Electoral College

[Tristicus]

So, I've had this on my mind for a while, and figured it'd be worth hearing other people's views on it. The Electoral College was setup because "people" weren't "smart enough" (at that time) to vote for the right people more or less, as I understand it. Since then, with all the ways we have to hear about candidates and select them, with all the resources we have at our disposal, can we not choose anymore?

To me, the electoral college kind of undermines the people. The people are supposed to vote for the president directly, yet through this system, we can have another president win that does not get the popular vote. Why should that even be possible?

 

[dullard]

People still aren't smart enough to vote for the right people. That, and the way campaigns are run, you'll never hear a straight answer, and thus you CAN'T know if you are voting for the right person no matter how smart you are.

The Electoral College is also set up in an attempt to give more power to small states. But as it is, that part fails miserably. Small states have zero power at the moment. Even some big states have zero power. Only swing states have the power. Politicians flat out ignore states that are solidly in their bag or their opponents bag. If we want to give more power to the small states (an idea that has reasonable arguments for AND against), then we need to make the Electoral College even more biased for the small states. Instead, I propose we eliminate it as it has failed in its current state.

 

[Tristicus]

And to give power to the smaller states, yeah, I forgot that obvious part.

The fact is, people CAN be smart enough to vote for the "right" people. The problem is, even with everything out there, people just don't examine the facts and stuff, or get their information from one specific place and are only swayed by the opinion of the people there. People don't think for themselves is basically the sum, but we have (and always have had) the ability to.

 

[CycloWizard]

The electoral college is why I wrote that my household has eleventy billion members on my census form. Missouri is getting lots of electoral votes this time around.

 

[Anarchist420]

I support the Electoral College, because it was the original intent and because democracy usually sucks, although most of the time the Electoral college has ruled against the candidate I like, except for Bush v. Gore (Jackson the first time he ran, Tilden, Cleveland the 2nd time he ran). I don't like Bush, but I think Gore would've handled 9/11 even more aggressively.

Honestly, I wish the state legislatures voted for electors like they did in the earliest days of the nation. I favor an Amendment making it so the House of Representatives are the only Federal office popularly voted on.

All it would've taken for Lincoln to have lost the election was for the state legislatures to have voted for electors in just NY or IL. He would've lost NY and IL that way, and then Breckenridge would've become president and then the Counter-Revolution would never have happened.

 

[Danube]

The electoral college was brilliant idea. It's no different then something like weighting in statistics. There was a fear larger states with a shared block of interests would get more influence than smaller ones with different concerns. Certainly big coastal states like New York and California have more of an economy that supports bigger unions and political machines that coerce conformity. Smaller, rural, landlocked states would be consumed by a mob dynamic without some weighting of the system. As it is a candidate could win with just a few states even with the college in place.

 

[blackangst1]

I have mixed feelings about the electoral college; however, it fits with a representative republic system.

 

[cubby1223]

If we had to repeat the recount of the 2000 election in Florida, on a nationwide scale...

all hell would have broken loose! There are some additional benefits to the electoral college in there.

 

[Throckmorton]

We need to switch to 1 vote = 1 vote. Any system that gives one person's vote more weight than other's is inherently unfair and anti-democratic.

 

[TheBDB]

People still aren't smart enough to vote for the right people. That, and the way campaigns are run, you'll never hear a straight answer, and thus you CAN'T know if you are voting for the right person no matter how smart you are.

The Electoral College is also set up in an attempt to give more power to small states. But as it is, that part fails miserably. Small states have zero power at the moment. Even some big states have zero power. Only swing states have the power. Politicians flat out ignore states that are solidly in their bag or their opponents bag. If we want to give more power to the small states (an idea that has reasonable arguments for AND against), then we need to make the Electoral College even more biased for the small states. Instead, I propose we eliminate it as it has failed in its current state.

This is the most important part to me. If there was a popular vote, candidates would have an incentive to campaign everywhere and be as mainstream as possible, because anyone is a potential vote.

 

[blackangst1]

We need to switch to 1 vote = 1 vote. Any system that gives one person's vote more weight than other's is inherently unfair and anti-democratic.

Protip: the USA isnt a democracy

 

[blackangst1]

This is the most important part to me. If there was a popular vote, candidates would have an incentive to campaign everywhere and be as mainstream as possible, because anyone is a potential vote.

Or the other way (probably the realistic way) to look at it is, why bother campaigning where there is 500,000 people when I could be slingin' slogans in a city of 2 million?

 

[TheBDB]

Or the other way (probably the realistic way) to look at it is, why bother campaigning where there is 500,000 people when I could be slingin' slogans in a city of 2 million?

Absolutely right. And because those 2 million people are 4x as many as the 500,000, they should have 4x as much say in who is President.

 

[Anarchist420]

The electoral college gives an advantage to minority demographic groups, which is interesting to note.

 

[theevilsharpie]

The electoral college may have been appropriate in the early days of the country where tabulating votes taken across the country was logistically impossible, but all it does today is give an extremely disproportional amount of political power to states with an evenly divided electorate, while forcing presidential candidates to make promises to regional populations they can't possibly keep.

The vast majority of the country's population would be better off with 1 person = 1 vote.

Protip: the USA isnt a democracy

It most certainly is.

 

[theevilsharpie]

The electoral college gives an advantage to minority demographic groups, which is interesting to note.

[citation needed]

 

[piasabird]

The electoral college protects State's Rights. It does not however protect the right of the voting precinct or the right of the individual.

 

[theevilsharpie]

The electoral college protects State's Rights. It does not however protect the right of the voting precinct or the right of the individual.

Say what?

 

[Matthiasa]

It most certainly is.

It most certainly isn't... last I checked it was a republic.

 

[theevilsharpie]

It most certainly isn't... last I checked it was a republic.

A republic just means we don't have a monarch ruling the country. Most nations in the world today fit that description, but not all are democracies.

 

[Deeko]

It most certainly is.

It most certainly is NOT. We are a Republic. Did you forget that part of the pledge?

Anyway, I didn't support the electoral college when I was younger, now I do. Like it or not, we are not one giant amorphous blob of people - we are a collection of individual states. The electoral college ensures that big states don't completely outweigh the small states, as it should be.

What's wrong with our system isn't the electoral college, its that the majority of states vote the same way every time, causing a few states like PA, Ohio, and Florida to matter so much more than everywhere else.

 

[Matthiasa]

A republic just means we don't have a monarch ruling the country. Most nations in the world today fit that description, but not all are democracies.

So you're saying dictatorships or other totalitarian states are republics now... I never knew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

 

[nonlnear]

It most certainly is.

It is fast becoming one... and it is terrifying.

 

[theevilsharpie]

So you're saying dictatorships or other totalitarian states are republics now... I never knew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

From your link:

A distinct set of definitions for the word republic evolved in the United States. In common parlance a republic is a state that does not practice direct democracy but rather has a government indirectly controlled by the people. In the rest of the world this is known as representative democracy.

 

[kohler]

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. Candidates would need to care about voters across the nation, not just undecided voters in a handful of swing states.

The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes--that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

The Constitution gives every state the power to allocate its electoral votes for president, as well as to change state law on how those votes are awarded.

The bill is currently endorsed by over 1,707 state legislators (in 48 states) who have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support for a national popular vote is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed in recent polls in closely divided battleground states: Colorado-- 68%, Iowa --75%, Michigan-- 73%, Missouri-- 70%, New Hampshire-- 69%, Nevada-- 72%, New Mexico-- 76%, North Carolina-- 74%, Ohio-- 70%, Pennsylvania -- 78%, Virginia -- 74%, and Wisconsin -- 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska – 70%, DC – 76%, Delaware --75%, Maine -- 77%, Nebraska -- 74%, New Hampshire --69%, Nevada -- 72%, New Mexico -- 76%, Rhode Island -- 74%, and Vermont -- 75%; in Southern and border states: Arkansas --80%, Kentucky -- 80%, Mississippi --77%, Missouri -- 70%, North Carolina -- 74%, and Virginia -- 74%; and in other states polled: California -- 70%, Connecticut -- 74% , Massachusetts -- 73%, Minnesota – 75%, New York -- 79%, Washington -- 77%, and West Virginia- 81%.

The National Popular Vote bill has passed 29 state legislative chambers, in 19 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon, and both houses in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington. These five states possess 61 electoral votes -- 23% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.

See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com