thoughts on the electoral college system?

[oinco]

Please let me know if I am missing something....but I really cannot see any currently viable reason for maintaining the electoral college system. It made sense when vote counts took many days to get from the West back to the East....but since they invented/implemented that whole telegraph system we really should be able to do near real-time popular vote right?
I see reasons many generations ago, but now demographics of our population would seem to be able to unfairly influence EC votes in a manner opposite of the original spirit of the law? Or was the original spirit of the law less puritan than I think?

Yes, this may be more than slightly anti-CA. etc.

[Mtn.man]

I feel their usefulness has gone.

[BPTactical]

It wont go away.

It is the one thing that got Oboingo erected- oops- elected.

[RYAN50BMG]

It's the one thing that kept Al Gore OUT of office. Without the Electoral College, half a dozen states would decide who is president. With the EC, it forces candidates to get out to smaller(pop. wise) states that would'nt otherwise get two seconds.

[BPTactical]

It's the one thing that kept Al Gore OUT of office. Without the Electoral College, half a dozen states would decide who is president. With the EC, it forces candidates to get out to smaller(pop. wise) states that would'nt otherwise get two seconds.

point

[tonantius]

The electoral college system is genius. It prevents a few states from electing a president. It requires a candidate to be elected by a widespread part of the nation. It is the difference between democracy and a republic. We want a republic like early Rome, not a democracy like Venezuela.

[oinco]

Thanks all for your responses...I look forward to learning more.


From my under-informed point of view- didn't it seem like the "other" side gained momentum when the media(dem) made such a case for Gore in FL against Bush? If we did not have the EC, I would have guessed that there would have been less of a media-stirred prodding?
From a small soapbox, I would offer that maybe that toe hold may be the tipping point which helped the current regime into power? What other state could foul-play nepotism be used against the opposing party?

please forgive me if I have my facts goofy. I did not go the range today.

ryan50bmg....I hope that is truly how the EC works...but to me it seems that the opposite is true- swing states get to decide-
Red votes red Blue votes blue- campaigning goes on primarily in the swing states at calculated times to yield best results- to me that says that only the swing states are where the action is, ergo - not necessarily a popular vote?
Especially in a "two party" system. I think my reluctance would change if we had viable additional parties and fact seeking voters.

In a winner-take-all EC, CA and TX especially, do not potentially represent (factually) voters preference-Example: if say 51% of the vote goes one way....all the weight of those states "rounds" up to 100% instantly instead of carrying that 51% to the final tally alone.

so if 51% x 55 EC votes for CA were carried that would equal 28/55ths not 55/55ths?? so 27 EC votes don't matter now-and in fact their intention has been reversed?


If the EC was used as in Maine where it is NOT a winner-take-all vote and was majority rule-I could be more at ease with it currently.
So, if the proponents say the EC is to protect smaller states-to me that is entirely different than protecting an individuals right to a vote that matters?
What am I missing?

Respectfully

[Zundfolge]

One thing most people these days don't understand is that we were not designed to be a democracy ... in fact safeguards were put in place to PREVENT us becoming a democracy because our founding fathers realized that democracy is just a fancy word for mob rule.

There's an old saying; Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

We are a Constitutional Republic.

• The Electoral College.
• A bicameral legislature.
• Originally Senators were elected by state legislatures too (thus the two housed were designed where one represented the people, one the states ... thank the progressives for ending that one).
• A government comprised of 3 separate (and often competing) branches.
• A free and independent media.
• A civilian controlled military.
• Checks and balances on the power of the branches and those in them.
• A Constitution that IS supposed to be revered and treated as on par with The Word of God (regardless of whether idiots like Joy Bayharebrained think that makes us "constitutional fetishists")

These systems were put in place to PREVENT us from sliding down that slope to democracy and tyranny.

There is a good reason why the left wishes us to become more a democracy than a republic.


I'm left thinking of the words of some of our founders:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
-John Adams

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%.
-Thomas Jefferson

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.
-James Madison

And of course there's this:

Democracy is the road to socialism.
-Karl Marx

[sniper7]

The EC is silly when they could just ask me who should be elected

[tonantius]

In a winner-take-all EC, CA and TX especially, do not potentially represent (factually) voters preference-Example: if say 51% of the vote goes one way....all the weight of those states "rounds" up to 100% instantly instead of carrying that 51% to the final tally alone.

so if 51% x 55 EC votes for CA were carried that would equal 28/55ths not 55/55ths?? so 27 EC votes don't matter now-and in fact their intention has been reversed?


If the EC was used as in Maine where it is NOT a winner-take-all vote and was majority rule-I could be more at ease with it currently.
So, if the proponents say the EC is to protect smaller states-to me that is entirely different than protecting an individuals right to a vote that matters?
What am I missing?

The Constitution gives each state the right to determine the selection of its electors. Both Maine and Nebraska use a system where the electoral votes in a congressional district are given to the winner of that district. This is a ploy by democrats to erode republican electoral votes. The other ploy that democrats want is that all the electoral votes go to the candidate with the most popular vote. This will be repealed when a republican gets the popular vote and the democrat leaning state has to vote for a republican. I predict this will happen in 2012 if we still have a free election.

I have run models in a spreadsheet looking at the Maine methodology and compared to the winner-take-all method and the elections are usually the same outcome. However, when there is a 3rd party candidate, the winner does not get a clear victory and the election goes to the House of Representatives. The election of Clinton would not have happened using this Maine method. In both cases the Republican would have won.