Talk:United States Electoral College/Archive 10

Protected edit request on 21 December 2016
Add DOI and pages to Kolodny 1996 and remove unnecessary parameters

Current:

Proposed:

—Chris Capoccia T&#8260;C 15:37, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks good. Thanks again. Infoman99 (talk) 04:22, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A non-controversial change and I can see no reason why an admin should not implement this ASAP. YBG (talk) 03:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 December 2016
Add author and URL to citation for "Senate Refuses To Halt Debate On Direct Voting"

Current: Proposed: —Chris Capoccia T&#8260;C 16:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks good. Thanks. Infoman99 (talk) 04:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A non-controversial change and I can see no reason why an admin should not implement this ASAP. YBG (talk) 03:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 December 2016
Switch to cite news template and add author and other formatting improvements for citation "How Does the Electoral College Work?"

Current: Proposed:

—Chris Capoccia T&#8260;C 17:50, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks good. Infoman99 (talk) 04:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A non-controversial change and I can see no reason why an admin should not implement this ASAP. YBG (talk) 03:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 December 2016
Add author, date and work to citation "Why the Constitution's Framers didn’t want us to directly elect the president"

Current: Proposed:

—Chris Capoccia T&#8260;C 17:55, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks good. Infoman99 (talk) 04:26, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A non-controversial change and I can see no reason why an admin should not implement this ASAP. YBG (talk) 03:36, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 December 2016
Replace self-published sources with reliable source

Current: Proposed:    —Chris Capoccia  T&#8260;C 18:59, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks good.Infoman99 (talk) 04:29, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A non-controversial change and I can see no reason why an admin should not implement this ASAP. YBG (talk) 03:36, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 21 December 2016
Convert reference "Nebraska's Vote Change" to cite news template and add author & URL

Current: Proposed:

—Chris Capoccia T&#8260;C 20:09, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Looks good.Infoman99 (talk) 04:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A non-controversial change and I can see no reason why an admin should not implement this ASAP. YBG (talk) 03:38, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Needs correction
"Electoral College has elected the candidate who received the most popular votes nationwide, except in four elections, 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000."

As of 2016 it has become "except in five elections, 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. 2.110.122.105 (talk) 23:57, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Four. The 1824 election had many States choose their Electors via their State legislatures, so that year's popular vote was only of some of the State and thus was not reflective of the whole country. SMP0328. (talk) 01:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I propose adjusting the final sentence in the 3rd paragraph of the lede as follows.

Current: In most elections, the Electoral College has elected the candidate who received the most popular votes nationwide, except in four elections, 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000.

Proposed: In most elections, the Electoral College has selected the candidate who received the most popular votes nationwide. On only four occasions has the Electoral College selected someone else: 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016.

Rationale: The text needs to be revised to include mention of 2016. Additionally, there is some question about including 1824, on two counts. Firstly, the popular vote included only 75% of the States (18/24) and 75.5% of the electoral votes (197/261). Secondly, in 1824, the Electoral College failed to elect the President; the decision was made in the House of Representatives. Either of these would be a good reason to exclude 1824 from the list of exceptions, but the proposed wording only deals with the second reason. I chose this because it made the wording much simpler.

Please discuss this here. If a consensus becomes apparent, I will add Edit fully-protected to make a formal request for an admin to make the change. YBG (talk) 03:27, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * As recent contributors to this talk page on this or a related matter, you are invited to support or oppose my proposal below. YBG (talk) 04:13, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I misspelled your username above. YBG (talk) 04:17, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Tallying support and opposition for proposal

 * Support as proposer. I wouldn't mind adding a footnote re 1824, but as it stands, I don't think it is necessary. YBG (talk) 04:13, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Neutral as the 1824 prez election is unique among the 58 held in US history. I'll accept whatever's decided. GoodDay (talk) 04:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Support. For reasons given in my earlier comment. SMP0328. (talk) 05:15, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The main idea is correct, but the language is imprecise. --- The election is held in the states, so there is no “nationwide” vote. The artificial aggregation for “most popular votes among the states” IS reported for total partisan votes among national offices of President, Senate and House, but each vote is cast in the states or their districts, not “nationwide”. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:25, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Kind of: I prefer the concision of one sentence, and would add 2016 (but perhaps not until next week, when Congress meets).  I can live with a substitute for "nationwide" (but I am less convinced that word is readily as restrictive, as some argue).  I would instead of two sentences on this, have one sentence, and a second sentence on 1824:  viz., In the 1824 election, no candidate won in the College and the matter was sent to Congress to decide. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:13, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I have added 2016 to the lead. I don't have much of an opinion regarding the rest of this proposal though the source I used throws 1824 in with the other examples. Huon (talk) 00:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your thoughtfully worded edit summary. YBG (talk) 05:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Unusual balloting system
I didn't see any discussion of the system described below. It isn't a congressional-district system, but could yield a split result in its own way.

I remember voting as a South Carolina resident in 1980, and on our voting machine in Columbia, one had to vote for each elector (whose name appeared) rather for an entire slate for a candidate. I.e., one had to flip switches in eight columns on the Ronald Reagan line to vote for him, or in the same eight columns of the Jimmy Carter line to vote for him. The third-party and independent candidates had their own set of eight electors each.

There was nothing to prevent one from selecting electors from multiple lines (though only one per column, it would seem). Although Reagan got SC's electoral votes, there was some question as to whether one of the Carter electors may have won on a recount. Some elector with a popular name may have out-polled his national candidate ... or maybe many voters simply missed the last or first of the bunch.

That's the only time I've encountered this situation. Anyone else? WHPratt (talk) 20:25, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Another issue is that under such a system, determining a candidate's true "popular vote" would be difficult. Would it be the most votes polled by any individual elector? The least? The average? I believe this came up in 1960, when Alabama split between Democratic and unpledged electors. WHPratt (talk) 15:27, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Electors
Are there different sets of electors in each state for each presidential candidate on the ballot (including any third-party candidates)? I feel this point could be made clearer in certain places. 109.145.5.88 (talk) 14:51, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
 * See here. Each party nominates a slate of electors. Which slate wins is determined by the voters. SMP0328. (talk) 16:34, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
 * If you read it carefully, you will see that that passage does not explicitly answer the question. It is like various other parts of the article: the explanation is clear only if you already understand it. 109.145.5.88 (talk) 18:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
 * What do you think is missing from the article? It provides the information you referenced in your OP. Do you want the wording to be improved? SMP0328. (talk) 18:24, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Re: Trump's claim of his historic electoral landslide
When I heard that, I immediately thought of some previous landslides, to see if his claim is correct, viz, Eisenhower 52, Johnson 64, Nixon 72, Reagan 80, 84. But in this article I had a hard time finding the previous electoral numbers. But we get information overload in data galore, by states. I'd think it'd be of interests to list a table of numbers simply displayed as Trump 306, Clinton 232, etc. Can someone please point to such table, if any? Much obliged. QES_girlQES girl (talk) 16:52, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * United States presidential election. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:32, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanx, got it. QES girl (talk) 19:55, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Edits to Criticism-Advantages section
I tried to improve the section that discusses which size states have the most disproportionate electoral power to their populations. Someone placed a few clarification needed tags, which I left in, but hope to have improved upon. I don't believe there is any consensus on the best way to do this calculation. Since there is valid criticism of both methods mentioned, I tried to summarize those limitations.

The "electors per capita" method would be valid if margin of victory mattered. For instance, if an elector was selected at random and their vote chose the president. But that is not how it works; winning 270-268 is the same as 538-0. If the country consisted only of OH, PA, IL, and WY, with their current populations and electoral representation, this method would say Wyoming has the most power even though the candidate who wins any 2 of the 3 larger states wins the election regardless of how Wyoming votes. I think that's a big enough flaw that the section header shouldn't assume this method's validity.

The combinatorial "power index" method accounts for that, but isn't perfect either. My understanding is that its main flaw is that it assumes no correlation between each states' votes (treating them like coin flips). Knowing what you do about American demographics, you might not be surprised to hear that ND and SD have yet to vote for different candidates in any presidential election since their statehood. The Banzhaf metric implies they would have more electoral power if they were a single state (with 4 EVs) because a sure 4 EVs for their preference is more powerful than 6 when they agree and 0 when they cancel. If the probability of cancelling is in fact negligible, this conclusion is unrealistic. 141.126.35.239 (talk) 21:10, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

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National Popular Vote revisions, October 2017
Split the monster section into three somewhat more logical paragraphs. I wrapped up the question of the constitutionality of implementing the NPVIC into the relevant paragraph and discarded the following sentence, which also touched on the constitutionality question, because: (1) neither the phrases "by the people" nor "state by state" are in the referenced article, and (2) there is no argument or evidence cited that such a constitutional provision exists.

"Not only are states forbidden to enter into any agreement or compact with another state without consent of Congress, but it would overturn the constitutional provision of electing a president of the United States by the people state by state."

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Meeting of electors date over the years

 * 1789: The first Wednesday in February next be the day for the Electors to assemble in their respective States and vote for a President from Resolution of 13 September 1788 by the Confederation [Continental] Congress.


 * 1792 through 1884:The Electors shall meet and give their votes on the first Wednesday in December from 1 Stat. 239, Section 2.


 * 1888 (1889) through 1932 (1933):The Electors of each State shall meet and give their votes on the second Monday in January next following their appointment from 24 Stat. 373, Section 1.


 * 1936 to the present: The Electors of President and Vice President of each State shall meet and give their votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment from 62 Stat. 673, now codified as United States Code: Title 3, Section 7 [3 USC 7].


 * Czechia2016 (talk) 14:21, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Where would you put that material in the article? SMP0328. (talk) 05:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Good question, any suggestions, perhaps in the history section or create a new section. Czechia2016 (talk) 02:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution on the election of electors
I added a couple of clarifications (hopefully) as to what the Constitution says about the electors, mainly to illustrate a key difference between the US system of separation of powers and parliamentary systems where the lines are more blurred between the executive and the legislative body. By all means, rewrite it if it's too clunky. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.242.195.79 (talk) 03:51, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 12 September 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved (page mover nac) Flooded  with them hundreds  17:44, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Electoral College (United States) → United States Electoral College – My proposed natural disambiguation is used in the body of the article and is preferred to the current parenthetical disambiguation per WP:ATDAB. As far as I can tell, there has been no discussion about the title of this article, and it has never been moved. I'm pinging User:MelanieN, who contested my CSD on the target. KSFT (t&#124;c) 15:12, 12 September 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me &#124; my contributions 14:06, 20 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Are not people searching just going to type in, electora..., which will give them, Electoral College (United States), and they will know exactly where to go, they are much less likely to type in, united st. . . because if they do, they will be looking for United States. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:24, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, despite WP:NATURALDIS, this is an example where moving as such does not appear to be an improvement... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:42, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Assuming you have the same problem with it as Alanscottwalker above, would Electoral College of the United States be better? KSFT  (t&#124;c) 19:14, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, though that one is arguably less WP:CONCISE. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:10, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * FWIW, this article was moved once. It was initially created at the title you're proposing i.e United States Electoral College in 2002 and remained there for six years until 2008 when BilCat moved it to the current title. –Ammarpad (talk) 20:39, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I was the one who contested the CSD, which proposed to delete the redirect page "United States Electoral College" to facilitate this proposed move. But WP:G6 only applies when the proposed move is "non-controversial or consensual." My edit summary was ''Declining G6 speedy. A high visibility article like this (thousands of daily page views, hundreds of watchers) should not be moved without talk page discussion.'' So thank you, KSFT, for starting the discussion here, and for pinging me. I have no opinion; the title should be up to whatever consensus you all reach. But if it is moved, I certainly think that "Electoral College (United States)" should remain as a redirect for those who type in "electora...". --MelanieN (talk) 20:32, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Support move to United States Electoral College based on WP:CONSISTENCY with other US-related topics United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, United States courts of appeals, United States Constitution, United States Bill of Rights. Also worth noting that the US government uses this name as the title of their official website which explains this topic as do RS such as the BBC. --Gonnym (talk) 00:14, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Support, provided the redirect as described above is included. SMP0328. (talk) 07:22, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. WP:NATURALDIS is an obvious improvement here.--Cúchullain t/ c 18:54, 26 September 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

POV dispute regarding introduction
Please bear in mind that is an ironclad principle of leads that the lead must summarize all significant controversies related to the article topic. Arguably, the controversial aspects should be given more prominent billing than the tedious minutiae of parliamentary procedures which the current article tries the patience of the reader with for 4 or more lead paragraphs, nearly all of which could be cut with no loss. The controversy must be included in the lead per Wikipedia Law!98.113.64.235 (talk) 08:41, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * An article's introduction is supposed to be a summary of what is in the body of the article. What you want to add is not in summary form and promotes one point of view without even mentioning the opposing point of view. That violates a wiki-policy (as you would call "Wikipedia Law") known as NPOV. SMP0328. (talk) 22:11, 27 October 2018 (UTC)


 * This issue should now be brought to the community by one of you editing this page for a consensus. Edit warring warning filed on the appropriate user talk page. P37307 (talk) 22:29, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but then the final paragraph should be deleted, so the Introduction would read as it was before this dispute arose. The anon should have burden of gaining a consensus for including the material he wants to add. SMP0328. (talk) 23:00, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I have removed most of the added paragraph, which was very POV and one-sided. I left one sentence stating that the college is controversial, and one reference. I do concur with the comment, above, that the lede contains way, way too much detail; the lede should contain only a summary with the detail being in the text. --MelanieN (talk) 23:39, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your assistance. I'm fine with scaling back the Introduction, but what remains has to be more than simply saying the EC elects the President and VP. It should include the major details of how the EC works. SMP0328. (talk) 23:46, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Vehemently disagree. Please re-read WP:LEAD. As stated there, the lead MUST "summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." Here, your largely meaningless sentence "The electoral college is controversial" fails to summarize the prominent controversies relating to the topic. Merely stating that the topic is controversial fails to summarize or in any way enlighten readers as to what the controversy might be. Frankly, I find the position of my worthy opponents here to be absurd. You have left line-by-line exegesis of the parliametary procedures of the electoral college (in no way significant enough to be in the lead, and nothing that almost anyone cares about or came here to learn), yet you refuse a description of the controversies regarding the electoral college which make it an interesting topic which someone might wish to learn about. If you find my description unbalanced, the proper, rule-governed response would be to provide a more adequate summary of the opposing points in favor of the electoral college, not to whitewash the article by removing all but a meager, one-line mention (a mention is not a summary) of the controversy, in contravention of all policy and dictates of reason. I eagerly await your replies. 98.113.64.235 (talk) 02:36, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Your material consisted only of reasons for opposing the EC. That blatantly violates NPOV. An introduction is simply to be a short explanation of what is in the article. It does not give great detail on any point. The details belong in the body of the article, not its introduction. The body of the article gives great details regarding arguments for and against the EC, but you are free to add to any of those arguments or add additional arguments subject to wiki-policy (e.g., NPOV and RS). SMP0328. (talk) 02:57, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Are you looking at the same article I'm looking at? One: I have included arguments in favor of the EC. It is not my fault the arguments in favor are weaker. Please read again. Two: arguably the entire rest of the lead should be cut AND ONLY this paragraph maintained. The rest of the lead is excruciating detail on minutiae and you attempt to cut the one paragraph that gives a relatively high level summary of the significance of the topic. I have hardly "gone into great detail" by including a single sentence summary of the arguments in favor, and a single sentence summary of the arguments against. How can you honestly suggest that I have gone into "too much detail" in the lead in a 3 sentence summary of the two sections that take up nearly half of the article? 98.113.64.235 (talk) 03:10, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Relax, my fellow editor. I made some wording changes to your material. I did remove the reference to the poll as polls are of small samples of people and so can't be used to say what the American people generally think of the EC. Otherwise, I have left your material in the article. SMP0328. (talk) 03:13, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * OK.98.113.64.235 (talk) 11:29, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

(outdent) The OP has blocked as sockpuppet of User:Kingshowman. SMP0328. (talk) 01:11, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Article Introduction rewrite and subsection edits
Considering the exchange in the section above, I would like to (a) include a “major details of how the EC works”. There should be three introductory paragraphs to better align with the MOS:LEAD. — Keeping the first paragraph, beginning, “The United States Electoral College is a body of electors…” and keeping the last paragraph, beginning, “The Electoral College is controversial…”

The proposed second paragraph should read as follows to “summarize the most important points” MOS:LEAD,

"Following the national presidential election day in the first week of November, each state counts its popular votes by state law to designate the Presidential Electors chosen in that election. These electors meet in the state capitals in December to cast their Electoral votes for that state. The results are certified by the state to the Congress where they are tabulated nationally in the first week of January before a Joint Session of the House and Senate. If a majority of votes are not cast for a candidate, the House resolves itself into a presidential election session with one presidential vote assigned to each of the fifty state delegations, excluding the District of Columbia. The elected President’s inauguration is scheduled by law for January 20th."

(b) The existing Intro information in paragraphs #2, #3, and #4 should be distributed into article sections and subsections as follows:

History - Evolution of selection plans
 * Intro paragraph #2 — the following material should taken from the intro and moved into the section “History”, subsection “Evolution of selection plans”:
 * The custom of allowing recognized political parties to select a slate of prospective electors developed early. In contemporary practice, each presidential-vice presidential ticket has an associated slate of potential electors. Then on Election Day, the voters select a ticket and thereby select the associated electors. Since 1996, all but two states have followed the winner takes all method of allocating electors by which every person named on the slate for the ticket winning the statewide popular vote are named as presidential electors. Maine and Nebraska are the only states not using this method. In those states, the winner of the popular vote in each of its congressional districts is awarded one elector, and the winner of the statewide vote is then awarded the state's remaining two electors.

Modern Mechanics - Meetings
 * Intro paragraph #3, first half — the following material should taken from the intro and moved into the section “Modern Mechanics”, subsection “Meetings”, first half:
 * On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, about six weeks after the election, the electors convene in their respective state capitals (and in Washington D.C.) as prescribed by the Twelfth Amendment, to vote for president and, on a separate ballot, for vice president. An elector may vote for whomever he or she wishes for each office provided that at least one of their votes (president or vice president) is for a person who is not a resident of the same state as themselves.


 * Intro paragraph #4, first half — the following material should taken from the intro and moved into the section “Modern Mechanics”, subsection “Meetings”, second half:
 * After the vote, each state then sends a certified record of their electoral votes to Congress. The votes of the electors are opened during a joint session of Congress, held in the first week of January, and read aloud by the incumbent vice president, acting in his capacity as President of the Senate. If any person received an absolute majority of electoral votes that person is declared the winner. If there is a tie, or if no candidate for either or both offices receives a majority, then choice falls to Congress in a procedure known as contingent election.

Modern Mechanics - Faithlessness
 * Intro paragraph #3, second half — the following material should taken from the intro and moved into the section “Modern Mechanics”, subsection “Faithlessness”:
 * Some states, however, do have laws requiring that state's electors to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Electors who break their pledge are called "faithless electors." In a rare occurrence, only once, in 1836, has an election's outcome been influenced by faithless electors. Over the course of 58 presidential elections since 1789, only 0.67% of all electors have been unfaithful.

Joint session of Congress and contingencies - Contingent presidential election by House
 * Intro paragraph #4, second half — the following material should taken from the intro and moved into the section “Joint session of Congress and contingencies”, subsection “Contingent presidential election by House”:
 * In a contingent presidential election, the House of Representatives, voting by state, elects the president, choosing from among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. In a contingent vice presidential election, the Senate elects the vice president, choosing between the two candidates who received the largest number of electoral votes. In this election, each senator casts an individual vote. In both elections, an absolute majority is required to win: 26 of 50 individual states for president, and 51 of 100 senators for vice president. The District of Columbia would not participate in a contingent election for president or vice president as it is not a state.

Without objection, I’ll give it a try in a couple days. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 02:18, 29 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Love it all, except the words "elector" and "electors" should have consistent capitalization, and "The elected President’s inauguration is scheduled by law for January 20th" should be "The elected president and vice president are inaugurated [,pursuant to the Twentieth Amendment,] on January 20." The bracketed portion is optional. SMP0328. (talk) 03:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I love it too, and support SMP0328's suggestions. SMP0328, I just read your response about turning the original back. I agree. This is the type of conversation I had in mind. I will note, that I "counseled" and even warned the now block user on it's talk page for it's POV vandalism issues on other pages I was editing, and even suggested at one point that he/she was an experienced user, bypassing a block, but kept working under the assumption it was a new user in my final talk page messaging. At some point a full fledged edit war between the users ensued where I issued a warning a suggested all issues be resolved in the talk page. Thanks again, P37307 (talk) 03:18, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Changes per WP:LEDE
VirginiaHistorian requested we discuss changes here for the lead. So, let's chat.

The reason I removed the information in the lead is that the lead is supposed to be a summary of the rest of the article. Given that the "controversy" is exceptionally one-sided and confined to a small group of one side of the political spectrum AND that the topics discussed in that paragraph were not reflected later in the article, it violates WP:LEDE and should either be expanded upon in the body of the article or removed from the lead. Buffs (talk) 20:01, 9 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking the time to visit Talk. Let’s take your points in reverse order.
 * (3) “The ‘controversy’ topics are not reflected in the body” — No, it they are found in almost half of the article. See sections #5-“Alternative methods of choosing electors”, #6-“Contemporary issues” and #7-“Efforts to abolish”.
 * (2) “The ‘controversy’ is confined to a small group on one side of the political spectrum — No, the controversy has sharpened over the last decade. As reported in a December 2016 Gallup Poll, | "Americans’ Support for Electoral College Rises Sharply” -- those wanting to keep the Electoral College increased from 35% in 2004 to 47% in 2016.
 * (1) “The ‘controversy’ is exceptionally one-sided” — No, the controversy is multi-faceted. See section #Contemporary issues - Criticism - (a) Non-determinacy of popular vote, (b) Exclusive focus on large swing states, (c) Discouragement of turnout and participation, (d) Obscuring disenfranchisement within states, (e) Lack of enfranchisement of U.S. territories, (f) Advantage based on state population, (g) Disadvantage for third parties. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:48, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Happy to admit when I'm wrong. On this one you're correct and I am in error. The controversy section takes up a little over a third of the article and, proportionately, is appropriate in the WP:LEAD. Not sure how I made the math error on this one, but it's definitely proportional in size.
 * However, while it is certainly appropriate to mention both sides of the debate, too much weight in the lead is criticism:
 * "The Electoral College is controversial, with some defending it and others calling for its abolition." I suppose it is a valid statement, but, by definition, anything controversial has supporters and detractors. It seems like a vapid sentence with no substance. It really doesn't need to be there.
 * "Supporters of the Electoral College argue that it...that of a nationwide popular vote.[5]" Seems good overall. Probably a little TOO detailed.
 * "According to its critics, the Electoral College's system results in a disproportionate focus on voters in a few "swing states" while most areas of the country are largely ignored by candidates, and essentially functions to provide citizens in less populated and economically unproductive rural states with as many as four times the votes as those as those in more populous and economically productive urban ones, thereby violating the fundamental democratic principle of "one person, one vote;" many also allege that the college was originally instituted and continues to be maintained for explicitly racist and anti-democratic purposes.[6][7][8][9][10] Polls since 1967 have shown that a majority of Americans favor the president and vice president being elected by the nationwide popular vote, instead of by the Electoral College.[11][12]" I suppose this is the crux of the problem. No where in the rest of the article does it mention "racism/racist" or "anti-democratic purposes" or "one person, one vote". As such, it is not a summary of what is below and violates WP:LEAD: "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents". IMHO, we should pare back the criticism to what is contained in the body of the article, not introduce points that aren't expanded upon later. Buffs (talk) 20:24, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the lead gives too much weight to the criticisms, and that it bring up a racial element which is not present in the article. I have inserted a shortened, more focused version of the criticism into the lead which I hope will be acceptable to all. --MelanieN (talk) 21:08, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * This is the "criticism" sentence I inserted, in place of the several controversial sentences discussed above: "The Electoral College is criticized primarily for three things: Opponents of the Electoral College argue that it can result in a person becoming president even though an opponent got more votes (which has happened in two out of the last five presidential elections); that it causes candidates to focus their campaigning disproportionately in a few "swing states" while ignoring most areas of the country; and that its allocation of Electoral College votes gives citizens in less populated rural states as much as four times the voting power as those as those in more populous urban states, thereby violating the fundamental democratic principle of "one person, one vote.” "--MelanieN (talk) 21:13, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Oops - you are right that "one person one vote" is not mentioned in the article (although maybe it should be?) so it should not be in the lead. --MelanieN (talk) 21:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Someone changed the opening of the sentence in the article, so I am changing it here. --MelanieN (talk) 00:45, 13 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I am very interested in possible reforms relating to the Electoral College that would more closely align its apportioned vote to the U.S. population, to better reflect "one-man-one-vote" for U.S. citizens. One alternative that occurs is to (a) consolidate ME, NH, and VT into a 5-representative state (reducing their combined EC vote by four), (b) consolidate ND, SD, MT, ID and WY into a 6-representative state (reducing their combined EC vote by eight), and (c) admit Puerto Rico as a 5-representative state (increasing their EC vote by seven). But I cannot find the idea anywhere in authoritative, reliable sources. Surely I am not the only one to think of this. Can anyone give me some leads for research? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:59, 16 November 2018 (UTC)


 * You might look at attempts to throw out the Senate as a legislative body. The same idea applies there. The rights of the states balanced agains the rights of individuals. By removing EC votes from the states, you remove the effectiveness of states' rights as sovereign bodies within the US. If they are all equal, we can't reduce the EC below 3 for EVERY state, regardless of population. Another option would be to INCREASE the size of the House thereby making the relative percentage more accurate to the states' size/proportion. If the EC increased the same, there would be MORE emphasis on the more populous states. Buffs (talk) 21:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the leads -- though a quick search on abolishing the U.S. Senate only brings up a Gawker blog online with a lot of profanity.
 * But seriously, the average population in a Congressional District is now about 711,000. If the House were apportioned by a rule of one Representative for every 600,000 population, we might have a house of more like 551 than 435 (After a tour of European parliaments, Jefferson concluded that any legislature larger than 200 was a "mob".) With a 600,000 population base, the following fourteen states might be allocated one Representative: currently 1: DC, ND, AK, SD, DE, MT, RI, currently 2: NH, ME, HI, ID, currently 3: WV, NB, KS.
 * In a general way, I like the Founders idea of federalism, geographic diversity, and population "virtual representation" by voting electorate *until* there are nationally standardized registration and voting procedures with population-proportionate precincts and machines for federal elections. The Founders were keen on "proportion" in all things. The state big-to-small population disparity at the Constitution was 10:1, and now it's 52:1 -- not good.
 * (-- Though -- that disparity is ameliorated in the Electoral College which is statistically substantially proportionate to the total U.S. population: 1788 VA to DE, RI, two that had 4 of the 138 EC total = 2.9% -- vs -- CA to AK, DC, DE, MT, ND, SD, VT, WY, eight that have 16 of the 538 EC total, still 2.9%, but I have reservations). TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, this is getting far afield from this page but you would not have to change the House at all (even though 435 is a weird number), you would just have to amend/break the link between the the numbers in the House and the numbers in the College to enlarge the College but not the House. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:32, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Lede supporter "outcome appear more legitimate"
(1) Re: the Introduction third "controversy" paragraph misstatement of proponent positions. In the source document [5] by the Congressional Research Service, one applicable quote is “rancorous disputes could have profound negative effects on political comity in the nation, and might ultimately undermine public confidence in the legitimacy of the presidency and federal government.” [referencing Curtis Gans, “Why National Popular Vote is a Bad Idea” in Huffington Post]. That reflects the rationale made by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist #68, “It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.”

(2) But in the current introduction it asserts that defenders suppose the Electoral College “makes the electoral outcome appear more legitimate than that of a nationwide popular vote.” That is NOT the case as sourced, — rather it appears that the Electoral College chooses a president — decisively —, without precinct voter challenges nationwide in federal district courts to determine the validity of each mailed in ballot signature, the relevance of aged machine breakdowns in minority precincts, the adjudication of lawfully cast ballots reported two-minutes “late”, etc.

The “direct popular election” proposal without nationwide federal election standards in place -- for (a) registration, (b) voting infrastructure and ballot formatting, and (c) precinct vote casting and counting procedures -- would result in a system of “tumult and disorder”, transferring the choice of president to cabals of partisan lawyers arguing before federal district judges and their appellate courts. That, instead of the Constitutional intent “that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person” [Federalist #68].

(3) The applicable phrase describing the position of supporters in this case is that the Electoral College, “results in a decisive choice for president without the popular vote alternative referring every presidential election to a precinct by precinct review in 90 federal district courts.” TheVirginiaHistorian (talk)


 * The issue seems to be that it needs to be mentioned in the body first. I don't have a problem with the phrasing changes in general. Buffs (talk) 21:36, 16 November 2018 (UTC)