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The Electoral College and the American Union

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Posted By: 4250Luis, 5/19/2026 11:01:01 PM

Every few years, we in the United States endure something like the sweats of malaria while certain people, devoted to “democracy,” call to abolish the Electoral College, now merely a counting system whereby each state is assigned an electoral weight based on its representation in Congress—the sum of its senators and representatives. There are two main lines of the argument. The first is that because of the College, a president can be elected without a majority or a plurality of the vote. In elections involving two main candidates, this has happened three times: 1888 (Harrison over Cleveland), 2000 (Bush over Gore), and 2016 (Trump over Clinton).

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Reply 1 - Posted by: FL_Absentee_Voter 5/20/2026 1:26:30 AM (No. 2106232)
My only gripe with the College is - with one, maybe two exceptions - the all vs. nothing apportionment of votes. In 2024, 42% of California voters chose to vote for someone other than the Giggler yet she got all 54 electoral votes - that doesn't seem right. Trump should have been able to collect over a third of those. But states run their elections and the blue states would never consider changing to allow so much as 1 electoral vote to go to the opposing candidate, so there's no point in red states considering it, either. To do so would be political suicide.
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Reply 2 - Posted by: petrichor 5/20/2026 7:09:02 AM (No. 2106265)
The electoral college is there to avoid mob rule. There was a nice informative documentary on the French Revolution on the Discovery channel that highlighted an informed Frenchman telling the public about the dangers of mob rule. I had to laugh when I saw that, knowing how left-wing the Discovery channel is.
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Reply 3 - Posted by: Strike3 5/20/2026 7:28:42 AM (No. 2106287)
As long as the elections are not secure and the vote count is always in doubt, it does not matter what system is used.
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Reply 4 - Posted by: mifla 5/20/2026 8:52:04 AM (No. 2106360)
Without the electoral college, people in many states would not even bother to vote in national elections. There would be no point, as the urban centers (mostly blue) would determine whom is elected.
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Reply 5 - Posted by: PubliusMM 5/20/2026 11:56:06 AM (No. 2106479)
I have a proposal to revamp Presidential Election tabulation; the number of Electoral Votes is the total of US Representative and Senators (535) plus 3 more for DC. That totals 538, half of which is 269, explaining why the magic 270 is critical. Presently, there are different ways States count/cast their EV. Some are proportional, some are winner take all, and some even roll in Ranked Choice voting. My notion is that the EV for a single congressional district should be allocated to the Candidate winning in that district. The two EV representing the Senators from the State would be cast for the popular vote winner of STATE. This plan removes a lot of the campaigning and reliance on large EV count States, and pushes candidates to campaign across a more broad spectrum of the country. It takes out the focus on CA, NY, FL, and others, in favor of UT, NV, MI, and OH. It puts ALL congressional districts on a level playing field.
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