Republicans going full anti-democratic. Want to get rid of one man one vote.

It’s still plurality winner with public polling, just like the thousands of Congressional and state-level races every year. Those aren’t producing third party winners except on extremely rare occasions, and that’s not the electoral college’s fault. The problem is structural. Only the top two in polling, or someone rising fast in polls at the end of the race, can win. The EC at least ensures that a third party can play kingmaker for a particular state’s votes, at that doesn’t stop the major parties from ignoring them.

Progress fallacy.

Okay but none of that has anything to do with the Electoral College.

Remember, though, I'm talking about ditching the EC and requiring a runoff if no candidate gets 51% of the vote. That introduces a different dynamic to the whole thing. It certainly won't be a factor in every election, and it might take a couple of election cycles before it starts to matter, but it will matter, sooner or later. People forget that for a brief moment in 1993, Republican talk radio was awash in people screaming that Bill Clinton was elected with less than 51% of the popular vote, so therefore, he wasn't a valid President and it was all Ross Perot's fault, since he stole votes from Bush. Factor in the petulant sirens who absolutely lose their shit when a particular candidate isn't 100% in agreement with them on an issue (even though they line up at 90% or better on everything) and refuse to vote for that candidate, and things start to get interesting. They get even more interesting when Presidential candidates have to actually think about building coalitions with other parties in hopes of winning.

How so?

So do a lot of reasons people use the EC to justify not voting for a third-party candidate. Think of all the folks here who've sworn up and down that they weren't going to vote for Trump, and rationalized writing in someone, such as their deceased father, because they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Biden or Hillary instead of Trump. They could argue that because of the EC it didn't really matter who they voted for, as their state was already going to go one way or the other. (Nevermind that if they voted Libertarian, it might have helped the party qualify for Federal matching funds, and that would have enabled the Libertarians to potentially shift the dynamics of future elections.) Wipe out the EC and that excuse is gone.

Oh, sure, I don't believe for a moment that many of them would actually vote for someone outside of the two main parties, at least in the first election to not be determined by the EC, but as time goes on, not only does it get harder for them to use that rationalization, we also will have generations growing up without the EC, who'll think that if they vote for a third-party candidate, that that candidate might actually win.

If the EC hadn't been a thing in 2000, what would have happened? Superficially, one could argue that Gore would have won, but that's predicated upon the idea nothing about the election cycle would have been different outside of ditching the EC. We can't say that's true. We don't know how many people who sat out that election might have actually voted, or who they might have voted for. Imagine, if you will, WTF might happened if the 2000 election came down to a runoff between Bush and Nader. What might Bush have offered to try and swing a few Democratic voters his way? Would Nader have been successful in the runoff if his response to anything the Bush campaign threw at him was simply, "Fuck you, I promise that I will not invade Iraq if elected. If, by some circumstance a military operation against Iraq becomes necessary, I will immediately resign as President because I will have failed in my job by getting us to that point."? I mean, sure W was saying that he had no plans to invade Iraq when he was running for President, but I'm not sure too many people believed him, regardless of their political leanings.

Because islands are the place where you get the most diverse life. UA knows because he is one and has never seen another living soul aside from his cum dumpster for years. I am so glad I get to hear from them day after day arguing over the internet rather than in person because we need to hear their bullshit. Most drunk and disorderly couples would find a bar, but I guess that might be a long bike ride.

All Boomers should be escorted out of government posts, and replaced with Generation X aged people. Then comes term limits. Elderly people with no stake in the future, shouldn't be making laws concerning it.

Ditching the electoral college and introducing majority requirement are orthogonal. You can't argue that ditching the EC alone is worth supporting based on this totally other thing you're proposing. The default assumption for what would replace it has to be plurality winner, since that's what's used nearly everywhere else.

Uh... pretty textbook-ly so. "X were wrong about some proposal for progress Y turning out bad, therefore your belief about my proposal for progress is wrong as well."

Federal funding is not contingent on popular vote in the previous election (unlike state funding). Wait wait, don't tell me... "Well actually when I say eliminate the electoral college, I actually mean eliminate the electoral college, institute an entirely new voting system that's never been tried anywhere, AND add federal matching funds contingent on performance in previous elections. Therefore everyone should support eliminating the electoral college."

The existence of the two-party system is structural, not psychological. FPTP with public polling is what has to go (and since the first amendment specifically and freedom of the press generally* makes getting rid of public polling a nonstarter, it's FPTP that has to go). The fact is, your plan is silly, and has no chance of coming to pass compared to well-known voting systems, such as IRV, approval, STAR, non-instant runoff, full sequential runoffs, or even (especially) plurality winner.

*offer not valid in France.

Or there would be riots in the streets and a justified march to burn down Washington as tens of millions of Gore voters are disenfranchised without so much as a court order. And that's assuming anyone shows up at all, that they're not utterly turned off from voting by a system that's little better than a series of coin flips. Randomness is bad in elections. It's not good in tiebreakers, and it's worse everywhere else. It's extremely deleterious to electoral epistemology. Who controls the source of randomness? How do you know they're reporting it accurately, particularly if you're only using it once or twice? How do you know it's not compromised? How would you prove it? How could you convince anyone to trust its outcomes? Doesn't matter whether it's winnowing a runoff field or full sortition, it's bad. And that's not even considering the effect on the perceived legitimacy of the governments running said elections. You think Trump's attacks on the DOJ are bad? Wait until there's no way to prove that the election wasn't rigged against him in the runoff selection.

If you think getting rid of the electoral college is only better with a runoff voting system with randomness added, you don't really have any reason to oppose the electoral college per se, you just want a different system entirely (and a bad one at that). Your first system (runoffs with a random smaller number of candidates) is pointless compared to IRV or full sequential runoffs. Your second plan (actually random candidates in runoffs) is genuinely terrible. Either way, support for getting rid of the electoral college shouldn't be predicated on other steps, particularly unserious ones. Either the worst realistic voting system (FPTP) without the electoral college is better -- so argue that if you want to convince anyone -- or it's not, so say that getting rid of the electoral college isn't enough and don't try to convince people otherwise.

The youngest boomers turn 60 this year. They've lived through plenty of relevant experience. And if they have kids/grandkids they have stakes.

I agree that some combination of age/longevity in office is too much. But honestly, while I don't care for the doddering types like Grassley, the biggest problem with Congress (and, apparently, SCOTUS) is MONEY.

Corollary to the above post - Money.

Local journalism can't make money even with great work and doesn't enjoy the "philanthropic" support of right wing propaganda outlets financed by dark money billionaires.

That leaves large legacy media - who can never ignore profit motives - but more importantly, the great majority of working journalists in those places come from and live in privilege because working class kids can't afford to break in working for almost nothing as an intern or whatever to break in and build a career, nor are they the child of a well connected senator or business titan or whatever. They have no lived experience in common with people like us.

Yep when I worked as a TV news shootER (see what I did there?) that was exactly what I was dealing with. Three bright, attractive young women, who had been sheltered and if not from rich families ones that could see to it they never had to shovel shit (so to speak) growing up. That didn't make them bad people, or even bad reporters, but it did mean that came at stories without the bullshit detectors that those of us who grew up in less privileged circumstances might have.

Definitely the bolded bit.

Small market television pay has always been terrible and near poverty-level, but in most places it's worse now than it ever has been. That means that a significant number (a majority?) of people coming out of school can only work in the industry if their first few years in the business are subsidized by their rich parents paying for rent, cars, etc. That leads to most newbies being trust fund kids. Hence my disdain for the type.

And when you have a generation (or more) of people who come from a certain socio-economic class, you're going to get news coverage from that perspective instead of a more well-rounded one where journalists parents' are plumbers, teachers, etc.

Jesus Christ.

Fuck.

Maybe the Republicans are right and we don’t deserve democracy.

WTF people?!?!?