Posted on 08/28/2004 11:34:36 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
When Republican delegates nominate their presidential candidate this week, they will be doing it in a city where residents who support George Bush have, for all practical purposes, already been disenfranchised. Barring a tsunami of a sweep, heavily Democratic New York will send its electoral votes to John Kerry and both parties have already written New York off as a surefire blue state. The Electoral College makes Republicans in New York, and Democrats in Utah, superfluous. It also makes members of the majority party in those states feel less than crucial. It's hard to tell New York City children that every vote is equally important - it's winner take all here, and whether Senator Kerry beats the president by one New York vote or one million, he will still walk away with all 31 of the state's electoral votes.
The Electoral College got a brief spate of attention in 2000, when George Bush became president even though he lost the popular vote to Al Gore by more than 500,000 votes. Many people realized then for the first time that we have a system in which the president is chosen not by the voters themselves, but by 538 electors. It's a ridiculous setup, which thwarts the will of the majority, distorts presidential campaigning and has the potential to produce a true constitutional crisis. There should be a bipartisan movement for direct election of the president.
The main problem with the Electoral College is that it builds into every election the possibility, which has been a reality three times since the Civil War, that the president will be a candidate who lost the popular vote. This shocks people in other nations who have been taught to look upon the United States as the world's oldest democracy. The Electoral College also heavily favors small states. The fact that every one gets three automatic electors - one for each senator and a House member - means states that by population might be entitled to only one or two electoral votes wind up with three, four or five.
The majority does not rule and every vote is not equal - those are reasons enough for scrapping the system. But there are other consequences as well. This election has been making clear how the Electoral College distorts presidential campaigns. A few swing states take on oversized importance, leading the candidates to focus their attention, money and promises on a small slice of the electorate. We are hearing far more this year about the issue of storing hazardous waste at Yucca Mountain, an important one for Nevada's 2.2 million residents, than about securing ports against terrorism, a vital concern for 19.2 million New Yorkers. The political concerns of Cuban-Americans, who are concentrated in the swing state of Florida, are of enormous interest to the candidates. The interests of people from Puerto Rico scarcely come up at all, since they are mainly settled in areas already conceded as Kerry territory. The emphasis on swing states removes the incentive for a large part of the population to follow the campaign, or even to vote.
Those are the problems we have already experienced. The arcane rules governing the Electoral College have the potential to create havoc if things go wrong. Electors are not required to vote for the candidates they are pledged to, and if the vote is close in the Electoral College, a losing candidate might well be able to persuade a small number of electors to switch sides. Because there are an even number of electors - one for every senator and House member of the states, and three for the District of Columbia - the Electoral College vote can end in a tie. There are several plausible situations in which a 269-269 tie could occur this year. In the case of a tie, the election goes to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation gets one vote - one for Wyoming's 500,000 residents and one for California's 35.5 million.
The Electoral College's supporters argue that it plays an important role in balancing relations among the states, and protecting the interests of small states. A few years ago, this page was moved by these concerns to support the Electoral College. But we were wrong. The small states are already significantly overrepresented in the Senate, which more than looks out for their interests. And there is no interest higher than making every vote count.
Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/makingvotescount.
The events of September 11, 2001 are seared in my memory. On that day, feeling the attack on all that I love, I began to study WHAT IT IS which I cherish so much. I began reading the lives of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers,... to Rusell Kirk... to Hayek, and lots more. Naievely, I believed this would be a time of Americans deepening their understanding of the American genius. The NYT etc. in their pure ignorance have no desire to understand the reasons America is the exception in the world and in history. But (naievely again) I believe the debate over the Electoral College system can educate us in the core American principles, and how it differs from inferior models such as the EU, France, the Ottomans, etc.
That will teach me to repeat things that I have heard before checking out the validity of the statement.
My brother made this comment to me some time ago and I never checked it out.
Now I'm going to have to kill him :)
I retract my statement and thank you for pointing out the error.
See #202 with my apologies.
This must be due to the pathetic results of a federally funded education system run by self-interested NEA Union twits.
It's a ridiculous setup, which thwarts the will of the majority,...
That is the purpose of it.
... and has the potential to produce a true constitutional crisis.
To a liberal finding a smear of Rum Raisin on their Chunky Monkey ice cream cone is a Constitutional crisis.
There should be a bipartisan movement for direct election of the president.
If we are going to talk in terms of an ideal world; there should be a unilateral push to drive all liberals into the nearest ocean. It's an imperfect world. Live with it.
The main problem with the Electoral College is that it builds into every election the possibility, which has been a reality three times since the Civil War, that the president will be a candidate who lost the popular vote.
None of which produced a Constuhtoooshunuhl crisis and somehow we remained a nation preeminent in nearly every way.
This shocks people in other nations who have been taught to look upon the United States as the world's oldest democracy.
Is the NEA exporting its debauched view of America or have these turd-world backwaters come to their own misinformed conclusions? We have never been a democracy.
Ask any graduate of the public school system what a republic is. You won't find out what a republic is but if you've ever wondered what a heroin addict looks like the moment they get a fix you'll have it. The addict will sober up in a few hours.
The fact that every one gets three automatic electors - one for each senator and a House member - means states that by population might be entitled to only one or two electoral votes wind up with three, four or five.
Does this statement make any sense whatsoever? I suppose it does to the heroin addict thus the attempt to anesthetize us with the previous paragraphs of BS.
A few swing states take on oversized importance, leading the candidates to focus their attention, money and promises on a small slice of the electorate. We are hearing far more this year about the issue of storing hazardous waste at Yucca Mountain, an important one for Nevada's 2.2 million residents, than about securing ports against terrorism, a vital concern for 19.2 million New Yorkers.
IOWs "we live next to ports in NYC that might be bombed so who gives a rats heiny about nuclear waste next door to some Nevada hicks over 2,000 miles away?" The obvious fact that a national security issue effects everyone and will be of interest to everyone and will have to be addressed by whomever takes office and the state issue won't is ignored. They also fail to reveal (as is the sworn duty of all liberal propagandists) that federal incursion on property rights is probably a bigger issue for most Nevadans than storing sealed canisters of nuclear waste several miles below ground in rock that hasn't budged since it was laid down in the dawn times.
The small states are already significantly overrepresented in the Senate, which more than looks out for their interests.
Every state has no more and no less than two Senators so it defies the most tortured logic to state that any state is 'over represented.' The 17th Amendment has created a situation whereby a Senator's main avenue of attention to his/her state's interests is by funneling pork to it which must be siphoned from some other state or states and ultimately all the taxpayers. Popularly elected Senators vs legislatively appointed Senators have little accountability to the state proper whose interests the Senate was originally instituted to represent. The 'people' have their Congressmen/women to represent them thus the apportionment by population thus the check and balance of the original intent.
The interests of people from Puerto Rico scarcely come up at all, since they are mainly settled in areas already conceded as Kerry territory. The emphasis on swing states removes the incentive for a large part of the population to follow the campaign, or even to vote.
I guess we can chalk that up to the downside of liberty. We all have the freedom to be stupid. To swallow swill like this article and to act like sheep to the slaughter giving in to a destiny preordained by some self-appointed authority who claims to know more than our Founding Fathers and more about what our Founders instituted than they did and has your best interests at heart more than the Founders did who risked life, family and fortune to themselves live under their ill-conceived system.
We are free to believe that the system of self-governance, checked and balanced powers and individual liberties was rigged against us from the start and continue to vote for those who promise higher taxes, more regulations and less responsibilities while delivering hobbled industries, a dependent poverty class and a burgeoning bureaucratic class of 'wise masters' who are not masters of anything but the subservient classes they depend upon.
We are free to believe their proclamations that we are meaningless and just give in entirely not making the effort to think or vote. It is the last freedom. The freedom to submit to slavery voluntarily. You are free to vote for liberalism, socialism and communism. You are free to vote the destruction of our REPUBLIC. And you are free to sit their and diddle yourself while you watch it all happen. Enjoy! After your last freedom is spent there will be work stations and gulags. There will be equality aplenty. No exceptions for race, gender, age, infirmity or any other distinction. 5% of you will be lucky enough to get to kiss enough butts to be a Kissed Butt.
I'd rather see a system where a candidate would be awarded 1 electoral vote for each Congressional district carries, with the 2 votes representing the Senate going as "at-large" votes to the overall winner of that particular state.
I´m wondering why there´s no federal law regulating the voting procedure - after all, the office of the President is federal. As much as I respect federalism, you need to bring in modern times and a common standard for the election of the US President if you want to be taken serious by the world - and more important, by yourself.
Voter fraud may be the reason why the election in November will be decided by the judges, and this is so irresponsible for your nation. The world laughs at the US, that there´s no universal procedure.
Let me get this straight:
Y´all see that there´s a necessity to change the rules.
Some have already started by requesting the driver´s license - but have realized that the driver´s license is no sufficient document for voter registration. Sorry pals, you do lots of great things - but organizing a good nation-wide election is none of your skills, is it?
You rather have voter fraud than a national ID (or even less: citizen registration)... *shake my head*
Thanks for caring about the EU, but the EU is no sovereign country, it´s a supranational authority - unlike in the US, our member states are still sovereign, and will be as long as I live. In fact, this is about the EC and not the EU...
Best of luck for November.
Or another possibility: let the Electorates of each state split their votes. E.g. CA has 50 delegates, and 60% of the people vote for the Dems and 40% vote for the Reps. Then 30 Electorates may vote for the Democratic candiate, and 20 delegates may vote for the Republican candidate. This would be more fair for the 40% Republican voters in CA - or for the Democratic voters in TX, etc...
The Electoral College caused our guy to lose last time and we don't want that to happen again. Abolish the Electoral College. It just makes sense to us.
But the US started out as separate soverign states. It was not till the Civil War that the federal government started to assume strong centralizing power.
Why would it be in the interest of states to split their votes proportionally if other states don't? The only way such a thing could happen is if a constitutional amendment forced it on all the states.
LOL
I support the Electoral College, which was instituted for the same reasons that each state has two Senators. If we abolish the Electoral College, Presidential candidates will attempt to appeal only to the interests of people in largely populated states. You will see more roads, bridges, schools, and other pork in places like California and New York, with a greater share of the expenses being borne by people in places like Wyoming and North Dakota than you see even now. This isn't right. The Electoral College is an attempt to restore at least some of the balance, although even under the Electoral College the bigger states get more of the pork.
Besides, even for people concerned about someone winning the Presidency without winning the popular vote, it has happened only rarely in our history, and in each case the popular vote was very close anyway. So, I'm having trouble even identifying the problem that abolishing the Electoral College is supposed to solve.
Last but not least, it seems to be a political reality that areas with concentrated populations tend to be more socialist and pacifist (i.e. blue) than areas that are less densely populated (i.e. red). As someone who is opposed to both, I don't want to support a proposal that will make it slightly easier for the socialists and pacifists to win Presidential elections.
You start apropriating electoral votes by percentages and you'll confuse hell out of the government school graduates in Arkansas and West Virginia. Nope, appropriation by district will be easier and cause less confusion. Besides, the district where I live has had a democrat congresscritter since, I believe, shortly after Reconstruction (if fact, it's algore's old district) and President Bush carried us about 60%-40% in 2000.
I wouldn't oppose scrapping the Electoral College if it were part of a package of reforms that included 1) national propositions and referenda, 2) legislative and popular review of judicial decisions and 3) term limits.
It won't happen. The small states that benefit from the Electoral College will never vote to abolish it.
There are some laws, but for the most part it is a state issue. The DemocRATS would filibuster in the Senate agains any meaningful regulation to eliminate fraud. Republicans were divided on the "motor voter" law so it was impossible to filibuster against it. That law was basically intended to make vote fraud easier all over the US. Clinton also used the INS a tool for his reelection in 1996. He coerced the INS to conduct as many naturalization ceremonies as possible prior to that election to get as many immigrants as possible the opportunity to vote for Clinton. Of couse the INS skipped the background checks that are normally required to prevent alien convicted from becoming citizens, while ignoring the other requirements like scores on tests and the ability to understand English. Every one of the swearing in ceremonies had voter registration booths set up so that people who should never have ever been allowed into the US would get registered to vote. I must also add that a disproportional number of theses immigrants were concentrated in the ten largest states.
In a way, such a method would make the Presidental race overly populist.
Whereas candidates now focus on a handful of "battleground" states and said states issues in play;
EV by cong dist would mean that each cong dist is worth the same so populist themes would go farther - esp. in urban districts that have only 40,000 voters
that's my $0.02
Michael, another one of your rather silly suggestions?
First, educate yourself on what is neccessary to amend the constitution in this country, it isn't just rules.
We are a republic, not a democracy. By the way, Germany is as well.
Pure Democracy is the same as anarchy.
Our system is working extremely well, has for more than 2 centuries and allows the greatest amount of fairness.
At least in this country we vote for people, rather than party. We elect more of our politicians than you do.
The laughing dtock of the rest of the world? Give me a break. I know that anything the Germans propose is superior and you regard America as a third world country. The old Master race philosphy is showing through? Sarcasm off.
Our fouinding fathers knew how to build a republic the right way and I support it.
The EU as well as Germany have laws that any normal person can only shake their head at. After the motto: If you can make something difficult, why bother with simplicity?
Yor future political environment is going to be shaped by the "Banana and Apples" law of the EU. Just like their current attempt at suppressing freedom of the press. Your Government has yet to make a protest against that.
I hope we will never become like the Europeans who are the debating world champions. Look at Sudan, all of Europe is debating while thousands of people are murdered each day. All talk, no action.
To borrow a phrase from your Fuehrer Schroeder: I hope we will never have (American Verhaeltnisse) European situations in this country.
Yep, and were it not for that pesky electoral college, the fix would have handed the election to Al Gore, plan A would still be in place, and puppetmaster Hillary would still be working all the strings.
I odn't know about you, but I worry more about the Hillary that I can't see than the one I can, painful as it is to look at her.
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