Posted on 01/26/2011 5:09:06 AM PST by MichaelNewton
Many today want to get rid of the electoral college method of choosing our president. For example, there is a book called Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America. It has quite a lot of good information in it, though the author draws the wrong conclusion. Or search Google for “electoral college failure” and browse through some of the 333,000 results. Attacks on the electoral college system accelerated after the 2000 election in which Al Gore won more popular votes but George Bush won the electoral college. The Founding Fathers considered, debated, and voted on different methods of choosing a president during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 before choosing the one they thought best.
Deciding how to select or elect the president was one of the most difficult decisions the Founding Fathers had to make during the Convention. They held at least sixteen votes on this one issue...
(Excerpt) Read more at whatwouldthefoundersthink.com ...
You honestly think the difference between less than 1% and even less than 1% makes a difference? It doesn’t. It’s a rounding error.
Weighted in favor and a drop-dead runaway are two different things. I believe that the difference is significant. You seem to diminish the significance to nothing.
If there is no significance, then why bother changing it? Why does it bother you?
What is your true agenda in calling for its abolition?
Based on my response to your nonsensical post #4, that response is even more nonsensical.
So, do you still think this
I don't think it makes a difference either way.
about the Electoral College?
And
The electoral college was phony Federalism from the start. I've never read a single article that makes a case for how the end result differs from direct election.
Can't say I blame you for wanting to pretend you never made those statements.
That's all true, but it's a lot of semantics. The people didn't vote on the Constitution. Delegates to state conventions voted on it. In other words, the politicians of the day voted on it.
You are correct to point out the "We the People". It's an important distinction. The Constitution consolidated the states into one republic. The states lost their sovereignty when the Constitution was ratified. What powers they retained they did so only at the pleasure of the national system.
What are you babbling about? What statement am I pretending I didn’t make?
I don't care if it gets changed or not. I would probably lean towards getting rid of it, just so the phony facade would be gone and the reality of our system would be made more obvious.
What is your true agenda in calling for its abolition?
I didn't and don't call for its abolition. I'm merely pointing out that it's totally irrelevant. I make similar arguments regarding the 17th amendment. Some people seem to think that change mattered, when in reality it didn't. It was phony federalism from the start.
Lol, why not elaborate on your #4. Perhaps you have more enlightenment to offer on the subject of the Electoral College.
Talk about babble. Lol.
What is there to elaborate on? I think it’s pretty clearly written.
OK, gotcha. I misunderstood. :0)
You don't know when to quit.
But how do you assess the Algore administration's performance after their victory in the 2000 presidential race?
And totally out of touch with reality.
You seem to be upset that the people of WY, one in 600 Americans, have little power. What degree of power do you think 1/600th of the people should have in our system? 1%? 5%? 10%?
Every time you give more power to this tiny minority, you take it away from larger groups. How do you justify doing so?
>>>Using just a raw, direct election means that the biggest population centers get to dictate who the POTUS is. In modern America, that means that the coastal, liberal, urban voters would get their marxist choice every time and the other 47 or so states would mean nothing.<<<
While I support the Electoral College system, what you wrote is simply not true. There have only been 3 elections where the winner of the popular vote did not also win the EC vote. The population of the rest of the country is sufficient to compete with and ofter overcome the population of the large cities.
In 2000 Bush won despite losing the popular vote by a large margin. However, in 2004 Kerry could have taken the EV, with 100K more votes in Ohio, despite losing the popular vote by about 3 million. The point is the EC sometimes helps the GOP and sometimes hurts it.
IMHO, the best thing about the EC today is that it serves to blunt the effect of voter fraud. For example, in a popular vote system, if Liberals in New York or Califorina (or even just in NYC and LA) committed massive voter fraud, stealing millions of votes for the Democrats, that fraud alone could steal the national election. The EC would limit the fraudsters to stealing the EVs of those states (and it is likely that a state where one party had the power to commit such a massive fraud would probably be won by that party in a honest election anyway).
Perhaps the worst thing about it, is that it creates solid “red” and “blue” states that largely get taken for granted and ignored in Presidential elections and swing states that get too much attention (and perhaps too much influence).
The Federalist Papers did an exceptional job of doing just that.
I happen to like Nebraska & Maine's apportionment, but I doubt if any states will convert to it.
However, you may get your wish.
states have signed up to be part of a compact, that will give their electoral votes to the popular vote winner, regardless of how the state actually voted.
Can't wait for the states in the compact to light that candle and watch it go in a hot hurry to SCOTUS.
If what you say is true then I must admit that I did not know this. But this strikes me as the exceptions proving the rule. I must also admit that I must have more information before I can comment more on this, but using GWB as an example, and remembering how many states voted for GWB and how few voted for Algore, it seems to me that the Electoral College did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do, right?
It is only in the extreme circumstances that the protections of the EC are needed and, although I need to do more thinking about this, I think there is evidence that this is proof of that.
You make interesting points about voter fraud, which is a huge and growing problem. I think you may be right about that.
“The subject of the Electoral College and it’s role in preserving the framework of the Republic is a good and suitable subject for discussion, particularly on this forum.
Why then, do you deny us the chance to read your thoughts in their entirety? Would it not be fitting to post your entire essay here?”
I wrote this piece for a blog/site that is not my own. I do not know their rules on copying stuff from their site, so I thought it better to only include an excerpt. I did the same on the own blog.
Meant to write that Bush won in 2000 despite losing the popular vote by a SMALL (not large) margin. It was only 500,000 votes.
No they don’t. They justify the present system. You are talking, I assume, about changing the present system to give greater power to the smaller states.
How do you justify that? For instance, giving the .5M citizens of WY the same power in the government as the 37M of CA. Why does a WY citizen deserve 75x the power of someone in CA?
Other than the fact I’m a lot more likely to agree with the guys from WY.
Your points about electoral fraud are excellent.
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