The U.S. presidential race is so close. Here's what happens if there's a 269-269 Electoral College tie.
@npr explains: "This hasn't happened in modern American politics — it did happen back in 1800 — and after a renewed effort to change how Nebraska allocates its electoral votes failed, it is now looking even less likely that a tie would occur."
Do you think the U.S. Electoral College should be abolished, in favor of the popular vote?
#Election #ElectoralCollege #USPolitics #Politics
@NewsDesk @npr The problem isn’t the EC. Its winner-take-all award of electors which causes the EC to not match the popular vote and is purely a state, not Constitutional, decision to use. But keep pushing the pitiable abolishment narrative that has been called for and remains unresolved since LINCOLN(!!!!) instead of doing your journalistic duty and actually informing the public, not playing to their base emotions. Weak af.
@opethminded But you're assuming that matching the popular vote is a good thing.
The EC was built on the premise that there are better ways to do things than just matching the popular vote.
So it kind of begs the question to say that matching the popular vote would be better when the issue is that it might not be at all.
@opethminded again you seem to be begging the question that the person the people democratically want is the way to go.
The design of the US government was recognizing interests of, for example, state and local governments aside from the interests of me and you. There are very fair reasons to consider the interactions between state and local governments and reflect them in the election of a president.
In any case, state by state the people get to determine through their state representation whether they have winner take all assignment of electors or not.
So as it is, arguably democracy has chosen not to go the way you would prefer in many cases, so we should recognize that democratic choice not to have winner take all elections.
@volkris @NewsDesk @npr Agreed in part. Getting rid of winner-take-all in favor of proportional award of electors gives us the best of both worlds…granting the presidency to the person the people democratically want while avoiding some of the possible pitfalls of a straight popular vote that the Founders intended. Hillary and Gore woulda won. No (never-gonna-happen) constitutional amendments needed.