A Vote for Democracy?

[Falco Underhill]

The electoral system isn't the cause of racism.

The electoral system isn't causing blacks to be disenfranchised within their states.

A change in the nationwide method for electing presidents wouldn't change all those ploys for disenfranchising black voters one bit.

All it would do is lead to the problems for Democracy the founders were concerned with.

How would changing the electoral college fix anything?

Would a direct democracy enable us to vote someone into the presidency that could solve all these issues in a way that a president elected according to the electoral system can't?

What exactly would be the benefit of changing the electoral process for disenfranchised blacks?

Of course the electoral system isn't the cause of racism in this country. I never made any such claim.

What I did point out, with a great deal of evidence, is that it has been used with great effect to over-represent white voters and their interests in the South. First during slavery when white slaveowners received representation for their slaves but kept them in bondage and didn't allow them to vote or participate in society. And later during segregation when southern states simply denied the vote to Black citizens but were still entitled to count them for the purposes of the Electoral College. That is how we ended up with a system in which a white voter in Mississippi or South Carolina had their vote carry 10x the weight of a voter in say Iowa. Black voters were denied the vote directly through things like poll taxes and literacy tests and just plain intimidation. And then indirectly through the criminalization of Black life and then disenfranchisement of anyone with a record.

In other words, the Electoral College was a tool used to advantage the slaveholding south from 1789 until the Civil War. It then became a tool used to advantage white supremacy in the Jim Crow south for the next 100 years. Are things better and different today? Of course. But old habits die hard and there are parts of this country where such practices linger. Where politicians find it easier and "safer" to manipulate their electorate rather than persuade them.

Since none of that lingering racism is caused by the Electoral College and getting rid of the Electoral College wouldn't change that lingering racism one bit, what would be the benefit of getting rid of it for America's lingering race problem?

Disenfranchised voters would still be just as disenfranchised either way, right?

[Ken]

Thank you! Now THAT I do understand as a legitimate point, and it's one I've not quite considered before. This will take me some time to think about and see how that fits in with the rest of your arguments. It may be a while, days or weeks, but at least I see your point here.

Whether this was intentional or an oversight is another question. Again, no one has proven intent by the founders by primary sources, and they have mostly backed away from such claims, as far as I can see.

It's a question worth looking at though.

If you read the Federalist Papers you will find that was to LIMIT the south in the Electoral College. They were going to count every slave. The free states did not want them to count them at all towards electorates. This was the compromise.

Oh, I definitely agree with that.

The Electoral College was not a Pro-Slavery plot. Whether there were any slaves or no slaves, the founders were adamantly opposed to the idea of a direct democracy.

I would not say that is true. There are deep traditions of direct democracy across New England and many northern states. The New England Town Halls are an example.

What is true when the nation formed from disparate colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia is that there was no consensus for using direct democracy to determine Federal office and a majority of representatives opposed it.

It wasn't just a north-south split either. All of the representatives at the Constitutional Convention were wealthy elites who were suspicious of common folk and not particularly interested in ceding their power to the masses. So there's that too. Sure they came up with elegant justifications to support that position. But that is what it was.

[Ken]

The electoral system isn't the cause of racism.

The electoral system isn't causing blacks to be disenfranchised within their states.

A change in the nationwide method for electing presidents wouldn't change all those ploys for disenfranchising black voters one bit.

All it would do is lead to the problems for Democracy the founders were concerned with.

How would changing the electoral college fix anything?

Would a direct democracy enable us to vote someone into the presidency that could solve all these issues in a way that a president elected according to the electoral system can't?

What exactly would be the benefit of changing the electoral process for disenfranchised blacks?

Of course the electoral system isn't the cause of racism in this country. I never made any such claim.

What I did point out, with a great deal of evidence, is that it has been used with great effect to over-represent white voters and their interests in the South. First during slavery when white slaveowners received representation for their slaves but kept them in bondage and didn't allow them to vote or participate in society. And later during segregation when southern states simply denied the vote to Black citizens but were still entitled to count them for the purposes of the Electoral College. That is how we ended up with a system in which a white voter in Mississippi or South Carolina had their vote carry 10x the weight of a voter in say Iowa. Black voters were denied the vote directly through things like poll taxes and literacy tests and just plain intimidation. And then indirectly through the criminalization of Black life and then disenfranchisement of anyone with a record.

In other words, the Electoral College was a tool used to advantage the slaveholding south from 1789 until the Civil War. It then became a tool used to advantage white supremacy in the Jim Crow south for the next 100 years. Are things better and different today? Of course. But old habits die hard and there are parts of this country where such practices linger. Where politicians find it easier and "safer" to manipulate their electorate rather than persuade them.

Since none of that lingering racism is caused by the Electoral College and getting rid of the Electoral College wouldn't change that lingering racism one bit, what would be the benefit of getting rid of it for America's lingering race problem?

Disenfranchised voters would still be just as disenfranchised either way, right?

Right now our presidential elections are largely held in a few swing states and candidates rarely venture into deep blue or deep red states except to raise money. Do you think that is a good thing? To let so few people in a half dozen states largely determine the direction of the country?

And voting rights aren't just about presidential elections. They are about all elections from school board up to president.

[temporal1]

Thank you! Now THAT I do understand as a legitimate point, and it's one I've not quite considered before. This will take me some time to think about and see how that fits in with the rest of your arguments. It may be a while, days or weeks, but at least I see your point here.

Whether this was intentional or an oversight is another question. Again, no one has proven intent by the founders by primary sources, and they have mostly backed away from such claims, as far as I can see.

It's a question worth looking at though.

If you read the Federalist Papers you will find that was to LIMIT the south in the Electoral College. They were going to count every slave. The free states did not want them to count them at all towards electorates.

This was the compromise.

Oh, I definitely agree with that.

The Electoral College was not a Pro-Slavery plot.
Whether there were any slaves or no slaves, the founders were adamantly opposed to the idea of a direct democracy.

Trying to imagine “in the day,” with no comparative models of “What to do with freed slaves” - slavery was not new on the planet or in history - civil wars to free them then assimilate them as full legal citizens, adding special benefits+protections, was the complication. We witness now, serious damage to family units, then, increased crime. Not intended, but.

Under the circumstances, the EC compromise was genius, and serves today.

(In my lifetime, i’m pretty sure i recall both losing parties complaining about the EC.)

It’s Dems/career politicians now, but, i believe the EC is a go-to target of losers.
And, i’m not convinced they “really-seriously” want to do away with it. Politicians know, policies can bite, either way. (Altho, i admit, many today do not appear to have enough depth to look that far ahead!) (If free speech is wanted, it must be tolerated.)

Now viewing in retrospect, real time outcomes+consequences of societal decisions can be identified and possibly addressed.
Many laws are literally EXPERIMENTS, we want to believe, with good intentions. Over time, results will be known.

At the moment, huge numbers of immigrants, not slaves, not all legal, must be addressed.
With a direct democracy, esp one equating “residents” with legal law-abiding voting citizens. Questions continue. The EC continues to serve.

i notice some leaning toward “defund the police” inserted above. more “good intentions” that do more harm than good, esp to neighborhoods most in need.

(for me, the mentality of misusing the Public Treasury to pirate funds for various agenda is poor thinking.) The Public Treasury is not a petty cash drawer or slush fund for lib dreams. If anything is defunded, those funds should be immediately returned to taxpayers.
Go through established channels to get approval for (whatever). Don’t just appropriate (pirate/steal).

In retrospect, too, there should be no rush to federalize response to local or regional problems.
This is part of how gov ends up with so much “the tail wags the dog.”

Overall, looking at new+untested law as EXPERIMENTS, then reviewing real-time RESULTS might be a significant improvement.
The U.S. has taken a serious turn toward MINORITY RULE, results are causing damage, esp to ALL young people, floundering around in moral and carnal never-neverland. And, without benefit of adequate education/perspective, they vote for more.

[Falco Underhill]

Of course the electoral system isn't the cause of racism in this country. I never made any such claim.

What I did point out, with a great deal of evidence, is that it has been used with great effect to over-represent white voters and their interests in the South. First during slavery when white slaveowners received representation for their slaves but kept them in bondage and didn't allow them to vote or participate in society. And later during segregation when southern states simply denied the vote to Black citizens but were still entitled to count them for the purposes of the Electoral College. That is how we ended up with a system in which a white voter in Mississippi or South Carolina had their vote carry 10x the weight of a voter in say Iowa. Black voters were denied the vote directly through things like poll taxes and literacy tests and just plain intimidation. And then indirectly through the criminalization of Black life and then disenfranchisement of anyone with a record.

In other words, the Electoral College was a tool used to advantage the slaveholding south from 1789 until the Civil War. It then became a tool used to advantage white supremacy in the Jim Crow south for the next 100 years. Are things better and different today? Of course. But old habits die hard and there are parts of this country where such practices linger. Where politicians find it easier and "safer" to manipulate their electorate rather than persuade them.

Since none of that lingering racism is caused by the Electoral College and getting rid of the Electoral College wouldn't change that lingering racism one bit, what would be the benefit of getting rid of it for America's lingering race problem?

Disenfranchised voters would still be just as disenfranchised either way, right?

Right now our presidential elections are largely held in a few swing states and candidates rarely venture into deep blue or deep red states except to raise money. Do you think that is a good thing? To let so few people in a half dozen states largely determine the direction of the country?

And voting rights aren't just about presidential elections. They are about all elections from school board up to president.

The electoral college is just about presidential elections, and I think we've established it's pretty irrelevant to the race problem you've been harping on in so far as getting rid of the Electoral College won't contribute to fixing the racist problem one bit.

The Electoral College was not/is not a Pro-Slavery/Pro-Racist Plot.

[temporal1]

The electoral college is just about presidential elections, and I think we've established it's pretty irrelevant to the race problem you've been harping on in so far as getting rid of the Electoral College won't contribute to fixing the racist problem one bit.

The Electoral College was not/is not a Pro-Slavery Plot.

i wonder if there is a study of how slavery was addressed in history, around the world?
In the U.S., the hyper-focus is on what the U.S. did (and continues to do) - my impression is, wildly different from other countries?

fwiw, my impression is, slavery usually just became obsolete, slaves assimilated into the outer society in various extents+ways, including marriage. the U.S. experiments are fairly unique - even in this hemisphere, in the same time frame.

a fav slave story is of Vikings kidnapping and enslaving Catholic monks, the monks not resisting, but eventually, the monks converted pagan hearts to Christ! not by force but with humility.

i’m with Thomas Sowell.
he takes a broad view of slavery in the world, he doesn’t make a false god out of U.S. policies.
i wish he were in his 40’s, rather than 90’s. his books will carry forward. lots of young people are discovering him and intrigued at ideas “never before presented” to them.

it’s a shame gov ed has never cost more, yet is not in its “prime.”
in the U.S., the best students often do not consider teaching as a career. when i was young, it was one of the most honorable careers.

many dream of defunding the DOE.

[HondurasKeiser]

I’d like to see those citations…especially the one where all the state legislators of Florida “and every other southern state” get together to “Criminalize black life”…or that keeping convicted felons from the franchise is an elaborate scheme to suppress the black vote.

Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of “free” black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery.

The neoslavery system exploited legal loopholes and federal policies that discouraged prosecution of whites for continuing to hold black workers against their wills. As it poured millions of dollars into southern government treasuries, the new slavery also became a key instrument in the terrorization of African Americans seeking full participation in the U.S. political system.

We seem to be jumping around in time here. You suggested that voter suppression based on race is still evident today and claimed that this is done through the 'criminalization of black life'. When asked for citations you gave me excerpts about the criminalization of black life under Jim Crow, which no one disputes.
1. It's reasonable to argue over the efficacy of disenfranchising rehabilitated felons.
2. It's reasonable and important to drill down into the data and figure why blacks are convicted at higher rates for drug offenses.
3. It's a leap, bordering on conspiratorial thinking, to suggest that in 2022 an elaborate scheme has been concocted, one so obvious that you Ken, can discern it through a few clicks of your mouse but at once so opaque as to keep it safe from legal challenge; to lock up more black men in order to keep them from voting for Democrats.

[Ken]

I’d like to see those citations…especially the one where all the state legislators of Florida “and every other southern state” get together to “Criminalize black life”…or that keeping convicted felons from the franchise is an elaborate scheme to suppress the black vote.

Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of “free” black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery.

The neoslavery system exploited legal loopholes and federal policies that discouraged prosecution of whites for continuing to hold black workers against their wills. As it poured millions of dollars into southern government treasuries, the new slavery also became a key instrument in the terrorization of African Americans seeking full participation in the U.S. political system.

We seem to be jumping around in time here. You suggested that voter suppression based on race is still evident today and claimed that this is done through the 'criminalization of black life'. When asked for citations you gave me excerpts about the criminalization of black life under Jim Crow, which no one disputes.
1. It's reasonable to argue over the efficacy of disenfranchising rehabilitated felons.
2. It's reasonable and important to drill down into the data and figure why blacks are convicted at higher rates for drug offenses.
3. It's a leap, bordering on conspiratorial thinking, to suggest that in 2022 an elaborate scheme has been concocted, one so obvious that you Ken, can discern it through a few clicks of your mouse but at once so opaque as to keep it safe from legal challenge; to lock up more black men in order to keep them from voting for Democrats.

So we agree there is plenty of evidence to indicate that during the era of Jim Crow segregation, the criminalization of Black life was one of the methods that white supremacist (segregationist) governments in the south used to keep their Black citizens from voting and out of public life? There is overwhelming evidence that this was the case and they readily admitted to it.

What you are questioning is whether there are any vestiges of this history continuing to the present day?

NOTE: I am not saying that there is some grand new conspiracy here in 2022 under which governments in the south are conspiring to disenfranchise Black voters. What I am saying is that the old ways of doing things during 100 years of segregation have not completely vanished and that there is a built-in default bias that leans in that direction as reflected by things like (1) disparate conviction rates for Blacks and Whites when the crime rates are similar, (2) laws that permanently disenfranchise citizens for what are often minor crimes committed in youth, and (3) resistance by politicians to attempts to change any of this. Note. It doesn't really even matter WHY Blacks are arrested and convicted at higher rates than Whites for the same crimes. It doesn't have to be some grand conspiracy to deny voting rights and probably isn't. There are no doubt a lot of complicated reasons for why this is the case that probably all fall into the general category of systemic racism. All that matters is that the result is that more Black citizens are disenfranchised than White citizens, even today. And that many politicians are currently resisting efforts remedy this.

If you want specific evidence, look to Florida where voters overwhelmingly passed Measure 4 several years ago which restored voting rights to felons who had served their sentences. Which would bring Florida more in line with most other states. The Republican governor and Republican legislature did everything they could to stop and undermine this measure from challenging it in court, to passing a whole series of new laws designed to block implementation and make it nearly impossible for people to get their voting rights restored. Call it what you want. But this sort of deliberate foot-dragging has the effect of preventing the last of segregation-era voter suppression methods to be completely eliminated.

If you don't trust my word for it, here are several articles that describe exactly what I am saying:
'
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/us/f ... oting.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ing-rights
https://www.politico.com/states/florida ... hts-921875

Generally speaking I think democracy flourishes the best when all citizens are broadly given the right to vote, voting is made easy and encouraged, and politicians and political parties have to compete in the marketplace of ideas for votes. And I think democracy is undermined when politicians and parties seek instead to pick their own voters and eliminate others though methods like gerrymandering and voter suppression, or simply throwing up obstacles to voting.

[RZehr]

I feel like rural Oregon voters are disenfranchised. They suffer from gerrymandering, just like the blacks might in other states.

[Ken]

I feel like rural Oregon voters are disenfranchised. They suffer from gerrymandering, just like the blacks might in other states.

And you would probably be right. Unfortunately the Supreme Court seems to be fine with the most egregious forms of gerrymandering and the Senate filibuster is blocking congressional efforts to eliminate gerrymandering. So that is the world we live in.

Here is the current map for Oregon. You are in District 2 I suspect? How would you redraw it to better represent rural Oregon? The only way to really redraw it is to carve up District 5 which is the most odd-shaped one by putting Bend back into District 2. And then you'd probably have to put Medford back into District 4 west of the Cascades and reshuffle all the boundaries to accommodate having just one district east of the Cascades.



If you want to see real gerrymandering, look at Ohio or Florida or Texas