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[smjjames]

Yeah, the system needs more patches first. Basically the promise with any expansion of the voter base is that parties can't ignore such large chunks of people any more, it reduces the number of divisive strategies that will work. Mandatory voting can help reduce divisiveness because "drive them away from the polls" ceases to be so effective, but there can't be other barriers preventing people voting.

This is kind of the other problem, the Republicans are so fond of trying to disenfranchise minorities that you have to make sure that they don't do that. Which is a question of enforcement. I can imagine the cries of 'LiBERAL TYRRANY!' or somesuch.

[Descan]

Generally speaking, I feel like incentives work better than force. Whether that amounts to just a national holiday on a non-religious-day (So not Friday, Saturday, or Sunday) or more, a tax-break for proving you voted in your tax-returns or something? People who want to vote generally but don't either can't get the day off, can't afford to take the day off, or try to vote but can't because either they don't have enough voting locations in their area, or voting ID laws* and the like discriminate against them. Making it a holiday solves the first and second one, doesn't really solve voter discrimination or under-saturation of locations. Those would only come from more funding for voting locations and a more active voting population not allowing legislature to put said discriminatory laws in place.

*Voter ID solves a non-existent problem of voter fraud but adds in whole slew of problems that disproportionately target poor people who can't afford ID or can't afford to go the one DMV three cities over that's open on a wednesday night every 4th week in a month to get said ID. I'm not a huge fan of voter ID laws.

You could also make the case that incentivizing with a tax-break is a way of making voting mandatory: A tax-break and a fine aren't all that dissimilar, either way you're "losing" money that you would otherwise get if you voted. Unless mandatory voting would result in jail-time for not voting, but holy shit is that a horrible idea, not least of which because American prisons are already oversaturated with petty, non-violent crime. "What are you in for?" "I didn't vote." "You monster." Esp. if it results in a criminal record, cuz then you're barred from voting anyway.  (itself a really fuckin' awful idea. "Hey, I have an idea, let's distance these social malcontents from our political system even MORE! That'll help rehabilitation rates!")

[smjjames]

How would you make sure that tax break gets applied fairly? It's hitting logistics problems again, and not all voters pay taxes (for whatever reason), so....

[McTraveller]

The people didn't elect it the electoral college did.  The people wanted hillary.

Well, to be fair, "The people" isn't correct - it was "some people", who happened to be a majority in certain geographic areas but not others.

So I'm by no means happy with the situation, but this argument talks about wanting what one (select) majority wanted, but not wanting what some other majority wants.  This inconsistency is troublesome, and is probably in general related to most political issues here in the US and across the world.

That is - we like the majority rule when it aligns with our desires / beliefs / values, but not otherwise.  It is very hard to deal with that type of situation - because by nature the majority typically does have more power than the minority (game theory and all that jazz).

The only way "tyranny of the majority" is prevented is if the majority want to prevent tyranny of the majority.  In fact it's kind of an oxymoronic statement - the majority is actually getting its way when it "protects the minority" - because the only way that can happen is if the "majority" (power) protects the minority.

And yes, it is a very sad day when the majority becomes apathetic and lets a small ruling class just have its way.

[Descan]

I'm not up on the American tax system. At least in Canada, pretty much anyone and everyone who's done any work that year files a tax return. If you vote, in the hypothetical of this tax-break idea, you'd get some sort of receipt or (securitized, like a credit card) number which you fill in on your tax return which nets you however much this voting tax-break is worth. Whether it'd be a number you use every voting year which has a "Did Vote y/n?" in the IRS system or just a reciept number is another question, but either way. Are there multiple votes in a year in the States sometimes? If so, I'm not sure if you'd get like, multiple tax-breaks per voting or just one for the whole year. Probably should be one-per-vote just to keep the incentive for voting when applicable, instead of one-per-year.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "fairly" though... I'd prefer a vote is a vote and worth the same amount regardless of your income. I wouldn't make it worth all that much, maybe 100 bucks at the absolute maximum. Not a whole lot but for the poorest Americans, that's maybe 1-2 days worth of work. The richer folk probably wouldn't care but I think they mostly vote anyway, or at least aren't barred from voting due to systemic issues like "aren't allowed or can't afford to take the day off."
(though you'd be surprised at how much a small pittance compared with nothing can incentivize activity. IQ test scores can raise 20 points just from a ten dollar incentive, f. ex.)

Logistically it's not much addition. Just the receipt is new, the rest of it's already part of the tax system anyway.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The electorial college is another checks and balance thing. It's each state voting for a president, weighed by population so California gets more votes than Montana.

It's exactly to keep a minority of urban dwellers with easy access to cast their ballet from one area determining policy for an assumed majority in rural areas or other places where voting is difficult or impractical.So yeah if you consider 'the people' to be overrepresented urbananites with easy access to transportation and easy to reach polls, sure. If you consider what a majority of citizens want regardless of geography, well....

[smjjames]

The thing is that the EC was actually a compromise made so that the slave owning states could have fair representation vs the smaller states or something like that. The numbers as they had them in the early days might have been balanced, but there's absolutely no way that the founders could have predicted population growth, expansion, or the distribution of said population.

Which is how you get a few high count states making up a big chunk of the whole thing. Also, it's actually unbalanced with the current way it's done since voters in Montana actually have more voting power in EC than California.

538 did a few articles on that stuff.

[Enemy post]

Nevermind

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The electorial college is another checks and balance thing. It's each state voting for a president, weighed by population so California gets more votes than Montana.

It's exactly to keep a minority of urban dwellers with easy access to cast their ballet from one area determining policy for an assumed majority in rural areas or other places where voting is difficult or impractical.So yeah if you consider 'the people' to be overrepresented urbananites with easy access to transportation and easy to reach polls, sure. If you consider what a majority of citizens want regardless of geography, well....

That argument is, as I've argued before, invalid for the Presidency.

States having representatives based on population is what keeps the balance of all parts of the population. There is only one President. To vote for the one President based on each state's districts is like voting for each state's Senator based on the districts instead of the whole vote, except far worse because there are 100 Senators.

There's no check or balance here, just a relic of the United States' slaveholding past, which is what caused the Electoral College to be a necessary compromise.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Regardless, the EC is the implication of individual states voting a candidate, due to the USA being 'united states' and governed as such not a monolithic federal entity.

Eliminating states rights in the manner that the EC is eliminated probably means rewriting the constitution.  Which probably means a civil war, depending on who you talk to.

Anyways, it's pretty safe to assume if everyone was forced to vote, was able to vote, Trump would have won. Rural areas that support guys like that have less access to voting polls than do voters in dense urban areas or suburbs.

[Helgoland]

Anyways, it's pretty safe to assume if everyone was forced to vote, was able to vote, Trump would have won.

[citation needed]

[TheDarkStar]

Regardless, the EC is the implication of individual states voting a candidate, due to the USA being 'united states' and governed as such not a monolithic federal entity.

Eliminating states rights in the manner that the EC is eliminated probably means rewriting the constitution.  Which probably means a civil war, depending on who you talk to.

Anyways, it's pretty safe to assume if everyone was forced to vote, was able to vote, Trump would have won. Rural areas that support guys like that have less access to voting polls than do voters in dense urban areas or suburbs.

Although people from multiple states are voting for the president, the president is still over a branch of the federal government and unlike senators/representatives, he doesn't represent any particular place - he represents everywhere. Thus it makes sense for people to vote for him as US citizens, not citizens of a particular state.

If you're arguing that the EC is about states rights, then what about the 1/2 of states that have less influence than average relative to their population? Surely the EC is taking away their rights as states by decreasing their say in the nation?

And finally, what evidence supports this last statement? The popular vote went for Hillary; polling also predicted Hillary.

[Greiger]

Yea I'm not sure about that whole thing, I don't know if hillary would win or not in that hypothetical, but at the same time I'm sure it would not have been a sure thing for trump to win.

Trump campaigned on a lot of 'you all hate politicians, I'm not a politician so vote for me'  Maybe that worked for some people but a lot of the folks who generally dislike politicians, myself included, dislike them for putting money in their pocket first and putting money in their allies' pockets second, securing their power by doing favors, and then finally making America a better country as long as it looks good for them. 

Donald Trump's job description for the vast majority of his life was literally 'put money in pockets' and nothing else.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Anyways, it's pretty safe to assume if everyone was forced to vote, was able to vote, Trump would have won.

[citation needed]

I hate this kind of response because one it either forces me to research, and do some kinda rigor or it means the responser knows I'm right but does'nt have any academic data either, but put the burden of proof on me.

I quit trying to prove an uncontroverisal fact on the Internet. Also I don't really care, I'm just giving the barest of rationale to why the system is like is it. If you are very concerned with facts, I challenge you to prove my assertion wrong. I say the majority of Americans lean right-wing, but fewer of them vote compared to left-wing voters who have easy access to polls.

It seems common sense and common knowledge, so its your problem to explain how rural voters are a minority and how they have easier access to polls and they vote more often.

[sluissa]

Anyways, it's pretty safe to assume if everyone was forced to vote, was able to vote, Trump would have won.

[citation needed]

I hate this kind of response because one it either forces me to research, and do some kinda rigor or it means the responser knows I'm right but does'nt have any academic data either, but put the burden of proof on me.

I quit trying to prove an uncontroverisal fact on the Internet. Also I don't really care, I'm just giving the barest of rationale to why the system is like is it. If you are very concerned with facts, I challenge you to prove my assertion wrong. I say the majority of Americans lean right-wing, but fewer of them vote compared to left-wing voters who have easy access to polls.

It seems common sense and common knowledge, so its your problem to explain how rural voters are a minority and how they have easier access to polls and they vote more often.

Your kind of baseless assertion and then lack of willingness to back it up is one of the problems with the media and the internet in general these days. It's easy to say something and say "prove me wrong" It's hard to actually do the proving.

In this case though, pretty easy. http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/

And more specifically: http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/party-identification-trends-1992-2014/#total

EDIT Note: This does not count for electoral college votes. I'll take another 10 minutes to check out research on that one. I doubt it will take even that long though.

Got distracted by real life, but I did find this: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/ Which if you crank it all up to 100% turnout then you get a solid 332 EC votes for Clinton. Granted, I acknowledge this is only one source, but I tend to respect Nate Silver in his statistical rigor.