Abolish the Electoral College

NY Times ^ | August 29, 2004

[Bonaparte]

Thankyou for these terrific posts, PC! I heartily agree that "Math Against Tyranny" deserves its own thread!

[Double Tap]

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.

When you start out with a false premise, every thing else that follows is just crap.

[Michael81Dus]

So it´s all getting worse since the early ´90s?? Better get rid of this crap soon. ;-)

[Michael81Dus]

However, it would help to prevent that popular vote and majority of the Electorate College go to different candidates.

[Melas]

We are a republic, not a democracy. By the way, Germany is as well.

So is China, although a communist Republic. Rome the original Republic, was a Patrician Republic. Republic by itself is a pretty meaningless term. I could probably name a dozen different forms of republican government in under a minute. We are a: Constitutionally Federated Democratic Republic. To say we're a democracy is just as accurate (or inaccurate) as saying we're a republic. Our democracy is built upon a Republican foundation, and our Republic is built upon the democratic process. Both are integral to our system of government.

Pure Democracy is the same as anarchy.

In a word, no. Pure democracy is certainly a form of government to be avoided, but it has absolutely no functional, procedural or structural similarities with anarchy.

Our system is working extremely well, has for more than 2 centuries and allows the greatest amount of fairness.

Agreed. Flawed as it may be, our system is the best I've ever seen.

[Melas]

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.

Then I have a solution for you. Move to Nebraska where that's practiced.

[Melas]

Not every state. Just 38 of them.

[Sofa King]

One thing that needs to be understood is that we live in a republic, not a democracy. The rights of all people need to be considered, not just rights of the majority. The Electorial college is aimed towards preventing the larger states from abusing the smaller ones.

[rock58seg]

Thank you and Paleo Conservative both. It's from an E-mail I sent to some NYC friends, when the NYC council voted not to support the Patriots Act, or something similar stupidity.

BUSH AND ANYBODY IN 2004

[sweetliberty]

"Wisconsin has two senators and neither of them represent our state's interests. I don't know what they do."

Same in Arkansas. The only thing they support is the corrupt communist/socialist RAT agenda. And the really bad part is that we have an excellent conservative Republican candidate for the US Senate who won the Republican primary with nearly 70% of the vote (few thought he'd even make much of a showing), but he doesn't have the millions to compete with Blanche Lincoln and the national Republican party, to my knowledge, hasn't lifted a finger to do anything to support him. They've pretty much determined that he isn't worth their time. Instead, Republican party money donated in Arkansas gets siphoned off to fund races outside of Arkansas and RAT corruption here remains in tact. It's enough to make you puke.

[sweetliberty]

"Liberals always howl "Count Every Vote!" or "Every Vote Counts!" but they never seem to practice what they preach."

Translated from liberalese, it means "count every vote (real or imagined) cast by any voter, legitimate or illegitimate, that is cast (or that might have been cast) by or for a democRAT." Surely you didn't think it meant "count every Republican vote", did you?

[OK]

By the logic of the NYT we should have a world government with one person one vote. What would that be like?

[baseballfanjm]

I figured that if neither got a majority in a popular vote election, a runoff would ensue. That's just an assumption on my part though.

[MeekOneGOP]

Gotta love it !! :^D

[DannyTN]

The electoral college has worked for over 200 years. Don't mess with it.

It's not a change to the electoral college that is needed. What is needed, is that the people of this country need to understand how it works and why it was set up this way.

[whitedog57]

Typical Socialist position. Let the urban areas dominate the voting. If rural folk were Democrats, the Socialists would try to abolish the popular vote.

[rock58seg]

This whole thread reminds me of the saying:

"The United States has the worst form of government there is, except for all others."

BUSH AND ANYBODY IN 2004

[hosepipe]

Joseph Stalin once said: "It's not who votes, but who counts the votes",

[Paleo Conservative]

Ping!

Read this post #73.

[hosepipe]

[ We must have pure democracy! ]

America is NOT a democracy..

Democracy is the road to socialism. Karl Marx
Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. V.I. Lenin