AHC:electoral college reform

samcster94

Banned
This topic might have been argued to death, but mine has an interesting twist. With any point in history from 1788 onward, there has to be a change to the EC. Any change is allowed as long except that it cannot be abolished. What is a good scenario that leads to people wanting to reform it, but not abolish it????
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Suppose Texas will only agree to join the USA if it stays in one peace. And later on, as a knock-on effect, California (meaning the entire frickin' Mexican cession) successfully demands the same, because - inspired by ATL Texas - the Californian revolutionaries play a much bigger role in securing its independence from Mexico. Now you've got a USA that includes two vast states, that will eventually have unbearably disproportionate populations. Every Presidential election will be decided by those two states. Reform will be inevitable then. You can easily make it so that this reform takes the nature of "a maximum number of electors per state" or something like that, rather than abolishing the college altogether.
 
Suppose Texas will only agree to join the USA if it stays in one peace. And later on, as a knock-on effect, California (meaning the entire frickin' Mexican cession) successfully demands the same...

Impossible. No one is his right mind would consider trying to organize a state that big. This was 1850, and the fastest form of transportation (barring a few early railroads) was a man on horseback.

Some time ago, I saw a map of New Mexico Territory, showing the initial division (1851) into counties. One of these counties extended from the Colorado River in the west to the Texas border in the east. The associated notes commented on this: "Imagine being the sheriff of that county. Or worse yet, his horse."

That megastate would have comparable difficulties.

In any case, the historicla process suggested doesn't work because the Mexican Cession was ceded by Mexico to the United States, whereas Texas was an independent state which joined the US by its own action.
 
There were numerous proposals in the early nineteenth century to "reform" the Electoral College by requiring that electors be chosen by district. The late David Currie (of the University of Chicago Law School) had a discussion of them in "Choosing the Pilot: Proposed Amendments to the Presidential Selection Process, 1809-29. " http://web.archive.org/web/20050128145110/http://greenbag.org/Currie Reprint.pdf

"The districting proposal was renewed almost annually throughout the period of this study.16 Repeatedly approved by the Senate,17 it lost regularly in the House.18 For it was in the House that the larger states had power commensurate with their population; and districting was widely regarded as reducing their power by forbidding them to pool their votes.19"
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Impossible. No one is his right mind would consider trying to organize a state that big. This was 1850, and the fastest form of transportation (barring a few early railroads) was a man on horseback.


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...or, gto get into it a little more: are you aware that Texas did in fact exist, that the whole USA did in fact exist and was considerably larger, that several countries much larger than Texas existed, and that decentralisation isn't somehow a violation of the laws of nature? If you can cut a state up into multiple states and territories and run it successfully, you can also run it as one big state if you just decentralise internal governance. Done. End of story.


In any case, the historicla process suggested doesn't work because the Mexican Cession was ceded by Mexico to the United States, whereas Texas was an independent state which joined the US by its own action.

You should maybe read a bit closer before dismissing things:

And later on, as a knock-on effect, California (meaning the entire frickin' Mexican cession) successfully demands the same, because - inspired by ATL Texas - the Californian revolutionaries play a much bigger role in securing its independence from Mexico.

We are speaking of an ATL where things play out differently, and I mentioned that explictly.


Now, I have not yet seen you offer a suggestion, so how about you just come up with a better scenario? Calling everything you personally cannot imagine "impossible" is not exactly an impressive contribution. If you come up with a cool alternative scenario to meet the OP's needs, I'll happly applaud it.
 
Impossible. No one is his right mind would consider trying to organize a state that big. This was 1850, and the fastest form of transportation (barring a few early railroads) was a man on horseback.

It only needs to be smaller administratively. So the governor can make 7 districts that get run by people appointed by him. Tax is same statewide and he just doles out money to the wards. And they run their fiefdoms like normal govenors run sates.
 
Andrew Jackson supported abolishing the electoral college entirely in the 1830's. Perhaps he is convinced to push for this in retribution for having the election "stolen" from him in 1824. Better yet, the POD could involve Jackson being convinced to push for electoral reform instead of Indian Removal in his first term.
 
There were numerous proposals in the early nineteenth century to "reform" the Electoral College by requiring that electors be chosen by district. The late David Currie (of the University of Chicago Law School) had a discussion of them in "Choosing the Pilot: Proposed Amendments to the Presidential Selection Process, 1809-29. " http://web.archive.org/web/20050128145110/http://greenbag.org/Currie Reprint.pdf

"The districting proposal was renewed almost annually throughout the period of this study.16 Repeatedly approved by the Senate,17 it lost regularly in the House.18 For it was in the House that the larger states had power commensurate with their population; and districting was widely regarded as reducing their power by forbidding them to pool their votes.19"

The closest it came to passage was 98-54 in 1820. Iirc just two states, PA and VA, provided half the nays, a choice which made reasonable sense for the Pennsylvanians but was perhaps short-sighted for the Virginians, and for any fellow-Southerners who voted with them, given how the general ticket system worked against the South in 1860 et seq.



Andrew Jackson supported abolishing the electoral college entirely in the 1830's. Perhaps he is convinced to push for this in retribution for having the election "stolen" from him in 1824. Better yet, the POD could involve Jackson being convinced to push for electoral reform instead of Indian Removal in his first term.

He'd have had a lot of trouble getting the South to ratify that, since they could no longer count three-fifths of their slaves toward Electoral College votes. The best he could get would perhaps be a proportional division of each State's electoral vote.
 
I just can't see this happening.
The idea of capping large states' votes could easily get a majority in the Senate (lots of small states), but could it get a supermajority even there? And no way would the delegates of large states vote for it in the House, so no conceivable way does it get a supermajority there.
As for 'vote by district', there'd be less opposition, but also less of a push. With the required supermajorities, people have to REALLY want something to get a constitutional amendment passed.

Constitutional amendments are for major change, not tweeks.
 
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