him politically.
The USMCA trade deal will not mean Mexico is contributing to the wall. This comes from the President's misguided understanding of what a trade deficit is. [13]
The USMCA trade deal will not mean Mexico is contributing to the wall. This comes from the President's misguided understanding of what a trade deficit is. [13]
Miscellaneous Points
If this is true, why is there such a need to remove the electoral college? Just keep it, and Sanders will still win since he is "much better".
For starters, I do not believe Sanders will get the Democratic nomination. Joe Biden is a lot more likely to get it at this stage. [14] Secondly, as I have argued throughout this debate, the Republican Party has an advantage. Thirdly, this is my own personal view. I'm not even American - I will never vote in a U.S. Presidential election.
This is not true. He was not removed from office by a group of politicians. However, he did make history with a senator of his own party (Senator Mitt Romney) putting honour before party, voting for impeachment. [15]
Sources from Previous Debate
Hermans, F. A. (1957) is available here: https://anonfile.com/L6P409h4o1/Tyranny_of_the_Majority_pdf. It simply sets out the principle of Tyranny of the Majority.
I could not re-locate Hatfield (1997), however here is an alternative source which explains the same point: https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-one-election-where-faithless-electors-made-a-difference
Sources
[3] Cooper, R (2019)
[9] Bauer, E. (2019)
[11] Boccagno, J. (2016)
[13] Johnson, K.(2020)
[14] Pindell, J. (2020)
[15] NBC News (2020)
Con
#6
Special thanks to fauxlaw for exposing one of Pro's examples of the electoral college favoring republicans as being bogus:
Pro [PliceSheep] alleges that the Electoral College unequally weights the vote in favor of Republicans, citing four instances [1876, 1888, 2000, 2016] wherein the Electoral College disagreed with popular vote to elect the President. The 2000 election must be withdrawn from that list because it was neither the Electoral College, nor the popular vote, that gave Bush 43 the Presidency. It was the Supreme Court, given the failure of FL to declare a definitive winner of that State. The conflict should have been resolved in the House, which would have very likely voted as SCOTUS decided, given the R advantage of numbers in the House.
In addition, I too have refuted examples that Pro listed of the electoral college supposedly favoring republicans, which were the 1876 election where I stated that the republicans "came out on top" because they made a deal where they had to sacrifice something to come out on top, and the 2016 election where I explained that "it only shows that the electoral college is doing what it was meant to do, by making it easier for a metaphorical doctor like Donald Trump to win elections, and harder for a candy-man to win elections."
Now I will address the remaining example, the 1888 election where Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland.
After doing, yet again, another quick google search, I came across the 1888 election map.
It reads:
Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate, opposed tariff reduction. Neither Cleveland nor the Democratic Party waged a strong campaign. Cleveland's attitude toward the spoils system had antagonized party politicians. His policies on pensions, the currency, and tariff reform had made enemies among veterans, farmers, and industrialists. Even with these enemies, Cleveland had more popular votes than Harrison. However, Harrison received a larger electoral vote and won the election.
In other words, Grover Cleveland lost because too many people were against his policy regarding tariff reduction, he did not campaign well enough to appeal to the majority of the states, he made many people upset, and lost states that he would have otherwise won because of this.
That's what all 4 of these elections have in common. Each of the 4 losers of each of those elections lost either because of some external factor outside of the electoral college, or because they themselves were either too controversial or were not able to convince enough people in enough of the states to vote for them due to them having some terrible character flaw, like a bad history or personality or something. Blaming each of these losers' losses in the 1888 and 2016 elections on the electoral college instead of the losers themselves might make some people feel better, but these losers of those elections still have to take most of the blame for themselves as they each said or did somethings that turned many people off and costed them valuable votes that could have won them those respective elections. Richard M. Johnson, Al Gore, and Grover Cleveland were too controversial and did many things that turned people off and costed them votes. The same thing goes for Hillary Clinton, who referred to a whole bunch of people as a "basket of deplorables," which was enough to make many people vote for Donald Trump instead of her.
It would be much easier to blame the losses of each of these 4 people on the electoral college, and justify abolishing it, if these people had not said or done such controversial things that costed them so many votes, and if there were no problems outside of the electoral college's control that would influence the outcomes of these elections, but that is not the case in any of these examples. You can't focus only on the fact that these people won the electoral college and lost the popular vote without looking that some of the things they said or did, and some of the other unexpected external factors, that costed them the election.
This ultimately means that all 4 of those examples must be withdrawn from that list.
Rebuttals:
Pro [PliceSheep] alleges that the Electoral College unequally weights the vote in favor of Republicans, citing four instances [1876, 1888, 2000, 2016] wherein the Electoral College disagreed with popular vote to elect the President. The 2000 election must be withdrawn from that list because it was neither the Electoral College, nor the popular vote, that gave Bush 43 the Presidency. It was the Supreme Court, given the failure of FL to declare a definitive winner of that State. The conflict should have been resolved in the House, which would have very likely voted as SCOTUS decided, given the R advantage of numbers in the House.
Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate, opposed tariff reduction. Neither Cleveland nor the Democratic Party waged a strong campaign. Cleveland's attitude toward the spoils system had antagonized party politicians. His policies on pensions, the currency, and tariff reform had made enemies among veterans, farmers, and industrialists. Even with these enemies, Cleveland had more popular votes than Harrison. However, Harrison received a larger electoral vote and won the election.
Most politicians do what is in their own self-interest.
If you feel that Donald Trump is only doing what is in his "own self-interest," you're more than welcome to not vote for him. The American people and the electors who do vote for him however, believe that he is doing not what is in his own self-interest, but in the interest of them and the American people.
The electoral college overwhelmingly benefits the Republican Party at the moment.
First of all, I don't know what you mean by "at the moment." The electoral college didn't just one day magically spring to life and then start picking and choosing republicans to benefit, especially after years of benefiting a democrat like Barack Obama.
Second of all, if it's "overwhelmingly" benefiting the Republican Party, then it's probably because the republicans have been doing a better job appealing to the majority of the states instead of focusing on the top 2 or 3 most populated states like the democrats do. Your source even says that "Because every state gets two Electoral College votes for each of its senators, the system gives more weight to lightly populated states where Republicans excel. The winner-take-all system that most states use to award Electoral College delegates also leads Democrats to waste a lot of votes running up the score in big states like California, while losing in small states."
Among them, 81% of Democrats support the abolition and around 33% of Republicans back the change.
Among who, exactly? Because I was never asked if I would be okay with this, and neither were any of my friends or family members. I also doubt that any of the people within my local community, or any of their friends or relatives, were asked about this, so are you sure that every democrat and every republican in America was asked if they were okay with this, and 81% and 33% of them said they were okay with it, respectively, or what this just a random poll/survey where a couple hundred people were asked if they would be okay with this, and then that percent of each of those groups of people said they were okay with it, and then it was assumed that this was what every American thinks based on this random 9-year old poll/survey?
President Trump has insulted the electoral college in 2012
Saying the electoral college is the disaster for a democracy could have been and could still be interpreted as an insult, but it's not if it's a true statement. I've already said that this was "exactly what the electoral college is supposed to be - a disaster for a democracy, because it's not supposed to be democratic, and it makes it so that you have to focus on the majority of the states instead of just the small handful of stages holding the majority of the population."
The electoral college does not ensure that smaller states are focused on in Presidential Elections - just that swing states get attention. "The 2016 candidates spent almost all their time in a handful of states, most of them medium or large. Two-thirds of campaign events happened in just six states — Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan. If we include Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Arizona, then those 12 states account for 96 percent of campaign events. The nine smallest states (including D.C.), meanwhile, got precisely zero attention."
First of all, yes, "swing states" can and will always exist, and will always get attention, with or without the electoral college, and I get that presidential candidates can't campaign in every single state all the time, and will oftentimes have to pick and choose which states to leave out. However, just because the electoral college does not ensure that every single state gets some attention in the form of a campaign doesn't mean it doesn't benefit those states. It still helps states with smaller populations since their votes will matter more with the electoral college than without it, and ensures that the top 1 or 2 most populated states like New York and California do not end up deciding just about every election.
Second of all, you claim here that:
Small states like Wyoming, Rhode Island, D.C., New Jersey, Montana and Vermont received not a single campaign event from Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016.
Except most of those states you listed there did in fact receive a campaign event. When I looked through the list of rallies for the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign, it showed that Donald Trump campaigned in:
As for Wyoming and New Jersey, I can understand why they chose not to campaign in those states. "Wyoming, a solidly Republican state, has not voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since it went for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964," so Donald Trump probably didn't feel any need to campaign in that state since he knew they would vote for him regardless, and he probably didn't see the point in bothering with New Jersey either since he figured they would never vote for him. The opposite holds true for Hillary Clinton, where she must have figured that, regardless, New Jersey and Wyoming would vote for her and would not vote for her, respectively.
Keep in mind that running presidential campaigns usually cost, per campaign, several days and thousands of dollars, and in 2016, there were over 300 presidential campaigns. Not every candidate will have the time and money needed to campaign in all 50 states. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have already spent at least 1.4 billion and 957.6 million, respectively, and hundreds of days, campaigning in the states that they campaigned in. Continuing to campaign in all of the other remaining states that they did not campaign in just so every state can have some kind of campaign in it would likely have costed them at least twice that amount of time and money, which they didn't have.
PoliceSheep: A populist presidential candidate can still become President by way of promising things that are popular, but are bad for the nation.Christen: Yes, but the key thing here is that it will be harder for that to happen, not impossible.The electoral college actually makes it easier, as candidates can focus on just Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan to have a successful shot at the presidency.
Abolishing the electoral college would make this even easier than keeping the electoral college, as metaphorical candy-man candidates like Bernie Sanders will then be able to focus on the top 2 or 3 most populated states like New York and California, and continue to promise more and more free stuff in those areas all the way to victory. With the electoral college however, many more states have to be focused on, not just the top 1 or 2 most populated ones that desire free stuff.
Sanders has always said he supports democratic socialism, not a socialist dictatorship.His policies are not even that socialist. They are more in line with those implemented in Nordic countries like Denmark and Norway.
First of all, those countries are not socialist, nor can they be used as role models for the United States, or as proof that socialism works.
Second of all, they are not the socialist utopic paradises that Bernie Sanders makes them out to be. In fact, a youtube video explains some of the major flaws with Denmark's welfare system, health care system, and educational system, despite these things being "free," and I archived it.
Third, the only reason socialism appears to be working in those areas is because they are actually just capitalist countries with a lot of taxes, and policies that support free-market.
- In an effort to explain how beautifully their socialist policies would work, leftist Democrats like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others often point to Nordic Europe.
- These nations, of course, give health care, college and other goods for “free,” so they consider them paradises.
- Copying the policies that work isn’t a bad move. In fact, all countries should do it. But what leftists get wrong is which policies to copy. Nordic countries have some excellent policies that are working well for them.
- But these aren’t the policies the left tout as successes. Instead, they’re always pointing to Nordic nations’ heftier individual and sales taxes, which are used to spend more on things like nationalized health care and education. What they don’t tell you is that the middle class and the poor bear the brunt of these heavier taxes.
- Yet, the wait time is long for many types of surgeries, and the number of people who choose to spend additional money on private insurance is growing, because people don’t like the government’s service.
- Their health care isn’t even “free,” anyway. On top of the overly burdensome taxes levied against citizens, these governments impose copayments and cost-sharing on patients for most procedures, visits to the doctor, prescriptions and more.
- Clearly, these aren’t the policies America should copy. And the reason Nordic countries aren’t imploding under those policies is because they have conservative ones keeping them afloat.
- So the next time a leftist tells you that they want America to be more like the Nordic countries, ask them if they want to lower corporate taxes, repeal the minimum wage, deregulate the economy and implement school choice. If they say no, it means they’re just coming for your paycheck.
Bernie Sanders basically wants America to be just like the nordic countries with their socialist policies, but without said conservative policies to keep America afloat, as he wants to also raise taxes, raise the minimum wage, and impose all sorts of other regulations, which would most likely end up preventing his own socialism from working, since the nordic countries do not have those.
He won't talk about any of this, though. Without the electoral college, he can and will focus only on what the people in the most populated states like New York and California like to hear, such as how college and health care should be human rights regardless of their financial costs, how we need to keep raising the minimum wage, and how it's all "working" in the nordic countries, without mentioning any of these flaws, risks, or downsides.
Having an undemocratic system is unacceptable
It's "unacceptable" to democrats because it didn't work in their favor this time.
they have an ad-blocker enabled. Here is an archived version for their convenience
a phone conversation with Mexico’s president on the 27th January 2017, a transcript of which was provided to The Washington Post and published Aug. 3
This comes from the President's misguided understanding of what a trade deficit is. [13]
Round 4
Pro
#7
Thank you for your argument.
2000 Presidential Election and Republican Bias - Fauxlaw's argument
I will start this round by addressing Fauxlaw's argument. However, his argument actually strengthens the argument against the electoral college. He references the Supreme Court decision of 2000 that stopped the re-counts in polling districts in Flordia. He goes on to argue that this then cannot be an example of bias in favour of the Republican Party as it was based on legal interpretation of the constitution and not specifically the electoral college. However, there is a part of the electoral college system that caused this. Winner takes all means that a states electoral votes are all allocated to the candidate with the most votes in that state. A much better system would to allocate the votes proportionally based on what percentage of a state voted for. Although Winner Takes is not constitutionally mandated, it is the norm, with 48 out of the 50 states (+DC) using it. "Winner Takes All is anti-democratic". [1]
1876 Presidential Election and Republican Bias
I too have refuted examples that Pro listed of the electoral college supposedly favoring republicans [including] the 1876 election where I stated that the republicans "came out on top" because they made a deal where they had to sacrifice something to come out on top[.]
After the 1876 election,a special electoral commission made up of congressmen and Supreme Court justices decided the outcome of this election. The vote was 8-7 along party lines. The bias came in that the commission had more Republicans on it than Democrats. [2] The Compromise of 1877 only came around due to Democrats threatening to filibuster Congress' vote to implement the decision of the commission. [3] However, this again can be linked to the winner-takes-all system, that Samuel J. Tilden would have been the 19th President if electoral votes were assigned proportionally throughout states.
2016 Presidential Election and Republican Bias
"it only shows that the electoral college is doing what it was meant to do, by making it easier for a metaphorical doctor like Donald Trump to win elections, and harder for a candy-man to win elections."
By 'doctor', I am going to assume my opponent is arguing that President Trump is an anti-populist, however, for future rounds, it would be beneficial for my opponent to provide a specific definition of the terms 'doctor' and 'candy-man' outside of an analogy, as without it, the argument is not falsifiable and therefore not a credible argument if held up to Karl Popper's Falsification Principle. [4]
Claiming a benefit of the electoral college is that it helps doctors over candy-men can only have credit if the terms are properly defined.
In addition, my opponent raised the issue of Secretary Clinton's comments 60 days before the election at a fundraiser in New York City, where she is clamed to have called half of Trump supporters "a basket of deplorables" as transcribed by BuzzFeed reporter Ruby Cramer. [6] However, in the same speech, she clarifies she is being "grossly generalistic" and that her speech was not nuanced. There is no evidence to support the fact this influenced many voters.
Secretary Clinton - rightly or wrongly - had other scandals that were worse than that such as the allegation of using a private email server for official public communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on secure federal servers in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1924 [7] or even the controversy of the 2012 Bengazi attack, even though she was found to have done nothing wrong. [8]
However, President Trump also had controversies such the Access Hollywood tape where he made the now infamous "grab them by the pussy" comment which led to many top Republicans pulling support [9], him saying "it's incredible" how North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un was able to deal with his political opponents [10], his criticism of Khizr and Ghazala Khan [11], his antisemitic tweet [12] and the fraudulent actions in relation to both Trump University [13] and the Donald J. Trump Foundation. [14]
Both candidates had many political scandals - a very weak field. However, more Americans believed Hilary Clinton should be President of the United States. That's democracy.
Both candidates had many political scandals - a very weak field. However, more Americans believed Hilary Clinton should be President of the United States. That's democracy.
1888 Presidential Election and Republican Bias
Grover Cleveland lost because too many people were against his policy regarding tariff reduction, he did not campaign well enough to appeal to the majority of the states, he made many people upset, and lost states that he would have otherwise won because of this.
To argue more people were against his tariff policy is ludicrous. Benjamin Harrison only received 5,443,633 votes whereas Grover Cleveland received
5,538,163 votes. If he had unpopular policies, he would not have won the popular vote.
In addition, this comes back to the Winner Take All System. In the 1888 Presidential Election, Pennsylvania was worth 30 electoral college votes. The state was very close, in the margin of 80,000 votes. In addition, New York state was worth 36 electoral votes. This was decided by a tiny margin of 30,000 votes. These two states combined would have swung the election the other way. This means, by the standard of the electoral college, 110,000 votes is enough to swing an election where the total votes cast is over 11,300,000. 110,000 people are not representative of the views of the entire electorate of the time. [5]
Concept of "Bias"
Concept of "Bias"
First of all, I don't know what you mean by "at the moment." The electoral college didn't just one day magically spring to life and then start picking and choosing republicans to benefit, especially after years of benefiting a democrat like Barack Obama.
I would like to make a clarification when I say bias, as I think my opponent does not understand my point. When President Obama won the 2008 and 2012 elections, there was still systematic bias against him - he just had to overcome this. The electoral college did not benefit Barack Obama.
By bias, I mean that the votes for President are not proportional and due to the distribution of Republicans to Democrats in states that count more, the Republicans have an advantage.
By bias, I mean that the votes for President are not proportional and due to the distribution of Republicans to Democrats in states that count more, the Republicans have an advantage.
Pew Research Center Study
Among who, exactly? Because I was never asked if I would be okay with this, and neither were any of my friends or family members. I also doubt that any of the people within my local community, or any of their friends or relatives, were asked about this, so are you sure that every democrat and every republican in America was asked if they were okay with this, and 81% and 33% of them said they were okay with it, respectively, or what this just a random poll/survey where a couple hundred people were asked if they would be okay with this, and then that percent of each of those groups of people said they were okay with it, and then it was assumed that this was what every American thinks based on this random 9-year old poll/survey?
My opponent seems to be trying to argue against the very concept of representative polling on issues. To answer the specific issues raised about this study, the study was of 12,638 U.S. adults. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. The full document laying out the methodology can be accessed here.
However, it must be noted, the argument that a poll cannot be representative if it doesn't include them and their families is ludicrous!
Trump's Insult of the Electoral College
The interpretation of his comments are always difficult because Trump is unlike any traditional politician, however it is worth pointing out, in 2018 on Fox & Friends Trump said "I would rather have a popular election" in reference to a question about the electoral college. [15]
Swing States
First of all, yes, "swing states" can and will always exist, and will always get attention, with or without the electoral college
This is factually untrue. Without the electoral college, there would be no 'Winner Takes All' and therefore there would be no 'state vote' to swing.
[The Electoral College] ensures that the top 1 or 2 most populated states like New York and California do not end up deciding just about every election.
The population of New York state is around 19,453,000 and California 39,512,000. Both are very Democratic states.
The population of Texas is around 28,995,000 and the population of Georgia is around 10,617,000. Both are very Republican states.
Those four states collectively only represent approx. 30% of the entire U.S. population and so could never "decide just about every election" as so claimed.
Campaign Events
My opponent draws attention to the fact President Trump did hold rallies in Warwick, Rhode Island, Spokane, Washington D.C., Billings, Montana and Burlington, Vermont. I would like to clarify my assertion. However, he did this before being the official Republican nominee. My counting of campaign events were only done to both candidates after they officially became the party nominee. For President Trump, this happened on 22nd July 2016 and for Secretary Clinton on 29th July 2016. [16]
Therefore, it is true to say small states like Wyoming, Rhode Island, D.C., New Jersey, Montana and Vermont received not a single campaign event from Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump in as the party candidates for President of the United States.
Donald Trump probably didn't feel any need to campaign in that state since he knew they would vote for him regardless, and he probably didn't see the point in bothering with New Jersey either since he figured they would never vote for him. The opposite holds true for Hillary Clinton, where she must have figured that, regardless, New Jersey and Wyoming would vote for her and would not vote for her, respectively.
This highlights an issue with the electoral college. No state should be seen as 'safe' and any electoral system should attempt to make candidates care about the needs of every state in the union, not just states that add up to 270 electoral votes.
Keep in mind that running presidential campaigns usually cost, per campaign, several days and thousands of dollars, and in 2016, there were over 300 presidential campaigns. Not every candidate will have the time and money needed to campaign in all 50 states. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have already spent at least 1.4 billion and 957.6 million, respectively, and hundreds of days, campaigning in the states that they campaigned in. Continuing to campaign in all of the other remaining states that they did not campaign in just so every state can have some kind of campaign in it would likely have costed them at least twice that amount of time and money, which they didn't have.
In terms of money, the candidates did a combined 71 campaign events in Florida and 55 in North Carolina. They could have not done a few of those and spread them out across the states that got no attention such as Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, New York, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Maryland. [16]
Abolishing the electoral college would make this even easier than keeping the electoral college, as metaphorical candy-man candidates like Bernie Sanders will then be able to focus on the top 2 or 3 most populated states like New York and California, and continue to promise more and more free stuff in those areas all the way to victory. With the electoral college however, many more states have to be focused on, not just the top 1 or 2 most populated ones that desire free stuff.
I have already addressed the fact the top populated states are not big enough to decide an entire election.
Bernie Sanders and Socialist Policies
This debate is very separate to the one about the electoral college and I'm happy to engage on it both in the comments section of this debate or in a separate debate on this issue. However, I would make a couple of general points about the claims of my opponent.
PoliceSheep: Sanders has always said he supports democratic socialism, not a socialist dictatorship. His policies are not even that socialist. They are more in line with those implemented in Nordic countries like Denmark and Norway.Christen: First of all, those countries are not socialist, nor can they be used as role models for the United States, or as proof that socialism works.
I specifically stated, as you quoted, "his policies are not even that socialist". I clearly pointed out that his specific policies were NOT socialist and in fact more like the social democracies of "Nordic countries like Denmark and Norway." They are very different concepts. [17] This clarification renders the rest of your argument guilty of the strawman fallacy.
Undemocratic
It's "unacceptable" to democrats because it didn't work in their favor this time.
The Electoral College was as unacceptable in 2008 and 2012 as it was in 2016, 2000 and 2004.
Issues with Sources
My opponent needs to turn off view it, however, for ease, I have copied it into this pastebin.
That reference was meant to be removed as I have not viewed it myself either as there seems no way to access the original transcript without paying. My apologies.
I truly don't understand why it is asking my opponent to pay here as I access it without any pop-ups even suggesting payment required. I have also copied this source into a pastebin.
Sources
[5] Leip, D. (2019)
[12] Lartey, J. (2016)
[13] Hafner, J. (2018)
[15] Nelson, L. (2018)
Con
#8
He references the Supreme Court decision of 2000 that stopped the re-counts in polling districts in Flordia. He goes on to argue that this then cannot be an example of bias in favour of the Republican Party as it was based on legal interpretation of the constitution and not specifically the electoral college. However, there is a part of the electoral college system that caused this. Winner takes all means that a states electoral votes are all allocated to the candidate with the most votes in that state.
You do not explain exactly how Winner Takes All "caused" the supreme court to make this decision that they made, and neither did your source. All you did was explain Winner Takes All, and then claim that it "is anti-democratic".
After the 1876 election,a special electoral commission made up of congressmen and Supreme Court justices decided the outcome of this election. The vote was 8-7 along party lines. The bias came in that the commission had more Republicans on it than Democrats.
This still does not justify getting rid of the electoral college for 3 reasons.
- The 64parishes article that you cite states that 'The Twelfth Amendment instructed that “the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall be counted.” The amendment failed, however, to offer a remedy for conflicting certificates from the states.' This means that you cannot blame the electoral college for something that the twelfth amendment should have addressed, which the twelfth amendment did not.
- That same 64parishes article then goes on to state that "On January 18, 1877, both parties agreed to the creation of an Electoral Commission to certify the contested votes." It's very hard to claim that there was "bias" when both democrats and republicans agreed to the creation of this electoral commission. If it ultimately turns out that there was some kind of bias, then it can only be blamed on the republicans if the bias was in favor of the democrats, or the democrats if the bias was in favor on the republicans, and not the electoral college. You can't blame potential bias within the electoral commission on the electoral college when both parties at that time agreed to the creation of that electoral commission.
- It then talks about how "On January 25, however, Justice David B. Davis, the independent, resigned from the commission and accepted an offer from Illinois Republicans to run for their party’s vacant Senate seat. Justice Joseph P. Bradley, a Republican appointee, filled his position." This independent opted out of the commission, and the democrats would not step in to replace him, so the republicans had to step in to replace him. We don't have enough information here to determine if the electoral college is at fault for all of this since there are too many mysteries behind this debacle, and too many variables at play here that all affected the outcome of this election in different ways to different degrees. We don't know why this independent opted out, or why the democrats did not or could not replace him, and even if the democrats replaced him instead of the republicans we still would not have known if this would have led to a different outcome or the same outcome.
it would be beneficial for my opponent to provide a specific definition of the terms 'doctor' and 'candy-man' outside of an analogy
The point of the metaphorical doctor/candy-man analogy, and the point of making that similar comparison between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, was to show how a lot of people tend to prefer things that sound great to them but are actually harmful to them, over things that sound harmful to them but are actually good for them.
Doctors are experienced people who determine what certain problems are (such as a sickness) and recommend and give things that may feel painful (such as needles in your arm or bad-tasting medicine) but will ultimately help you in the long run.
Candy-men are inexperienced people who recommend and give things most people would likely want (such as sweet delicious candy) but are ultimately going to harm them in the long run.
Donald Trump is similar to a metaphorical doctor in the sense that he has noticed certain problems within this country, such as this country being overrun with illegal immigrants, and recommended things such as better border security which will help this country, even though so many people are against it for some reason.
Bernie Sanders is similar to a metaphorical candy-man in the sense that he focuses heavily on promising all that free stuff to the young people in the small handful of most populated states who don't know any better, and he appeals to them because of these promises of all this free stuff, without letting them know that making these things that are in such a limited supply "free" would only drive up the demand for these things and increase the costs for these things, that the taxpayers would end up paying for.
There is no evidence to support the fact this influenced many voters.
Grover Cleveland lost because too many people were against his policy regarding tariff reduction, he did not campaign well enough to appeal to the majority of the states, he made many people upset, and lost states that he would have otherwise won because of this.To argue more people were against his tariff policy is ludicrous. Benjamin Harrison only received 5,443,633 votes whereas Grover Cleveland received5,538,163 votes. If he had unpopular policies, he would not have won the popular vote.
I argued that "too many people" were against this policy, not "more people". By "too many people" I am referring to the people in those then red states that did not vote for him.
When President Obama won the 2008 and 2012 elections, there was still systematic bias against him - he just had to overcome this. The electoral college did not benefit Barack Obama.
In 2008, Barack Obama won at least twice the amount of electoral college votes as his opponent, John McCain, and in 2012, won at least 1.6 times the amount of electoral college votes as his opponent, Mitt Romney.
That does not sound like "systemic bias" to me, especially since he even won the popular vote in both of those elections!
Claiming that there was systemic bias when someone won the electoral college but lost the popular vote is one thing, but no way can you claim that there was any systemic bias there when the man won both electoral college and popular vote in both of those elections, and by that much.
To answer the specific issues raised about this study, the study was of 12,638 U.S. adults.However, it must be noted, the argument that a poll cannot be representative if it doesn't include them and their families is ludicrous!
I asked how many people the study consisted of so I could compare it to the American population at the time, which was at least 300,000,000. When I entered these numbers into https://percentagecalculator.net/, it showed that those 12,638 people made up less than one tenth of one percent of the population.
Both you and your pewresearch article are being dishonest by claiming the "majority of the American people" want "constitutional change to abolish the electoral college." It may be "ludicrous" to argue that it is not representative if it does not include me and my family, but it is ludicrous to argue that just because less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of the population agreed on something does not automatically mean the other 99.9% agree on it too?
Without the electoral college, there would be no 'Winner Takes All' and therefore there would be no 'state vote' to swing.
"In American politics, the term swing state refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate. These states are usually targeted by both major-party campaigns, especially in competitive elections."
This means that any of the states that hold some of the largest amounts of people but could reasonably be won by either a democrat or a republican would also be a swing state.
he did this before being the official Republican nominee. My counting of campaign events were only done to both candidates after they officially became the party nominee. For President Trump, this happened on 22nd July 2016
So you're basically arguing that Donald Trump didn't give any attention to those areas after a certain date, therefore he didn't give any attention to those areas at all? Well what did you want him to do? Wait until after that date to appeal to those states for you to count them?
No state should be seen as 'safe' and any electoral system should attempt to make candidates care about the needs of every state in the union, not just states that add up to 270 electoral votes.
Getting rid of the electoral college will not solve either of these issues, since the Wikipedia article I cited defines safe states as "the states that regularly lean to a single party". This means that, without the electoral college, candidates will focus on the states that make a total of at least 50.1% of the population, and some states will still remain loyal to either the democratic or the republican party, hence the term safe states.
They could have not done a few of those and spread them out across the states that got no attention such as Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, New York, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Maryland.
Even if they could have used their money to investing in giving some attention to those other states, not only would it take them extra time to travel to each of those states, but they would likely have barely accomplished much by doing that, especially since some of those states are safe states who would most likely, or mostly likely not, support or vote for them regardless if they had gave some attention to those states.
I clearly pointed out that his specific policies were NOT socialist and in fact more like the social democracies of "Nordic countries like Denmark and Norway."
And I pointed out that "Bernie Sanders basically wants America to be just like the nordic countries with their socialist policies, but without said conservative policies to keep America afloat, as he wants to also raise taxes, raise the minimum wage, and impose all sorts of other regulations, which would most likely end up preventing his own socialism from working, since the nordic countries do not have those. He won't talk about any of this, though. Without the electoral college, he can and will focus only on what the people in the most populated states like New York and California like to hear, such as how college and health care should be human rights regardless of their financial costs, how we need to keep raising the minimum wage, and how it's all "working" in the nordic countries, without mentioning any of these flaws, risks, or downsides."
Earlier you claimed that one of my sources was "an anonymous user on Quora which is not a reliable source by any means."
I would argue that these pastebins are even less reliable since they could easily have been edited.
But I will assume that it was not edited, and address it anyway, starting with the first pastebin.
It's mostly negative opinions about Trump, trying to imply that he is stupid or something.
The second pastebin claims that a "Fact Checker" shows that Trump "has broken more key promises than he has kept." Most of those so-called broken promises either weren't actually promises but rather some random things Trump said in random letters, emails, and/or phone calls, that were likely taken out of context since there is no full context for these, or were promises that were kept but the so-called fact checker said were broken without explaining exactly how.
Round 5
Pro
#9
Thank you for your argument. I will now give brief rebuttals of your R4 points, and then highlight that I have proved comprehensively throughout this debate that the electoral college should be abolished.
You do not explain exactly how Winner Takes All "caused" the supreme court to make this decision that they made, and neither did your source. All you did was explain Winner Takes All, and then claim that it "is anti-democratic".
I believe my opponent misunderstands my argument. The 'Winner Takes All' system did not influence the decision of the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case. The fact that one state's electoral votes goes to one candidates lead to the situation that Florida decided the Presidential Election. If the votes had been spread out proportionally, then Florida's 25 votes would have been split roughly 13-12. This would have changed who won the Presidency of the United States.
This still does not justify getting rid of the electoral college for 3 reasons.
I will address your three points without quoting them to save on character limit:
- I agree that the failure of the provisions of the 12th Amendment should not be blamed on the electoral college and my argument does not support that claim
- Again, the creation of the electoral commission itself is not a fault of the electoral college. The fact there were more Republicans on the commission than Democrats is the source of the bias.
- I also agree that this is a very undocumented event that it is difficult to say for certainty what happened in detail.
My opponent seems to believe I am making points that I am not based on my sources. To say that my argument does not justify getting rid of the electoral college is only true with the Strawman my opponent has - consciously or otherwise - created.
"it only shows that the electoral college is doing what it was meant to do, by making it easier for a metaphorical doctor like Donald Trump to win elections, and harder for a candy-man to win elections."
My opponent then defines a doctor as:
Doctors are experienced people who determine what certain problems are (such as a sickness) and recommend and give things that may feel painful (such as needles in your arm or bad-tasting medicine) but will ultimately help you in the long run.
and a Candyman as: Candy-men are inexperienced people who recommend and give things most people would likely want (such as sweet delicious candy) but are ultimately going to harm them in the long run.
My opponent has failed to show how the electoral college system "mak[es] it easier" for an "experienced [person]" that will provide policies that "will ultimately help you in the long run" but seem negative from the outlook. My opponent simply states in his subjective view that he believes President Donald Trump to meet his definition of a "Doctor" and Sen. Bernie Sanders as a "Candyman". These are political arguments against candidates in an election and are no defence of the electoral college.
My opponent gives an example of these good things that will "help you in the long run" as better border security which is a political view. Not everybody believes that better border security is in the long-term interests of the United States of America.
The comment did have an impact - I just don't believe it was that impactful. I note Charles Murray is a Conservative Republican. [1]
However, this is not a legitimate argument against the electoral college - both candidates made gaffes and political mistakes which I have outlined in the last round. My opponent offered no rebuttal of these. A candidate could run the worst campaign in American history and still deserve to be President if they had the most people voting for them. To believe otherwise is anti-democratic.
I argued that "too many people" were against this policy, not "more people". By "too many people" I am referring to the people in those then red states that did not vote for him.
Many were against this policy - but again a candidate could have the worst policy in American history and still deserve to be President if they had the most people voting for them. To believe otherwise is anti-democratic
That does not sound like "systemic bias" to me, especially since he even won the popular vote in both of those elections!Claiming that there was systemic bias when someone won the electoral college but lost the popular vote is one thing, but no way can you claim that there was any systemic bias there when the man won both electoral college and popular vote in both of those elections, and by that much.
This is where my opponent, as I stated in the last round, fails to grasp the very concept of bias.
For example, Hiram Rhodes Revels - the first African American Senator - had to face systematic bias to get elected. [2] Just because Revels won their election, does not mean that they still didn't have to face systematic racism and prejudice in society.
A systematic bias simply means there is always a lean towards on aspect of a campaign - in this case the Republican Party. I have set out proof of this multiple times throughout this debate to which no credible critique has been offered.
My opponent then goes on to criticise the very concept of representative sampling - yet another concept they fail to understand. There are margins of error, naturally, but to suggest the argument 'I wasn't asked therefore it's wrong' is ludicrous. I suggest my opponent reads this Pew Research Center article explaining the basic concepts.
I will leave my rebuttals here to move on to the main summary.
Summery
My opponent has failed to give a sufficient or credible rebuttal against:
- Faithless electors
- Misrepresentation
which I introduced in my first argument. In addition, my opponent has failed to defend the electoral college from the charge of being anti-democratic and my criticism of the Winner Takes All.
It's clear my opponent is driven by a partisan aim - with evidence of his support of President Trump being plentiful.
In terms of voting for this debate, it is clear I have better arguments - all of which were well-sourced. My opponent expressed difficulty in accessing a few of these of which I made every effort to rectify this. One issue was that my opponent uses an ad-blocker which prevents access to some sites.
I also believe I have demonstrated better spelling and grammar.
I will not attempt to argue for the conduct point as I have no complaints with my opponent - it has been a good-spirited debate.
Thank you,
PoliceSheep.
Sources
Con
#10
I will only be refuting a few more of your arguments without presenting any more new arguments since this is the last round.
My opponent seems to believe I am making points that I am not based on my sources. To say that my argument does not justify getting rid of the electoral college is only true with the Strawman
First of all, if your source has nothing to do with your argument then you shouldn't have cited it. You can't make an argument, cite a source, then accuse me of a "strawman" when I address that argument and source, especially since you've already agreed with at least 2 of my counterarguments:
I agree that the failure of the provisions of the 12th Amendment should not be blamed on the electoral college and my argument does not support that claimI also agree that this is a very undocumented event that it is difficult to say for certainty what happened in detail.
Second of all, your argument was that one of the reasons you wanted the electoral college abolished, in addition to all of the other reasons you've listed, was because, according to you, there was some kind of "bias" within the electoral commission that was created to resolve the 1876 election. I responded by saying that both democrats and republicans agreed to the creation of this commission, that any bias as a result of this in favor of the republicans was at fault of the democrats, and that any bias as a result of this in favor of the democrats was at the fault of the republicans. No matter which side the "bias" favored, this cannot be blamed on the electoral college.
In other words, the democrats should have known that agreeing to the creation of this electoral commission wouldn't work out for them, and they could have, and should have, simply not agreed to create it. They should have instead looked for a different solution that was more fair. Nobody forced anyone to create this commission or agree to it. Both sides agreed to it of their own free wills, so both sides must be ready to accept the outcome and accept it, regardless of who wins or loses.
On top of that, like I said earlier (and what you agreed with me on), there were too many factors at play here. We don't know how much of a role the electoral college played in this, if it played any, nor do we know for sure if getting rid of the electoral college would have changed the outcome of this, since this was over a century ago, and most people including myself are not going to fully remember or understand all of the details. The only thing we have to go on are the few websites and articles that documented this event in detail, and none of those, at least not what you've cited, went into that much detail to address these mysteries behind this event, so we ultimately cannot jump to the conclusion that the electoral college was at fault here.
The fact there were more Republicans on the commission than Democrats is the source of the bias.
The democrats should have done something to fix that. They should have either reduced the number of republicans on the commission, or increased the number of democrats on the commission, in order to make things more fair, but they didn't. They sat there and did nothing but allow themselves to be outnumbered until the very end. That's not bias. That's carelessness. They knew something was wrong and made no attempt to fix that. They agreed to this, and proceeded to allow this to determine the outcome of the election without any kind of intervention. They have no one to blame for this but themselves. Not republicans. Not congress. Not the supreme court. Not the electoral college. Only themselves.
My opponent has failed to show how the electoral college system "mak[es] it easier" for an "experienced [person]" that will provide policies that "will ultimately help you in the long run" but seem negative from the outlook. My opponent simply states in his subjective view that he believes President Donald Trump to meet his definition of a "Doctor" and Sen. Bernie Sanders as a "Candyman".
Here's how the electoral college makes it easier for a metaphorical candy-man to win elections. Take for instance the 2016 presidential election where Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.
Some of Hillary Clinton's campaign promises that year were as follows:
"Pass comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship that keeps families together."
"We’re going to increase the federal minimum wage."
"As president, Hillary will expand background checks to more gun sales."
Make it easier for illegals to enter and stay in this country illegally, raise the minimum wage to harm businesses that cannot afford it, and pump out more and more gun control laws in addition to all of the other 20,000 control laws that do not stop criminals and only make it harder for law-abiding citizens. These things sound good to most Americans, but ultimately would do more harm than good.
As a result of promising things that sound good to most Americans, she won the popular vote against Donald Trump, and would have won the election if it weren't for the electoral college.
Now, other people like Bernie Sanders are following in her footsteps, because they too want to appeal to the masses by promising stuff that sound good to the masses and the 50.1%, such as the free college tuition, free student loan debt forgiveness, free minimum wage increase to 15 dollars an hour, free medicare for all, more ridiculous gun regulations, free immigration, and so on.
That way, they too will be able to win the popular vote, but there's just 1 problem. They know that they can't win the actual election with the electoral college still around, because people in many different states that they would need to appeal to would not buy into their promises of free stuff "for all," so they are looking to get rid of the electoral college so they can win the election by relying on the same tactic that Hillary Clinton relied on (promising things that the masses like while directing their hatred to a metaphorical doctor like Donald Trump to make him look bad).
The electoral college helps ensure that you can't win simply by promising free stuff to everyone. The fact that you can win the popular vote but still lose the election itself due to the electoral college is a good thing, since you have to appeal to the majority of the states, not just the largely populated states that add up to 50.1% of the popular who desire free stuff.
a candidate could have the worst policy in American history and still deserve to be President if they had the most people voting for them. To believe otherwise is anti-democratic
If being "anti-democratic" means greatly reducing the chances of an evil person becoming president and bringing the most evil policies they can come up with into this country, then we most certainly should be anti-democratic with our electoral college and presidential elections! We should not strive for such a corrupt and evil president with evil policies!
For example, Hiram Rhodes Revels - the first African American Senator - had to face systematic bias to get elected.
This has nothing to do with the electoral college. It is true that racism and prejudice existed in the past, but the electoral college is not to blame for that.
I have set out proof of this multiple times throughout this debate to which no credible critique has been offered.
Fauxlaw refuted 1 of your examples, while I addressed the other 3. I've explained multiple times while your examples do not justify getting rid of the electoral college, mainly because there were too many different factors at play and unknown variables to determine if it was specifically the fault of the electoral college that the elections ended the way they did or of it was the fault of someone or something else. Even in the case where Barack Obama won the 2008 and 2012 elections, he also won the popular vote. Getting rid of the electoral college would have done nothing there to change that.
The 4 main examples you used were all of republicans winning, and none where democrats won, even though democrats have also won though the electoral college. After I pointed this out, you then argued that that even though some democrats like Barack Obama won, and won the popular vote too, there was still somehow some bias to overcome.
You kept accusing me of failing "to grasp the very concept of bias." However, you do not win presidential elections based on "bias". You win elections based on how many people and/or how many states you can appeal to, how many people vote for you, and how many electoral college votes you get when you have the electoral college.
Not only that, but the way you tried to establish what does and does not count as "bias" throughout this debate has been inconsistent.
First you claimed that there was "bias" favoring republicans in the electoral commission since it had more republicans than democrats, so I assumed that, by bias, you were referring to the number of people who voted republican versus the number of people who voted democrat.
Then you brought up Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012, and claimed that there was "bias" there too, even though the numbers of both the people who voted for him in the popular vote and the electoral college votes he won were both far greater than those of both of his opponents in both of those elections.
Finally, you brought up "bias" in the 2000 election, where fauxlaw clarified that the outcome of that election had very little, if anything, to do with the electoral college.
So basically, according to you, when democrats were careless and did not try to do anything to address the unequal amount of republicans and democrats in the electoral commission, it's because of "bias" within the electoral college favoring republicans, and when Barack Obama won both of those presidential elections by a landslide, both popular vote and electoral college, it's because of "bias" within the electoral college favoring republicans, then finally, after fauxlaw points out that the outcome of the 2000 election was due to something outside of the electoral college, somehow that too is because of "bias" within the electoral college favoring republicans... and all of this is somehow "proof" that the electoral college needs to go.
If there's bias whenever republicans win, then stick with that. If there's bias whenever democrats win, then stick with that. If there's bias whenever something outside of the electoral college influences the outcome of an election, then stick with that, but don't keep switching between these 3 and crying bias when you cannot apply the same definition of bias to all of these 3 wildly different cases, each with their own unique factors and variables that influenced the outcomes of these elections.
My opponent then goes on to criticise the very concept of representative sampling - yet another concept they fail to understand. There are margins of error, naturally, but to suggest the argument 'I wasn't asked therefore it's wrong' is ludicrous. I suggest my opponent reads this Pew Research Center article explaining the basic concepts.
Since you're repeating this argument that I already addressed, I will repeat my rebuttal to this:
Both you and your pewresearch article are being dishonest by claiming the "majority of the American people" want "constitutional change to abolish the electoral college." It may be "ludicrous" to argue that it is not representative if it does not include me and my family, but it is ludicrous to argue that just because less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of the population agreed on something does not automatically mean the other 99.9% agree on it too?
My opponent has failed to give a sufficient or credible rebuttal against:Faithless electors
I don't need to. Fauxlaw did that for me (special thanks to fauxlaw once again): https://www.debateart.com/debates/1798/comment_links/25107
It is possible that a president could be elected by a smaller sample that 22% of the electorate if a large enough segment of registered voters do not vote.
"The argument only works..." your "if" statement is not true, by the Constitution, and, unless that is changed, remains un true, therefore, not presently a factor.
Faithless electors will always be a concern, but, to date, they have never affected the outcome of an election.
Misrepresentation
I've addressed this multiple times already:
The method used to determine electoral votes gives one Wyoming's vote the power of 3 Californians. [7] [8] This leaves a mismatch in representation which can lead to an inherent bias which gives preference to smaller states (measured by population).This is actually a good thing, since candidates will be forced to appeal to the majority of the states to win elections instead of only concentrating on the small handful of largely populated states like New York and California.There is a strong argument from protecting small states from the tyranny of the majority, but the electoral college doesn't do this. (Hermens, 1958) In the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump won seven of the 10 largest states, and Hillary Clinton won seven of the 12 smallest states.
So here you responded that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both won 7 states, but the electoral college requires that you win the majority of electoral votes. Donald Trump won 30 states and 304 electoral college votes, while Hillary Clinton won 20 states and 227 electoral college votes. The electoral college was doing it's job.
my opponent has failed to defend the electoral college from the charge of being anti-democratic
Like I said earlier:
the fact that the Electoral College is undemocratic is exactly the point. It's not supposed to democratic. All your arguments only work if you assume America's president is supposed to be elected democratically, but America's president is not supposed to be.
You haven't explained why it should be democratic. You just stated that you prefer it to be democratic without justifying why. As a matter of fact, you instead justified why it should not be democratic:
a candidate could have the worst policy in American history and still deserve to be President if they had the most people voting for them. To believe otherwise is anti-democratic
I don't why you or anyone would want a president who would implement "the worst policy in American history," and decide that an evil person like that should "still deserve to be President".
In terms of voting for this debate, it is clear I have better arguments
Your so-called "better arguments" were mostly opinions, along with some examples of democrats losing elections that you believe they should have won, even though fauxlaw and I pointed out that these losses can barely be blamed on the electoral college since there were so many other variables and factors at play, both known and unknown.
It's clear my opponent is driven by a partisan aim
No, the democrats are driven to get rid of the electoral college because it did not work in their favor this time.
Anyways, thank you for the debate!
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
This took a while to get through. Hats off to both participants, An interesting debate for sure.
The debate required
PRO must prove why it should be abolished.
CON must prove why the system should stay.
PRO says faithless electors, misrepresentation, republican bias
CON says Doctor v Candyman, better distribution than pure favouritism
--------
Pro, was much better organized. They had a clear structure and clear reasons why they wanted abolishment. It was easy to see the points they made, and why they made them, Their questions and retorts were well-founded. In short, they made it easy for me to remember their position. Pro made great arguments.
Con, was not as clear or organized. Con's strategy was to focus on Pro's arguments, and Con did not really develop an independent thesis. there was a lot of potential with the Candyman v Doctor analogy. Bringing it to a Trump/Sanders did not help.
Therefore I found Pro to make more a more persuasive position than Con, even though I agree with some of the theory behind Con, I just did not get a sense it was developed and designated as effectively as Pro. Point to Pro.
=====
Now to the sources. For Pro some of the sources did require registration for a free account. One of the shortened URLs did not work. I do not think it is appropriate to provide sources that require registration. If there is an adblocker or something else that impairs access, the onus is on the user of the source to find a way to provide access. the least amount of confusion, and maintaining copyright laws. If that can't be done, then the source can't be used.
While the quality of the sources was exceptional for Pro, and their use was exceptional. the mistake was not having sources that are more accessible. Having some links not even work is an issue as well. Points to Con.
S&G - No issue. Tie.
Conduct - I do not feel it is fair to penalize Pro twice for the same issue. (sources) I do see Pro tried to make them accessible thereafter. I do feel Pro was more civil, had a clearer presentation, and rebuttals were clearer. However, it was not enough to warrant more points.
Summary, I do think that Pro deserved overall a larger point differential win than this vote shows, I am restricted by the categories.
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
Two heavy weight debaters. Pro puts Con on the ropes but Con comes straight back. Gets put back on the ropes. Comes back, and the process continues. So how does this get resolved? The debate thrashes towards what the majority of voters want, and what Donald Trump wants. What Democracy wants et cetera. The debate is not about anymore about the college. So it is Democracy that needs to decide this. Not me. So after reading the arguments i go back to where i read Con sourcing Donald Trump. Donald Trump himself never even called for it to get removed on twitter like those other democrats did. In fact, later on, he tweeted that:
The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!
It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4--
Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!
When i click on that Donald Trump did say that.
And just to be 100% certain that i am pulling the correct rabbit out of the hat. And that Donald Trump, who the people voted in to presidency, regardless of his IQ high or low, is genuinely of this opinion. I shall google it to be 100% sure. If he is not. I shall not vote. Or shall reconsider who i vote for. If he is. Then that solves it. the people of United states decided. The voters must be respected in a democratic system. So is he still of this opinion? As of 2019, yes he is.
I however given how much of a heavy weight clash of this was. It would be unfair for me to seperate them farther. Sources wise it was a tie. Spelling and grammar tie. Conduct perfect.
I flagged my ow vote and made a comment before yours.
"Summary, I do think that Pro deserved overall a larger point differential win than this vote shows, I am restricted by the categories."
Given that i voted for Con, i hope Con does not complain to much about me allerting DrSpy to his error.
As a voter for Con, i am not in anyway whatsoever allerting DrSpy for anyother reason than honesty.
DrSpy. You appear to think Pro deserved the victory. You appear under the impression that you awarded him a narrow victory. You did not. Your Maths ended at a 3-3 draw.
Sorry Con. that was not personal. I voted for you.
Dangit. I made a mistake
Conduct point should be neutral.
If this comes down to one point, please change it. Sorry.
It is possible that a president could be elected by a smaller sample that 22% of the electorate if a large enough segment of registered voters do not vote.
"The argument only works..." your "if" statement is not true, by the Constitution, and, unless that is changed, remains un true, therefore, not presently a factor.
Faithless electors will always be a concern, but, to date, they have never affected the outcome of an election.
It is possible to become President with just 22% of the popular vote. By getting half +1 in the states of 39 (+DC).
The argument only works if the assumption that states are important - my argument is they shouldn't be.
The idea of faithless electors is also indefensible.
I believe that people should have a say proportionally - not states. States should not have rights like these.
That's a problem with many systems in the USA.
I believe that the Electoral College should be eliminated but it will never happen. Since the Republican Party benefits, they will block any attempt to eliminate it.
Without the electoral college, the only states that would matter would be California, Texas, Florida, and other high-population states. It is only fair that all states have a say proportional to their population. It makes the most sense logically
By the way, the assertion by Pro that states still depend on selection of electoral college delegates by the respective State governments is no longer true, although it was at one time. Every state now selects electoral college delegates by direct vote of the people through their designated choice, by name, of presidential candidates.
As a professional statistician [certified Six Sigma Black Belt, retired], I made a study of the effect of popular vote vs. electoral college, using the 2016 election as raw data for the study. I compared how many states, in order of population, largest first [CA], and descending to the least [WY], were required to elect the president strictly by popular vote. Then I did a comparative study of how many states, in reverse order of population, least first [WY] to most [CA], were required to elect the president, strictly by electoral college. I was not surprised by the results, given that I was already convinced that the electoral college voting method was superior to popular vote. This study confirmed it.
I found that in popular vote, it required only 24 states to elect the president; the first 24 states in largest population, and that victor would have been Clinton. Whereas, by electoral college vote, it required 40 states in ascending population order, least to most, to elect the president [Trump]. Which system appears to you to be the more equitable, and representative of all the citizens?
Pro [PliceSheep] alleges that the Electoral College unequally weights the vote in favor of Republicans, citing four instances [1876, 1888, 2000, 2016] wherein the Electoral College disagreed with popular vote to elect the President.
The 2000 election must be withdrawn from that list because it was neither the Electoral College, nor the popular vote, that gave Bush 43 the Presidency. It was the Supreme Court, given the failure of FL to declare a definitive winner of that State. The conflict should have been resolved in the House, which would have very likely voted as SCOTUS decided, given the R advantage of numbers in the House.
Moreover, in the history of the current major political parties, 14 Democrat Presidents have been elected, while 20 Republicans have been elected. There’s the skew, and, even if the claim of E.C. partisanship were true in three cases, removing the 2000 election, there are still more Republicans elected than Democrats, even though the Democrats began with Jackson [#6], and Republicans are first elected with Lincoln [#16]. With a 10-election advantage, Democrats fall short of Republicans, even considering the few failures of the E.C in agreement with the popular vote.
I made a spelling/grammar error in one of my sentences.
Where it says "addition 20 votes"
It should say "additional 20 votes"
America really does have a lot of issues!
Given the extremely disproportionate representation in the senate (which appoints the supreme court justices), rampant gerrymandering in the house of representatives, and electoral college bullshit America's pretty much a shitocracy.
Changed for the voting and rounds. Put charectors at 15,000 as I don't want the debate to be constricted by the limit.
There should be a 2-month voting period, 5 rounds, and/or 10,000 characters per argument