Campaign Reform

[giblets]

It could be done with less than a quarter of the popular vote, even if you assume only two candidates and equal turnout in all states.

[Proteus_MST]

This definitely is frightening

[BlackCat]

What if states wasn't represented or pariticpated i any voting to president or the two houses unless there was at least 60% participation of all potential voters ?

[Ben Kenobi]

I wonder ... what would be the lowest percentage of popular votes, that would still enable a candidate to become president (under the electoral college system)?

Lowest was Lincoln. Fewer than 40 percent of the total voting electorate.

His election is quite strange compared with any other election. You've had tight elections (Tilden, etc). You've had big third parties (Clinton I, Wilson), that were watershed elections from vote splitting.

Lincoln only got 40 percent, but it wasn't even close or competitive.

[Ben Kenobi]

Lincoln won outright popular vote majorities in:

Wisconsin, Vermont, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maine, Iowa, Illinois, Connecticut.

For 169 EVs, sufficient for outright victory.

[Ben Kenobi]

Clinton in 1992 won just one PV majority, Arkansas.

[Ben Kenobi]

Wilson was more akin to Lincoln's election - winning PV majorities in South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee.

Roosevelt won outright majorities in South Dakota.

Taft has perhaps the worst showing of a major party nominee, topping out at 37 percent.

[Ben Kenobi]

For all the jokes about Hayes/Tilden, Hayes won 20 outright state majorities.

Obama won 26 outright majorities in 2008. Hillary just 11. Trump won 23.

[Aeson]

True

I wonder ... what would be the lowest percentage of popular votes, that would still enable a candidate to become president (under the electoral college system)?

You could do it with exactly 0 votes in the popular vote, if one of the electors were to vote for you. Then all you would need is for 2 other candidates to split the other electors, no one gets 270, and congress chooses between the top 3 (by electoral votes) candidates. You'd be in the top 3, and so they could choose you.

Electors can vote for whoever they want. Originally voters cast their votes for electors, and then the electors decided who they would vote for independently. This was the design of the EC because the framers thought the average person was not informed enough to know who to vote for. This original intent was quickly discarded once parties came into being.

[giblets]

Ben is talking to himself

[kentonio]

Ben is talking to himself

In some alternate reality where everyone is sitting around making jokes about Hayes/Tilden apparently.

[Proteus_MST]

You could do it with exactly 0 votes in the popular vote, if one of the electors were to vote for you. Then all you would need is for 2 other candidates to split the other electors, no one gets 270, and congress chooses between the top 3 (by electoral votes) candidates. You'd be in the top 3, and so they could choose you.

Electors can vote for whoever they want. Originally voters cast their votes for electors, and then the electors decided who they would vote for independently. This was the design of the EC because the framers thought the average person was not informed enough to know who to vote for. This original intent was quickly discarded once parties came into being.

Ah, so the electoral colleges in the beginning wouldn't just slavishly get "forced" to cast their vote for a president "selected" by the voting crowd, but rather would have the freedom to select the president according to their own conscience.

This makes sense ... this makes a lot of more sense than the system into which it has evolved now.

Actually it looks like the current system (with individuals campaigning for the office of president and the electorates being bound to cast their vote exactly along the majority vote of voters in their state) goes totally against the intention of the original voting system.

So, the original systems intention was that, because the crowd is too uninformed to select the president themselves, they should select an educated individual, which they thrust and who is better able to select a president (according to his own conscience and knowledge).
But now, with the current system, you actually have the situation that the founding fathers tried to prevent ... i.e. that the president actually is selected by the crowd and not by some better educated/informed individuals.

[Aeson]

Yah, it quickly devolved into what the framers didn't want. Parties each had their own electors, who were pledge to vote for the party's nominee for president. So voting for specific electors was essentially voting for a specific nominee.

[N35t0r]

I think the idea was for the electors to vote for whom they had pledged for, but it was not forced so that, in case of illness of the candidate or somesuch, they could change. They also totally missed the role parties would come to fill.

[giblets]

Donald Trump is mentally ill, pick someone else.